Roberto Scaramuzzino
Biographic Data
| ID | 320081 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Roberto Scaramuzzino |
| GIVEN NAMES | Roberto |
| FAMILY NAME | Scaramuzzino |
| SIGNATURE | SCARAMUZZINO R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lund University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6072-6928 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Strategic framing used by civil society actors to renegotiate state authority. The case of migrant women with precarious legal status and their access to social protection in Sweden and Italy
Neoliberal welfare reforms and limited pathways to permanent residency have left migrant women, among other groups, with little or no access to public social protection, contributing to their precarious legal status. As a result, civil society actors (CSA) have become the main providers of support and deliver micro-level social protection beyond the boundaries of public authorities. At the same time, CSA's resources remain tied to collaborations …
Populist Governance in Sweden and Its Impact on State‐Civil Society Relations From CSOs' Perspective
This article examines the impact of populist governance on state–civil society relations in Sweden, a country traditionally marked by collaborative relations and democratic stability. Focusing on reforms in adult education and international aid under a government supported by a right‐wing populist party, the study explores how these changes are perceived by civil society organizations (CSOs). Drawing on qualitative interviews with CSO representat…
Civil Society Elites in the Italian Third Sector
This book series focuses on the third sector-the sphere of society that is distinct from the family, the market economy, and political power/the state.The third sector has been historically institutionalized in different ways across countries and is subject to different scholarly traditions.Palgrave Studies in Third Sector Research addresses contemporary themes related to this societal sphere and its components.This series has three main editoria…
The Organisational Landscape
This chapter examines the organisational landscape of elite civil society organisations in Italy at the national level, revealing a clear hierarchical structure dominated by a few top-tier organisations. These elite CSOs control the majority of resources and are primarily engaged in service provision, solidarity efforts, volunteering, and international aid, reflecting the broader orientation of the civil society sector. Two longstanding, broad-sp…
Between Policy-oriented Criticism and Structural Opposition — Civil Society Advocacy in the Age of Populism
The paper aims to understand how established civil society organizations (CSOs) react to populist governance and what factors influence the strategies adopted. Populist governance is often characterized by avoidance of intermediary institutions, such as CSOs, and repression/obstruction of oppositional civil society, which might challenge the position of established CSOs. The paper focuses on how established CSOs in Italy and Sweden have reacted t…
Civil society ethos? Attitude differences between civil society elites and the population in Sweden
Previous studies have found that elites differ from the general population not only in terms of their demographic and social composition but also with respect to policy preferences and attitudes. When it comes to civil society organisations, the issue of representation and representativeness of top-level leadership is of particular relevance, since a small number of individuals are expected to act on behalf of groups and causes that are not well …
Mapping civil society elites
This paper presents a novel methodological approach, multi-dimensional measure of resource stratification in civil society (MMRSC). The method aims at mapping civil society organisations based on different types of resources for studying resource stratification in civil society. The approach is based on six indicators consisting of economic, political, and media resources, internal and external to civil society. The MMRSC is a development and ada…
The Paradox of Elites in Civil Society
The presence of an elite group in civil society elicits a discursive friction between the long-standing normative understanding of civil society, acting as a check on government overreach and autocratic tendencies, and elite theories. Robert Michels’s iron law of oligarchy posits that as individuals rise in the ranks to become organizational leaders, they begin to take on elite attributes, and their priorities align with those of other elites and…
Producing leadership legitimacy in civil society – A study of online presentations of leaders in Sweden
This article investigates how Swedish civil society organizations (CSOs) legitimize their leaders through online press releases presenting newly elected or recruited leaders, and which leadership ideals that are reproduced. The aim is to analyze how leaders are socially legitimized through leadership ideals in a time of increased demands on CSOs. The study moves away from the dominant perspective on leaders as actors contributing to the organizat…
Leader interlocks in Swedish civil society organizations
This paper contributes to the understanding of power structures in civil society by the exploring organizational connections of leaders holding multiple top-level leadership positions in resource-rich civil society organizations (CSOs) in Sweden. Based on unique association network data among national level CSOs collected in 2018, we discuss possible explanations behind the observed clusters of organizational connections via leader interlocks. Ou…
Gender-based violence (GBV) against women with precarious legal status and their access to social protection in advanced welfare societies
The aim of this paper is to map the emergence and development of a research field around the topic of “gender-based violence (GBV) against women with precarious legal status and their access to social protection in advanced welfare societies”. We explore the academic knowledge production around this topic as a specific research field by using bibliometric data. We investigate the place occupied by scholars who publish in well-established journals…
Reshaping Alliances and Redrawing Boundaries
Many conflicts in Italian politics have focused on migration policy. After the national elections in 2018, this conflict cut across all societal spheres and levels of governance and administration. On the one hand, tightening migration policies and criminalizing pro-migrant civil-society actors created a conflict between the government and many civil-society actors. On the other hand, civil-society and public-sector actors formed new alliances an…
Trajectories of Civil Society Leaders in Italy
The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between individual leaders’ career trajectories and organizational structure and identity in Italian civil society organizations (CSOs) active at national level. The analysis in this qualitative study draws on two sets of data, semi-structured interviews with leaders on their career trajectories and their understanding of what it takes to become a leader of a CSO and short biographies of leader…
Can EU Civil Society Elites Burst the Brussels Bubble? Civil Society Leaders’ Career Trajectories
The Brussels-based civil society organizations (CSOs) have been conceived by the EU to act as a bridge between the bureaucratic elites and the citizens of Europe. The institutionalized presence of the major EU-based CSOs has, however, called their legitimacy into question, as exemplified by notions such as ‘revolving doors’ implying homogeneous social, educational, and professional backgrounds shared by both EU officials and CSO leaders. This art…
Perception of societal influence among civil society leaders – an elite perspective
This article explores the perception of societal influence of civil society leaders based on a survey study conducted in 2017 among leaders of Swedish civil society organizations. Civil society leaders represent organizations that are often based on and guided by religious, political, or cultural values and that often strive to achieve some sort of social change. To exercise influence on society is thus a crucial feature of civil society leaders.…
Membership in the digital era
The aim of the article is to explore trade unions’ use of Internet and social media in communicating with members and to understand membership in the digital era. A point of departure is that new forms of relationships between individuals and organizations are on the rise as our present societies become more digitalized, which has changed how citizens interact, mobilize, and organize. Digitalization has been discussed as a driving factor behind m…
Is the Church of Sweden an ‘Ordinary’ Civil Society Organization
This article explores the advocacy activities of the Church of Sweden. The historical co-optation of the Church by the state, a Lutheran theological heritage, and a trend from “voice to service” within Swedish civil society might discourage stronger political activism by the Church. The following research questions are answered: How does the extent of the advocacy activities of the Church of Sweden, understood as trying to influence politicians a…
A Swedish culture of advocacy
This article sets out to identify a culture of advocacy that has come to characterise Swedish civil society, formed around a long-standing tradition of close and cordial relations between civil society organisations, popular movements, and state and government officials. We argue that Swedish civil society organisations (CSOs) have been allowed to voice critique against public actors and policies and are expected to do so. Based on a large survey…
The weapon of a new generation?—Swedish Civil Society Organizations’ use of social media to influence politics
The article examines the extent of and factors behind Civil Society Organizations’ (CSOs’) use of social media to influence politics compared with nondigital political strategies, that is, using the traditional media and demonstrations. Taking stock of previous research on information and communication technologies, social media, and political influence, the relevance of four sets of factors is tested: resources, resource dependency, geographic l…
Advocacy Compromised
Key functions of civil society organizations (CSOs) are to criticize governments and to hold them to account. Recent trends of privatization and contracting out challenge CSOs’ opportunities to voice such criticism. The purpose of this article is to analyse whether and why CSOs ‘hold back their criticism’ of public authorities, and how a compromised advocacy can be linked to financial, organizational and institutional factors. The article draws o…
Social workers' attitudes to privatization in five countries
European welfare states have been subject to significant restructuring including a general trend towards downsizing the role of the state, and to a greater extent engaging other actors in social policy and social services. While comparative welfare research often overlooks the distinction between for-profit and non-profit actors, third sector research emphasizes the different logics underlying these two types of non-state actors. The purpose of t…
Civil Society Organizations Going European
This study explores factors that influence Swedish civil society organizations’ (CSOs) degree of activity at different geographical and administrative levels and, in particular, how they are affected by processes of Europeanization in the social welfare policy area. The present study is based on a national survey and includes approximately 1,600 Swedish CSOs. Despite the often claimed mismatch between the Swedish welfare model and European Union …
Advocacy Compromised
Key functions of civil society organizations (CSOs) are to criticize governments and to hold them to account. Recent trends of privatization and contracting out challenge CSOs’ opportunities to voice such criticism. The purpose of this article is to analyse whether and why CSOs ‘hold back their criticism’ of public authorities, and how a compromised advocacy can be linked to financial, organizational and institutional factors. The article draws o…
The weapon of a new generation?—Swedish Civil Society Organizations’ use of social media to influence politics
The article examines the extent of and factors behind Civil Society Organizations’ (CSOs’) use of social media to influence politics compared with nondigital political strategies, that is, using the traditional media and demonstrations. Taking stock of previous research on information and communication technologies, social media, and political influence, the relevance of four sets of factors is tested: resources, resource dependency, geographic l…
Can EU Civil Society Elites Burst the Brussels Bubble? Civil Society Leaders’ Career Trajectories
The Brussels-based civil society organizations (CSOs) have been conceived by the EU to act as a bridge between the bureaucratic elites and the citizens of Europe. The institutionalized presence of the major EU-based CSOs has, however, called their legitimacy into question, as exemplified by notions such as ‘revolving doors’ implying homogeneous social, educational, and professional backgrounds shared by both EU officials and CSO leaders. This art…
Mapping civil society elites
This paper presents a novel methodological approach, multi-dimensional measure of resource stratification in civil society (MMRSC). The method aims at mapping civil society organisations based on different types of resources for studying resource stratification in civil society. The approach is based on six indicators consisting of economic, political, and media resources, internal and external to civil society. The MMRSC is a development and ada…
Between Policy-oriented Criticism and Structural Opposition — Civil Society Advocacy in the Age of Populism
The paper aims to understand how established civil society organizations (CSOs) react to populist governance and what factors influence the strategies adopted. Populist governance is often characterized by avoidance of intermediary institutions, such as CSOs, and repression/obstruction of oppositional civil society, which might challenge the position of established CSOs. The paper focuses on how established CSOs in Italy and Sweden have reacted t…
Civil society ethos? Attitude differences between civil society elites and the population in Sweden
Previous studies have found that elites differ from the general population not only in terms of their demographic and social composition but also with respect to policy preferences and attitudes. When it comes to civil society organisations, the issue of representation and representativeness of top-level leadership is of particular relevance, since a small number of individuals are expected to act on behalf of groups and causes that are not well …
Producing leadership legitimacy in civil society – A study of online presentations of leaders in Sweden
This article investigates how Swedish civil society organizations (CSOs) legitimize their leaders through online press releases presenting newly elected or recruited leaders, and which leadership ideals that are reproduced. The aim is to analyze how leaders are socially legitimized through leadership ideals in a time of increased demands on CSOs. The study moves away from the dominant perspective on leaders as actors contributing to the organizat…
Gender-based violence (GBV) against women with precarious legal status and their access to social protection in advanced welfare societies
The aim of this paper is to map the emergence and development of a research field around the topic of “gender-based violence (GBV) against women with precarious legal status and their access to social protection in advanced welfare societies”. We explore the academic knowledge production around this topic as a specific research field by using bibliometric data. We investigate the place occupied by scholars who publish in well-established journals…
Reshaping Alliances and Redrawing Boundaries
Many conflicts in Italian politics have focused on migration policy. After the national elections in 2018, this conflict cut across all societal spheres and levels of governance and administration. On the one hand, tightening migration policies and criminalizing pro-migrant civil-society actors created a conflict between the government and many civil-society actors. On the other hand, civil-society and public-sector actors formed new alliances an…
Civil Society Organizations Going European
This study explores factors that influence Swedish civil society organizations’ (CSOs) degree of activity at different geographical and administrative levels and, in particular, how they are affected by processes of Europeanization in the social welfare policy area. The present study is based on a national survey and includes approximately 1,600 Swedish CSOs. Despite the often claimed mismatch between the Swedish welfare model and European Union …
Social workers' attitudes to privatization in five countries
European welfare states have been subject to significant restructuring including a general trend towards downsizing the role of the state, and to a greater extent engaging other actors in social policy and social services. While comparative welfare research often overlooks the distinction between for-profit and non-profit actors, third sector research emphasizes the different logics underlying these two types of non-state actors. The purpose of t…
The weapon of a new generation?—Swedish Civil Society Organizations’ use of social media to influence politics
The article examines the extent of and factors behind Civil Society Organizations’ (CSOs’) use of social media to influence politics compared with nondigital political strategies, that is, using the traditional media and demonstrations. Taking stock of previous research on information and communication technologies, social media, and political influence, the relevance of four sets of factors is tested: resources, resource dependency, geographic l…
Advocacy Compromised
Key functions of civil society organizations (CSOs) are to criticize governments and to hold them to account. Recent trends of privatization and contracting out challenge CSOs’ opportunities to voice such criticism. The purpose of this article is to analyse whether and why CSOs ‘hold back their criticism’ of public authorities, and how a compromised advocacy can be linked to financial, organizational and institutional factors. The article draws o…
Is the Church of Sweden an ‘Ordinary’ Civil Society Organization
This article explores the advocacy activities of the Church of Sweden. The historical co-optation of the Church by the state, a Lutheran theological heritage, and a trend from “voice to service” within Swedish civil society might discourage stronger political activism by the Church. The following research questions are answered: How does the extent of the advocacy activities of the Church of Sweden, understood as trying to influence politicians a…
A Swedish culture of advocacy
This article sets out to identify a culture of advocacy that has come to characterise Swedish civil society, formed around a long-standing tradition of close and cordial relations between civil society organisations, popular movements, and state and government officials. We argue that Swedish civil society organisations (CSOs) have been allowed to voice critique against public actors and policies and are expected to do so. Based on a large survey…
Can EU Civil Society Elites Burst the Brussels Bubble? Civil Society Leaders’ Career Trajectories
The Brussels-based civil society organizations (CSOs) have been conceived by the EU to act as a bridge between the bureaucratic elites and the citizens of Europe. The institutionalized presence of the major EU-based CSOs has, however, called their legitimacy into question, as exemplified by notions such as ‘revolving doors’ implying homogeneous social, educational, and professional backgrounds shared by both EU officials and CSO leaders. This art…
Perception of societal influence among civil society leaders – an elite perspective
This article explores the perception of societal influence of civil society leaders based on a survey study conducted in 2017 among leaders of Swedish civil society organizations. Civil society leaders represent organizations that are often based on and guided by religious, political, or cultural values and that often strive to achieve some sort of social change. To exercise influence on society is thus a crucial feature of civil society leaders.…
Membership in the digital era
The aim of the article is to explore trade unions’ use of Internet and social media in communicating with members and to understand membership in the digital era. A point of departure is that new forms of relationships between individuals and organizations are on the rise as our present societies become more digitalized, which has changed how citizens interact, mobilize, and organize. Digitalization has been discussed as a driving factor behind m…
Trajectories of Civil Society Leaders in Italy
The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between individual leaders’ career trajectories and organizational structure and identity in Italian civil society organizations (CSOs) active at national level. The analysis in this qualitative study draws on two sets of data, semi-structured interviews with leaders on their career trajectories and their understanding of what it takes to become a leader of a CSO and short biographies of leader…
Gender-based violence (GBV) against women with precarious legal status and their access to social protection in advanced welfare societies
The aim of this paper is to map the emergence and development of a research field around the topic of “gender-based violence (GBV) against women with precarious legal status and their access to social protection in advanced welfare societies”. We explore the academic knowledge production around this topic as a specific research field by using bibliometric data. We investigate the place occupied by scholars who publish in well-established journals…
Reshaping Alliances and Redrawing Boundaries
Many conflicts in Italian politics have focused on migration policy. After the national elections in 2018, this conflict cut across all societal spheres and levels of governance and administration. On the one hand, tightening migration policies and criminalizing pro-migrant civil-society actors created a conflict between the government and many civil-society actors. On the other hand, civil-society and public-sector actors formed new alliances an…
Producing leadership legitimacy in civil society – A study of online presentations of leaders in Sweden
This article investigates how Swedish civil society organizations (CSOs) legitimize their leaders through online press releases presenting newly elected or recruited leaders, and which leadership ideals that are reproduced. The aim is to analyze how leaders are socially legitimized through leadership ideals in a time of increased demands on CSOs. The study moves away from the dominant perspective on leaders as actors contributing to the organizat…
Leader interlocks in Swedish civil society organizations
This paper contributes to the understanding of power structures in civil society by the exploring organizational connections of leaders holding multiple top-level leadership positions in resource-rich civil society organizations (CSOs) in Sweden. Based on unique association network data among national level CSOs collected in 2018, we discuss possible explanations behind the observed clusters of organizational connections via leader interlocks. Ou…
Mapping civil society elites
This paper presents a novel methodological approach, multi-dimensional measure of resource stratification in civil society (MMRSC). The method aims at mapping civil society organisations based on different types of resources for studying resource stratification in civil society. The approach is based on six indicators consisting of economic, political, and media resources, internal and external to civil society. The MMRSC is a development and ada…
The Paradox of Elites in Civil Society
The presence of an elite group in civil society elicits a discursive friction between the long-standing normative understanding of civil society, acting as a check on government overreach and autocratic tendencies, and elite theories. Robert Michels’s iron law of oligarchy posits that as individuals rise in the ranks to become organizational leaders, they begin to take on elite attributes, and their priorities align with those of other elites and…
Civil Society Elites in the Italian Third Sector
This book series focuses on the third sector-the sphere of society that is distinct from the family, the market economy, and political power/the state.The third sector has been historically institutionalized in different ways across countries and is subject to different scholarly traditions.Palgrave Studies in Third Sector Research addresses contemporary themes related to this societal sphere and its components.This series has three main editoria…
The Organisational Landscape
This chapter examines the organisational landscape of elite civil society organisations in Italy at the national level, revealing a clear hierarchical structure dominated by a few top-tier organisations. These elite CSOs control the majority of resources and are primarily engaged in service provision, solidarity efforts, volunteering, and international aid, reflecting the broader orientation of the civil society sector. Two longstanding, broad-sp…
Between Policy-oriented Criticism and Structural Opposition — Civil Society Advocacy in the Age of Populism
The paper aims to understand how established civil society organizations (CSOs) react to populist governance and what factors influence the strategies adopted. Populist governance is often characterized by avoidance of intermediary institutions, such as CSOs, and repression/obstruction of oppositional civil society, which might challenge the position of established CSOs. The paper focuses on how established CSOs in Italy and Sweden have reacted t…
Civil society ethos? Attitude differences between civil society elites and the population in Sweden
Previous studies have found that elites differ from the general population not only in terms of their demographic and social composition but also with respect to policy preferences and attitudes. When it comes to civil society organisations, the issue of representation and representativeness of top-level leadership is of particular relevance, since a small number of individuals are expected to act on behalf of groups and causes that are not well …
Strategic framing used by civil society actors to renegotiate state authority. The case of migrant women with precarious legal status and their access to social protection in Sweden and Italy
Neoliberal welfare reforms and limited pathways to permanent residency have left migrant women, among other groups, with little or no access to public social protection, contributing to their precarious legal status. As a result, civil society actors (CSA) have become the main providers of support and deliver micro-level social protection beyond the boundaries of public authorities. At the same time, CSA's resources remain tied to collaborations …
Populist Governance in Sweden and Its Impact on State‐Civil Society Relations From CSOs' Perspective
This article examines the impact of populist governance on state–civil society relations in Sweden, a country traditionally marked by collaborative relations and democratic stability. Focusing on reforms in adult education and international aid under a government supported by a right‐wing populist party, the study explores how these changes are perceived by civil society organizations (CSOs). Drawing on qualitative interviews with CSO representat…
Civil society (19 works) · Political science (19 works) · Politics (19 works) · Law (17 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering (13 works) · Public Administration (10 works) · Public relations (9 works) · Public Administration (8 works)