last updated: March 2025

Pierpaolo Donati is Alma Mater Professor (PAM) of Sociology at the University of Bologna (Italy, EU). Past-President of the Italian Sociological Association, he is known as the founder of an original ‘relational sociology’ or ‘relational theory of society’ and has published more than 650 works, including 90 books (larger list here).

He is the director of Pros-Ti, a study and research centre focused on relational sociology.

Selected Publications

Books

Donati, P. (2024). Being human in a virtual society: A relational approach. Berlin, Germany: Peter Lang.

Donati, P. (2021). Transcending modernity with relational thinking. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Archer. M. S., & Donati, P. (2015). The relational subject. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Donati, P., & Martignani, L. (Eds.). (2015). Towards a new local welfare: Best practices and networks of social inclusion. Bologna, Italy: Bononia University Press.

Articles

In reverse chronological order

Donati, P. (2024). Margaret Archer’s theory of the human person: An assessment. International Review of Sociology, 34(1), 52–74.

Donati, P. (2024). The prediction of social catastrophes: Between necessity and contingency. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 54(3), 269–289.

Donati, P. (2022). Between the human and the social: The Third. Mauss international, 2(1), 282–304.

Donati, P. (2022). A methodological framework for relational research in sociology and social work. Relational Social Work, 6(2), 3–35.

Donati, P. (2022). A critical realist view of gesture. International Review of Sociology, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2022.2045140.

Donati, P. (2022). The pandemic: An epiphany of relations and opportunities for transcendence. Church, Communication and Culture, 7(1), 23–57.

Donati, P. (2020). Fluxes and structures: Which relational gaze?. Polish Sociological Review, 210(2), 179–198.

Donati, P. (2019). Discovering the relational goods: Their nature, genesis and effects. International Review of Sociology, 29(2), 238–259.

Donati, P. (2016). On the social morphogenesis of citizenship: A relational approach. SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 7(13), 41–66.

Donati, P. (2015). Manifesto for a critical realist relational sociology. International Review of Sociology, 25(1), 86–109.

Book chapters

In reverse chronological order

Donati, P. (2023). The methodology of critical realist relational analysis: The research design and its underlying rules. In E. Hałas (Ed.), Methodology of relational sociology: Approaches and analyses (pp. 3–31). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Donati, P. (2022). New insights into the relational subject: Connecting personal and collective identity. In P. A. Fernández, A. N. G. Martínez, & J. M. Torralba (Eds.), Ways of being bound: Perspectives from post-Kantian philosophy and relational sociology (pp. 159-187). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Donati, P. (2021). Relational essentialism. In M. S. Archer, & A. M. Maccarini (Eds.), What is essential to being human?: Can AI robots not share it? (pp. 56–73). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Donati, P. (2021). Impact of AI/robotics on human relations: Co-evolution through hybridisation. In J. Braun, M. S. Archer, G. M. Reichberg, & M. Sánchez Sorondo (Eds.), Robotics, AI and humanity: Science, ethics, and policy (pp. 213–227). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Donati, P. (2018). An original relational sociology grounded in critical realism. In F. Dépelteau (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of relational sociology (pp. 431-456). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Others

Donati, P. (2018) (Ed.), Towards a participatory society: New roads to social and cultural integration: The proceedings of the 2017 21th plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Vatican: LEV.

Archer, M. S., & Donati, P. (Eds.). (2008). Pursuing the common good: How solidarity and subsidiarity can work together: The proceedings of the 2008 14th plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Vatican: LEV.