Cultures, Politics and Society Department (CPS) – Università di Torino

In 2017, Cultures, Politics and Society—one of the largest departments at the University of Torino—received the highest accolade awarded by ANVUR, the national agency that evaluates Italian universities. As a result, the Department received major additional funding to enhance the quality of its research with investments in human capital, infrastructures and highly qualified teaching.

With its interdisciplinary vocation, the Department can bring complementary resources to bear on the challenges of complexity, as it favours dialogues between sociology and political science, international relations and anthropology, history, political philosophy, linguistics, geography, economics and law.

This interdisciplinary vocation extends beyond the Department’s confines in a dense network of collaborations with scholars in such varied fields as law, psychology, biomedicine, computer science, physics and environmental engineering.

To grasp the intricacies of an increasingly fast-paced world, the Department’s researchers investigate the form and quality of social relations, the processes of inclusion and exclusion in access to economic resources and political life, the pathological aspects of contemporary societies, the problems and opportunities afforded by technological development driven by the rapid implementation of Artificial Intelligence, the looming environmental crisis and the challenges of sustainable growth, and the prospects and tensions of the European integration process.

Through national and international research networks, Erasmus+ agreements, double degrees and summer school, the Department directs systematic attention to many areas of the international panorama—from the Americas to Africa and Asia, with a particular focus on China, India and Myanmar, and Oceania—and maintains solid research traditions centring on the peoples and cultures of Europe.

In the Department’s three major areas of concentration, work on Societies contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between young people and the job market, the processes of innovation and the effects of ICT, the social foundations of the economy and the challenges posed by the issues of health and wellbeing, an ageing population, corruption and new forms of organized crime. Work on Politics explores the dynamics that affect key actors on the new regional and global scenes, and the challenges that safeguarding rights and political participation, building consensus and analyzing public policies throw in the path of mature democracies. Research on Cultures delves into inequalities and their determinants, the encounter with the Other, and the intertwined connections between the global and the local, and hence the forms of development, cooperation and their changes over time.