Professor of Political Science at the University of Florence (Italy) and director of the Research Centre on Southern Europe. He was visiting professor or fellow at Stanford University (USA), Nuffield College (Oxford, UK), Institute d’études politiques (Paris, France), Hoover Institution (USA), Center for Advanced Research in Social Sciences (Juan March, Madrid, Spain), Yale University (USA). His publications include more than hundred articles in Italian, French, English, Spanish, and German mainly on authoritarianism and democratic theory. He is also the author of several books such as Come cambian los regimenes politicos (Madrid 1985), Democracy Between Consolidation and Crisis. Parties, Groups, and Citizens in Southern Europe (Oxford, 1998), Democrazie e Deocratizzazioni (Bologna 2003).