Valerio Alfonso Bruno is Research Fellow and adjunct Professor at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where he collaborates with Polidemos, Center for the Study of Democracy and Political Changes, and fellow at the Far-Right Analysis Network (FRAN). Bruno is a specialist on the Italian far-right and has contributed to the “Routledge Handbook of Far-Right Extremism in Europe”, the “Handbook on Non-Violent Extremism” and co-authored the book “Th e Rise of the Radical Right in Italy. A new balance of Power in the Right-Wing camp” (Ibidem/Columbia University Press) with J.F. Downes and A. Scopelliti. His analyses have appeared, among others, on Al Jazeera, Financial Times, Economist, France 24 and Sunday Times.
Mara Morini is an Associate Professor in Comparative Politics at the Department of Political and International Sciences (DISPI) at the University of Genova (Italy) where she teaches “Parties, Lobbies, and Pressure Groups”, and “Comparative Politics”. Morini is an expert on populist parties and Russian politics. She is co-author of the book “The Presidentialization of Political Parties in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus (Palgrave 2023) and author of a chapter dealing with the rise of anti-establishment parties in the handbook “Comparative European Politics: Distinctive Democracies, Common Challenges” (Oxford University Press 2021). She is an editor for the Italian Newspaper “Domani” and a political analyst for many TV broadcasts.