is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Florence, Italy. Between 2009 and 2019 he was research fellow at the Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and a visiting fellow at the Imre Kertész Kolleg, Jena in 2015. His main field of interest is the political and social history of eastern Europe during and after state socialism.
His publications include Long Awaited West. Eastern Europe since 1944. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, October 2017), Stalin’s Legacy in Romania. The Hungarian Autonomous Region, 1952-1960. (Langham: Lexington Books, Harvard Cold War Series Book Series, 2018), and Orbán. Un despota in Europa (Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2019).
In eastern Europe, neoliberalism’s loss of legitimacy after 2008 benefits coalitions of rightwing populists, whose promise of stability addresses the psychological impact of the crisis on younger voters. These are citizens who have never experienced a shortage economy and who still aspire to a western quality of life.