Dr Massimo D'Angelo

Dr Massimo D’Angelo is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Greenwich and a Fellow of Advance HE (FHEA).

He is also a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Loughborough University London, where he works on OWN-EU, a Horizon Europe project examining the relationship between political ownership of reforms and territorial capital in the context of EU enlargement.

Massimo was awarded a PhD in Diplomacy and International Governance from Loughborough University London in 2025. His doctoral thesis, Humiliating Negotiations? The Rejection of Türkiye’s European Identity and its Authoritarian Consequences, examined how identity-based rejection and emotions have shaped EU–Türkiye accession negotiations and Türkiye’s domestic political trajectory. During his doctoral studies, he was a UACES-Renpet Visiting Fellow at Sabancı University and a Visiting Fellow at Koç University in Istanbul.

His research focuses on the role of emotions, identity and religion in European integration and enlargement, with particular interests in EU–Türkiye relations, democratic backsliding, civil society and the political construction of European identity.

His recent publications include “The Role of Humiliation in EU Contestation: A Study of Türkiye and Serbia” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026, with Doris Wydra); “Between Survival and Influence: The Resilience of Civil Society in Nigeria, Peru, and Turkey” in Conflict, Security & Development (2026, with Cristian Nitoiu); “The Christian Europe Debate: A Conservative-Led Agenda, Not a Far-Right Crusade” in the Journal of European Studies (2025); and “Two Papal Europes: Benedict XVI, Francis and Competing Christian Imaginaries of Europe” in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies (2026).

Expertise:

• European integration
• Role of religion in European Integration
• European Identity

Journal articles

• D’Angelo, M. (2026). ‘Two papal Europes: Benedict XVI, Francis and competing Christian imaginaries of Europe’. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, pp. 1–17.
• Nitoiu, C. and D’Angelo, M. (2026). ‘Between survival and influence: the resilience of civil society in Nigeria, Peru, and Turkey’. Conflict, Security & Development, pp. 1–17.
• D’Angelo, M. (2025). ‘The Christian Europe debate: A conservative-led agenda, not a far-right crusade’. Journal of European Studies, 55(3), pp. 351–370.
• D’Angelo, M. (2025) ‘Piazzale Loreto and the Securitisation of Emotion: Affective Memory from 1945 to Meloni’. Close Encounters in War, p. 73.
• D’Angelo, M. (2024). ‘Helping my Friends: Rethinking Disaster Diplomacy in the Wake of 1999 and 2023 Seismic Events in Turkey, Syria and Greece’. Poliarchie/Polyarchies.
• D’Angelo, M. ‘Margins and forgotten places: the Turkish national rhetoric on women from Atatürk to Erdoğan’.

Book chapters

• D’Angelo, M. and Wydra, D. (2026). ‘The Role of Humiliation in EU Contestation: A Study of Türkiye and Serbia’. In New Dynamics of Contestation in EU-Western Balkan Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 213–237.

Book reviews

• D’Angelo, M. (2024). Review of David Broder, Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy. London: Pluto Press, 2023, 240 pp. Taylor & Francis.
• D’Angelo, M. (2022). Review of EU–Turkey Relations: Theories, Institutions, and Policies and EU–Turkey Relations: A New Direction for EU Foreign Policy?. Oxford University Press.