Sociologist and economist, after graduating in Economic and Social Sciences at the Bocconi University in Milan, he earned a doctorate in Social Sciences in Canterbury in 1991.
Since 2002 he has been Full Professor of Sociology at the Catholic University of Milan. Visiting fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Canterbury, he was visiting professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, at the Catholic University of Buenos Aires and at Notre Dame University (USA).
He is director of ARC – Centre for the Anthropology of Religion and Cultural Change and columnist for Il Corriere della Sera. He has been a member of the Steering Committee of Fondazione Cariplo since 2013.