Excerpt: In her new book, Mobilizing for Democracy: Comparing 1989 and 2011, Donatella della Porta, a Professor of Sociology at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, addresses a gap in the literature identified by Sydney Tarrow. She aims to examine various "episodes of democratization through the lens of social movement studies" (p. 1). This approach allows for a deeper understanding of how social movements contribute to the processes of democratization across different historical contexts.