Teaching Staff

Rachele Bizzari holds a Ph.D. cum laude in Comparative Public Law from the University of Pisa, Italy. In 2023, she was a visiting research student at King’s College London, United Kingdom. During the 2021-2022 academic year, she served on the Scientific Committee for the moot court competition within the Jean Monnet Module on European Law & Gender (ELaN) at the University of Pisa. She is an active member of the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) research group on Cross-Judicial Fertilization and contributes to the teaching staff of the PRIN PNRR 2022 Research Project on “Enhancing Effectiveness of Democratic Representation Through Transparency and Accountability in Italy”. Her research focuses on the role of amici curiae in constitutional adjudication, examining how these briefs facilitate interaction between courts and civil society, while promoting dialogue and engagement within civil society itself. Her research interests also encompass judicial decision-making, transparency and accountability within the judiciary, and gender issues.

Roberta Bracciale is Full Professor of Media Sociology at the University of Pisa, Department of Political Science. She holds a Ph.D. in “Communication Sciences” from University of Rome Sapienza in 2004. She is the Director of MediaLaB, a laboratory for analysis of big data in social and political research, Co-Chief Information Officer at the University of Pisa and the co-chief editor of the scientific journal “The Lab’s Quarterly”. Her research interests focus on the interconnections between digital media, everyday life, and the public sphere: (i) the relationship between social and digital inequalities, with a detailed analysis of the outcomes of inclusion vs. exclusion processes; (ii) the transformations of participatory practices following the platformization of society, with a specific focus on grassroots production mechanisms and memeification of the public sphere as connective aggregators of individual instances; (iii) the redefinition of communication strategies of social actors through the introduction of emotional elements and the adoption of populism as a communication style, to enhance audience engagement and leverage the algorithmic logics of platforms; (iv) the application of computational methods in the social sciences. She coordinates a national research project on “misperceptions, Information Disorder and Polarisation between MEdia and Political SYStems (MiMeSys)’.” She is member of the Board of Directors of the Italian Association of Political Communication, a research associate at IIT-CNR in Pisa and at the “DeVisu” laboratory of Polytechnique Hauts de France. She is a founding partner and board member of the University of Pisa spin-off company “VoisLab” (Evaluation of Outcomes and Social Impact).

Francesca Martines is associate Professor of EU law at the Law Department, University of Pisa. She holds PhD in Law at the European University Institute, Florence (1993) and has qualified as a full professor of EU law in the national scientific qualification (2020). She is currently the Module Coordinator of a Jean Monnet module at Pisa University (Expanding Representation And Participation: Towards A Transnational Public Sphere To Reinforce EU Democratic Legitimacy (EXTRAEUDEM)). She is also involved in other Jean Monnet Modules and Chairs of the Department of law. She published four monographs, one of which on the Commission’s power of initiative, and several articles on issues of European Union law and international law. Her research fields are, inter alia, EU institutional mechanisms, decision-making, transparency, and the Conference on the Future of the Union.

Giuseppe Martinico is Full Professor of Comparative Public Law at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies), Pisa. Previously he worked as a Lecturer in Constitutional Law and as an Associate Professor of Comparative Law in the same institution. Prior to joining the Scuola Sant’Anna, he was García Pelayo Fellow at the Centro de EstudiosPoliticos y Constitucionales (CEPC), Madrid and Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence. In Pisa he also serves as STALS Editor (www.stals.santannapisa.it). He was also honorary professor at the Centre of European Law of the University of Henan, Kaifeng and Visiting Professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.

Paolo Passaglia holds a PhD in Constitutional Justice at the University of Pisa and in Law at the University of Aix-Marseille III (2001). Since 2016, he is Full Professor of Comparative Law at University of Pisa and, since 2011, is Pro- tempore scientific coordinator of the Comparative Law Area of the Research Department, Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic. He was the Law Clerk of the Vice President, then President of the same Constitutional Court, Prof. Gustavo Zagrebelsky (2003-2004). He has published extensively in Italian, French, and English on several topics of constitutional and comparative law, public communication, human rights. His books deal with procedural invalidity of the law (2002), the French constitutional tradition (2008), the relationships between the Constitutional Court and the legislator (2011, in French), and the abolition of the death penalty (2012 in French and 2021 in Italian). He was the main coordinator of the project entitled “L’asilo nelle Commissioni territoriali: l’accoglienza tra teoria e prassi” (AnCoRa) funded by the Tuscany Region within the POR FSE 2014-2020.

Andrea Pertici is Full Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Pisa. He also practices as an administrative and constitutional law attorney before courts of the highest jurisdictions. His main research fields are constitutional law, constitutional justice, regional law, and local authorities law. He holds a PhD in Constitutional law from the University of Pisa and has been the PI Coordinator of several research projects at national and international level, including a project PRIN 2022-PNRR Call (Research Projects of National Relevance in the Framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan) dealing with “Enhancing effectiveness of democratic representation through transparency and accountability in Italy”. He is the author of four books on conflict of interests (2002), the power of the Constitutional court on the admissibility of referenda (2010), the proposal for a constitutional reform in Italy in 2016 and the elections of the Italian Presidents of the Republic (2021). He is also the co-author of textbooks on Italian and European constitutional law and local authorities law and an expert in constitutional law within the board of the Italian democratic party.

Angioletta Sperti (https://orcid.org/0000-0001- 7814-2162) is Full Professor of Comparative Public Law at the University of Pisa, Italy. She graduated cum laude at the University of Pisa, holds an Ll.M from UCLA (USA) and a PhD cum laude from Scuola Superiore S. Anna (Italy). She is the President of the Law Degree program at  the Department of Law of the University of Pisa and the current Democracy Chair for Pisa in the Democracy Hub of Circle-U Alliance (https://www.circle-u.eu/about/platforms/knowledge-hubs/democracy/angioletta-sperti.html). She has extensively researched constitutional justice, comparative constitutional systems, human rights, and presidential accountability, publishing over 100 academic works. Her publications include five monographs: Corti supreme e conflitti tra poteri. Spunti per un confronto Italia-USA sugli strumenti e le tecniche di giudizio del giudice costituzionale, Giappichelli, Torino, 2005; La responsabilità del Presidente della Repubblica, Torino, Giappichelli, 2010; Omosessualità e diritti, PUP, Pisa, 2013; Constitutional Courts, Gay Rights and Sexual Orientation Equality, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2017 and Constitutional Courts, Media and Public Opinion, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2023. She is the managing editor of GenIUS (www.geniusreview.eu) an Italian first rank (classe A) law review on sexual orientation and gender identity equality. She is a member of the teaching staff in several EU-funded and Italian government-funded research projects, a referee for many international publishers and a member of several associations of constitutional and comparative law scholars.

Matteo Trapani is post-doc in Constitutional law at the University of Florence and adjunct professor in ‘Local authorities and public services’ at the University of Pisa and he also practices as an attorney. He holds a PhD in constitutional justice and fundamental rights theory. He has published a book and several articles on constitutional law, local authorities law, fundamental rights, new technologies and anti-corruption. He is a member of the editorial board of the AIC Journal and has lectured in several conferences in Italy and abroad. As a attorney, he practices in administrative law, in particular as an expert in innovation law, civil service reorganisation, local authorities and transparency, and collaborated with several public and private institutions. Since 2017, he is a member of the Pisa city council and engages in local political life.

Lars V. Johannsen is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University from which he received his PhD in 2000. Between 1994-1996 was a coordinator at the EuroFaculty funded by the Council of the Baltic Sea States. Lars V. Johannsen has served as Chair of Comparative Politics at Aarhus University and since 2003 representative to the European Consortium of Political Research, and Aarhus University academic Chair to the Circle-U Democracy Hub. He has been a member of the academic advisory council for JCP, – the Journal of Comparative Politics, and a member of the Latvian Higher Education Evaluation Committee. He is an external assessor of the Slovenian Research, and Innovation Agency (AARS), and an expert assessor for the EU TACIS program. He has been academic co-director of the DEMSTAR Research program (2000-2005). One of the Principal Researchers of the Baltic Corruption and State Capacity (2010-2016) PRIVACOR for the Estonian Ministry of Justice (2014-2015). Since 2023 he has been appointed expert at the Danish Encyclopedia. With 165 contributions Lars V. Johannsen has extensively researched issues of democracy & democratization, state & administrative capacity, corruption, and populism and the responsive state.