I am a social historian of twentieth-century Europe with particular interests in Italy, right-wing dictatorships and policing. I teach modules on Italy (1860-1950) and on European fascism. My research focuses on the policing  and policemen of fascist Italy, but I am more generally interested in the comparative and global history of policing and police culture. In May 2010 I ran a multi-disciplinary workshop on ‘Cultures of Discipline in the Police and the Military’ for the Callaghan Centre for the Study of Conflict, Power and Empire. In 2005, I co-founded the MEICAM (Modern European Ideology, Conflict and Memory) Research Group in the Department of Modern Languages. Beyond Swansea University, I belong to the European Social Science History Criminal Justice Network. I am a member of the advisory board of the journal, Crime, Histoire et Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies. 

Current Research

I am engaged in research on the policing of fascist Italy and the lives and careers of policemen who served under Mussolini.  This has involved two British Academy-funded projects: a case study of Siena (2003) and, more recently, an examination of personnel of the Italian Interior Ministry Police against the background of the attempted ‘fascistization’ of the state. I am more generally interested in systems of control and repression under right-wing dictatorships and, on a more global scale, in the evolution of police cultures, particularly in relation to regime change, from 1920 to the present day.

Positions Held:

• Senior Lecturer
• Coordinator for History Postgraduate Taught Masters schemes

Principal Publications 

Books:

• Mussolini’s Policemen.  Behaviour, Ideology and Institutional Culture in Representation and Practice, Manchester University Press, forthcoming.
• Twentieth Century Italy. A Social History, Harlow: Pearson Education, 2002.
• The Italian Police and the Rise of Fascism.  A Case Study of the Province of Bologna, 1897-1925, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

Book-chapters and journal articles:

• ‘Italian Policemen and Fascist Ideology’, The Italianist, 31:1 (2011), 99-111.
• ‘Ideology, clientelism and the ‘fascistization’ of the Italian state: fascists in the Interior Ministry police’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 14:3 (2009), 267-84.
• ‘Surviving Fascism, Narrating Fascism, Transplanting Fascism: the Evolution of Italian Police Culture from the Dictatorship to the Early Years of the Republic’, The Italianist, 29:3 (2009), 464-84.
• ‘Surveillance and Denunciation in Fascist Siena, 1927-1943’, European History Quarterly, Vol. 28:2 (2008), 244-65.
• ‘Des fervents de « L’État totalitaire » aux tenants du  « quieto vivere » : le personnel policier dans l’Italie fasciste’, in Jean-Marc Berlière, Catherine Denys, Dominique Kalifa, Vincent Milliot (eds), Métiers de police.  Être policier in Europe, XVIII^e- XX^e siècle, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008, 509-21.
• ‘Policing Right-Wing Dictatorships: Some preliminary comparisons of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Franco’s Spain’, Crime, Histoire et Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies, 10:1 (2006), 93-122.
• ‘Mussolini’s Policemen, 1926-1943’, in Gerald Blaney (ed.), Policing Interwar Europe: Continuity, Change and Crisis, 1918-1940, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 112-35.
• ‘Sotto la pelle: Per un’analisi sociologica e psicologica della vita del poliziotto’, in  Livio Antonielli and Claudio Donati (eds), La polizia in Italia e in Europa: Punto sugli studi e prospettive di ricerca, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2006, 179-89.
• ‘Social Control in Fascist Italy: the Role of the Police’, in Clive Emsley, Eric Johnson and Pieter Spierenburg (eds), Social Control in Europe, Vol. 2: 1800-2000, Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004, 261-80.
• The Policing of an Italian Province during the Fascist Period: Siena, 1926-1943’, in Gerard Oram (ed.), Conflict and Legality. Policing Mid-Twentieth Century Europe, London: Francis Boutle, 2003, 23-41.
• ‘Problematiche nella gestione della pubblica sicurezza a fine Ottocento e inizio Novecento nella provincia di Bologna’, in Livio Antonielli (ed.), Corpi armati e ordine pubblico in Italia (XVI-XIX secolo), Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2003, 269-79.
• ‘Les Carabiniers italiens après 1860. Professionalisme et auto-représentation’, in Jean-Noël Luc (ed.), La Gendarmerie, État et Société au XIXe Siècle, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2002, 411-21.
• ‘Making Better Italians: Issues of National Identity in the Italian Social Republic and the Resistance’, in Gino Bedani and Bruce Haddock (eds), The Politics of Italian National Identity: A Multicultural Perspective, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000, 191-213.
• ‘Policing and Politics in the Southern Italian Community: Calabria, 1943-1948’, and ‘Conclusion: Facing the Past and Building for the Future in Post-war Italy’, in Jonathan Dunnage (ed.), After the War Was Over: Violence, Justice, Continuity and Renewal in Italian Society, Market Harborough: Troubador, 1999, 32-47, 89-100.
• ‘La police e le fascisme italien’, in Jean-Marc Berlière and Denis Peschanski (eds), Pouvoirs et polices au XX^e siècle, Bruxelles: Editions Complexe, 1997, 29-44.
• ‘Continuity in Policing Politics in Italy, 1920-1960’, in Mark Mazower (ed.), The Policing of Politics in the Twentieth Century: Historical Perspectives, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997, 59-90.
•  ‘Inhibiting Democracy in Postwar Italy: The Case of the Italian Police, 1943-48’, Italian Studies, 51 (1996), 167-80.
• ‘Law and Order in Giolittian Italy: a Case Study of the Province of Bologna’, European History Quarterly, 25:3 (1995), 381-408.
• ‘Ordinamenti amministrativi e prassi politica.  Le forze di polizia a Bologna di fronte al fascismo’, Italia Contemporanea, 186 (1992), 63-89.
• ‘Istituzioni e ordine pubblico nell'Italia giolittiana.  Le forze di polizia in provincia di Bologna’, Italia Contemporanea, 177 (1989), 5-26.

Recent conference papers and invited lectures:

• ‘Agents of the “Revolution”: Younger-Generation Fascists in Mussolini’s Police’, American Historical Association Conference, Boston, January 2011. 
• ‘The Ideal Fascist Policeman’, European Social Science History Conference, Ghent, April 2010.
• ‘Mussolini’s Policemen: A Case-Study of the Culture of the Fascist State’, research seminar, Department of History, Newport University, March 2010 (by invitation).
•  Member of ‘Meet the Author Panel’ for Clive Emsley, Crime, Police and Penal Policy, European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon, February 2008 (by invitation).
•  ‘Being a Policeman in Fascist Italy: A Study of Lives, Careers, Strategies and Mentalities’, European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon, February 2008.
•  ‘From Enthusiasts of the “Totalitarian State” to Enthusiasts of “Quieto Vivere”: Police Personnel in Fascist Italy’, conference on ‘Working as a Policeman in Europe, 18^th to 20^th Centuries’, University of Caen, March 2007 (by invitation).

Principal research grants, fellowships, and prizes: 

• 2007-2009: British Academy Small Research Grant of £3,124: ‘State Fascists: A Study of Interior Ministry Police Personnel under Mussolini’.
• 2003: British Academy Small Research Grant of £2,494: ‘The Policing of Fascist Siena’.
• 1996: British Academy Small Research Grant of £1,602: ‘The Policing of Politics in Italy, 1890-1950’.