Michele MIONI

Michele Mioni is a contemporary historian whose primary research interests concern the history of social policies and the history of labour. Between 2007 and 2012 he obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively, at Università degli Studi di Trieste and Università Ca’ Foscari of Venice. In 2018 he received a joint doctorate between IMT School of Advanced Studies (Lucca) and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, with a comparative and transnational thesis on social policies during the Second World War in Great Britain, France and Italy. Since 2018 he has been an associate member at Centre d’histoire sociale des mondes contemporains (CHS, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne).

Academic Appointments and Teaching

Before arriving at Ca’ Foscari in March 2025, he was a researcher at the Forschungszentrum Ungleichheit und Sozialpolitik (SOCIUM, Universität Bremen) from 2020 to 2021, and he taught contemporary history, history of political thought, historical methods for social sciences and global history of social policies at the Otto-Friedrich Universität in Bamberg from 2022 to 2024. Since 2016 he has held several seminar courses and teachings in contemporary history at Sciences Po (Reims campus) and Università Ca’ Foscari, and was a guest lecturer for undergraduate and graduate courses at Università degli Studi L’Orientale in Naples, and Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder. He was a visiting scholar at Syddansk Universitet (Odense, Denmark), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), and Université Paris Cité (Paris). 

Research Areas

Michele Mioni's main research area concerns social policy, which he studied in its different scales of analysis (at global, transnational and comparative, national and local levels). He is also interested in the entanglements between public and private actors that shaped the historical development of welfare systems in Europe and the world, and in the connection between war and social policy. His current lines of research scrutinise social policy in the (post-)colonial contexts during the Cold War and the relationship between social policy and European integration. His second area of ​​research addresses the history of trade unions, and notably how reformist unionists dealt with social security, mutualism and corporatism in Italy and France. IA third line of research concerns the history of political thought and civil rights in Italy.

Funded Research

Michele Mioni participated in the Reinhardt-Koselleck-Projekt Universal Conscription, the Military, and Welfare State Development in Europe, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and he was member for Italy in the COST-Action CA18119 “Who Cares in Europe?”, where he co-organised numerous conferences and research activities that led to the publication of two edited volumes, a special issue in a journal, an edition of sources, and some chapters in collective volumes. Currently, he is a member of France in the COST-Action CA22159 “National, International and Transnational Histories of Healthcare, 1850-2000”.

Third Mission

Michele Mioni gave seminars and speeches for trade unions and international organisations on topics such as the history of social security and trade unions, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on European welfare systems.

Selected Publications

Michele Mioni, Social Policy and the Second World War: National and International Histories in Great Britain, France and Italy (Oxford-New York, Berghahn, forthcoming 2027).

Michele Mioni, Fabien Théofilakis, Simon Unger (a cura di), Total Warfare and the Mixed Economy of Welfare, 1914-1950. Entangling European Experiences (Cham: Palgrave, forthcoming 2026).

Michele Mioni, Klaus Petersen, Herbert Obinger, Carina Schmitt (a cura di), The Cold War and Welfare State Development in Industrialized Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026)

Michele Mioni, Stefano Petrungaro (eds.), Caring for the Socially Marginalised in Interwar Europe, 1919–1939. The Mixed Economy of Welfare (Cham: Palgrave, 2024). 

Michele Mioni, Riforma sociale, lotta al fascismo, suggestioni corporative: la Confederazione Generale del Lavoro in Italia e in Europa, 1918-1927 (Pisa: Pacini Editore, 2023).