Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Italy in International
Relations
The Foreign Policy Conundrum
Emidio Diodato Federico Niglia
Università per Stranieri di Perugia Department of Political Science
Perugia, Italy Libera Università Internazionale
Rome, Italy
Cover image: Pattern adapted from an Indian cotton print produced in the 19th century
The authors thank Sarah Roughley of Palgrave Macmillan for her commit-
ment to transform this project into reality. A special thanks to Leonardo
Morlino, who supported this book since the very early stage.
vii
CONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
6 Conclusion 101
Glossary 107
Bibliography 111
Index 121
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
During the last decades, historical and political studies have been domi-
nated by globalist approaches both in history and current political analysis.
This trend reflects the ongoing process of globalization: the dismantling of
political barriers has given momentum to the understanding of the world
in its entire complexity. Another emerging trend is the shift from inter-
nationalism to transnationalism. Given the high degree of global inter-
connectivity between peoples, scholars are prone to considering
transnational relations even more important than traditional relations
between states. While globalism and transnationalism besiege the old
approaches of international history and international relations, states
remain the primary and officially recognized players in the game of inter-
national politics.
The process of European integration is probably the most relevant case
of sovereignty’s transfer to a higher institution. The 1990s opened a new
stage of this process and the European Union (EU) has engaged in the
ambitious task to develop a common foreign and defence-security policy.
This means that the EU is expected to channel all the active forces of the
member states to address the emerging challenges in the international
system. This ambition, albeit frustrated many times in the past, was
officially included in the European agenda with the Maastricht Treaty.
Since then, progress has been made in promoting political convergence
and in developing common approaches and actions to address emerging
threats and challenges. But recent years have witnessed a renationalization
of European foreign policies: the cases of Mali, Libya, as well as the
controversy with Russia and the ongoing migrant crisis confirm that the
EU member states have different scales of priorities and interests. The EU
is the only European entity with sufficient demographic, economic and
military resources to operate on a changing international scene. But the
EU has to look at its limits and also the potential consequences of Britain’s
secession. In particular, the fundamental divergences in the foreign policy
vision have to be better analysed and discussed.
Among the six founding members of the European Community (EC),
Italy holds a strategic position. The last 60 years of history confirms that
Italy is crucial for the promotion of the federalist project. Today’s outlook
reaffirms the importance of Italy for the political and economic growth of
the Union, as well as for the management of the crisis in the
Mediterranean area. At the same time, Italy’s relationship with other EU
members and towards some policies adopted by the Union is controver-
sial. While always promoting a deeper integration, Italy fears being
excluded from the communitarian leadership. Along with its commitment
to give the EU a single voice in international politics, Italy has always
defended the right to act independently in international affairs. During the
most divisive crises of the last 15 years, such as the 2003 intervention in
Iraq, the Italian decision diverged from ones taken by other major
European partners (in that case France and Germany). Homogeneity
among European countries is not to be expected, at least not in the
realm of foreign policy, where the leading principle is still the intergovern-
mental one. In the current turmoil, it would also be difficult to trace the
line of the ideal European foreign policy so as to test the coherence of
INTRODUCTION 3
single foreign policies. But the motto of the Union, unity in diversity,
cannot become to agree to proceed separately.
At the same time, one cannot deny that Italy has often adopted a
different direction from other major European countries on strategic
issues. Commentators in charge of explaining Italy and its international
actions see many contradictions and peculiarities to this regard. More
generally, difficulties emerge in the classification of Italy: the same
government sitting at the G8/20, or the state expected to behave as a
pivot in the Mediterranean, represents a country with a confused party
system, one of the world’s largest public debts, an impressive regional
divide, the presence of organized crime and where the rule of law is
questioned. These peculiarities are rarely analysed through a compre-
hensive approach and this reflects in the judgement on Italy’s foreign
policy, being often portrayed as inconsistent and dominated by the
ambition to be recognized as a great power, without any confirmation
in the real strengths of the country. Such stereotyped interpretations are
clearly summarized by British diplomat and historian Harold Nicholson:
“Unlike the Germans, Italian foreign policymakers and diplomats based
power on diplomacy, not diplomacy on power. The Italian system was
also the complete opposite of that of the French in that its practitioners
sought, not to secure permanent allies against an unchanging enemy,
but assumed the interchangeability of ally and foe” (quoted in
Drinkwater 2005, p. 109).
While these words are pertinent, here we would suggest a different
assumption: Italy is and was not divergent from other Western European
countries in terms of values, fundamental priorities and objectives.
Similar to other founding members of the EC/EU, Italy has its own
identity and its own peculiarities, which shape domestic and international
actions. But we believe that the temptation to classify the Italian model
of foreign policy as different results from historical prejudices and from a
lack of adequate and wide ranging comprehension of the country.
Indeed, our purpose in the following pages is to better explain the
history of Italian foreign policy in order to better understand Italy’s
current affairs.
Some accounts on Italian foreign policy have drawn limited attention to
domestic aspects, in the supposed primacy of the international dimension.
On the other hand, the few scholars that have attempted to integrate the
domestic political level with the international one have only addressed
limited periods of time. As a result, the reader never gets the entire picture
4 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
foreign policy decision makers act in the name of states and that, in the
history of any given institution, there are only rare moments of political
openness. But it is precisely in these moments that it becomes more clear
how it is possible not only to describe social phenomena but also to under-
stand their causes.
From this theoretical perspective, we decided to work on selected
moments or turning points, which have been crucial for both the interna-
tional history and the domestic history of Italy: 1861, the year in which the
Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed during the making of modern interna-
tional relations; 1943, when Italy surrendered to the Anglo-Americans
while the international system was shifting towards the age of the Cold
War; 1992, the years in which Italy signed the Treaty of Maastricht in the
aftermath of the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of the
Soviet Union.
In general, historical dates help to mark periods of uncertainty as
well as important decisions. In the history of international relations,
“benchmark dates” are commonly used “to mark important turning
points in the character and/or structure of international relations”
(Buzan and Lawson 2014, p. 438). Despite the importance attached
to particular dates such as, for example the year 1648, the selection of
benchmarks has been the result of academic practice rather than the
output of a theory-based discussion. The notion of benchmarks is
useful but, from a theoretical perspective, the notion of critical junc-
tures in foreign policy is a better tool of analysis. Critical junctures are
considered as moments in which uncertainty as to the future of an
institutional arrangement allows for political agency and choice to play
a decisive causal role (Capoccia 2015). In times of uncertainty, when
multiple institutional options are available, political agents may play a
crucial role in determining which coalition forms in support of what
type of institutional change. This offers the theoretical basis for a
definition of critical junctures in foreign policy: they are relatively
short periods of time during which there is a substantial probability
that agents’ choices will affect the outcome of foreign policy by
choosing one of these options and generating a long-lasting institu-
tional legacy.
Following this methodological approach, the book is structured in six
chapters. In Chapter 2, arguments will be presented in favour of selecting
the dates 1861, 1943 and 1992 as the most relevant to explain “Italy in
international relations”, in particular from a European understanding of
6 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
During the past century, historians have fervently debated over the key
factors shaping historical changes in different ages. At the beginning of
this controversy was the reaction of the members of the French school
of the Annales against the histoire bataille. They criticized the tradi-
tional approach, focused on single events and/or individuals, which
underestimated long-term processes and the role played by structures
and institutions. Regarding international politics, this criticism had an
liberalism shaped the social and political life of the continent. At the same
time, the economic and political developments were included in the
broader process of modernization, which also involved cultural and social
developments. The year 1860 can be therefore exploited as a useful bridge
between the history of modern Europe and 1919, the year generally
accepted as another decisive benchmark date by IR scholars.
The year 1919 is generally considered as a benchmark for two main
reasons. First of all, it redefined the international system adding a super-
national dimension. Following Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points, the League
of Nations was indeed the first main development in the Westphalian
system with the creation of an international organization with an inde-
pendent legal basis. Year 1919 is also crucial because it was the first and
most important step towards the de-Europeanization of IR. It symbolized
the exhaustion of the continental, political and economic force and the
beginning of the power shift towards the United States and the Soviet
Russia, with the rise of three extra-European powers on the international
scene (the USA, the Soviet Union and Japan, representing the emerging
Asian continent). For academics, 1919 also represented the moment that
there emerged a common agreement on the birth in Europe of IR as a
discipline (Dunne et al. 1998).
From the early 1940s, the United States designed a new model of
international community with an updated version of the Wilson’s 14
points. The approach adopted by the Roosevelt administration was indeed
revolutionary. Differently from the Wilsonian approach, which was the
result of a simple intellectual projection, the one of Roosevelt was rooted
in the concrete observation of European politics (Dallek 1995). The
experts who analysed the European situation explained the European crisis
as a lack of having the necessary resources for the economic and political
reconstruction of the continent, the incapacity of the European nations to
restore functioning economies and to recreate commercial and financial
ties, the rise of anti-democratic regimes that could be seen as a result of the
closure of the national economies. In this perspective, the US administra-
tion promoted a new internationalism (Divine 1967). Buzan and Lawson
identify 1942 as a crucial benchmark date to this regard. This year would
symbolize the succeeding formation of the US to Britain liberal hegemony
(Buzan and Lawson 2014, p. 454). But there are strong arguments for
choosing the year after, 1943, as a distinctive benchmark for the interna-
tional system. In this year, the three allied powers decided to periodically
meet at an international high-level conference, with not only the aim of
16 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
setting the rules for the conduct of the war but also to discuss the post-war
global order. The first inter-allied conference took place in January in
Casablanca and set up the principle of the unconditional surrender to be
applied to enemy countries which would surrender to the allied powers.
The following conferences of Cairo and Tehran, which opened the door of
international politics to China, confirmed that Roosevelt had the intention
to rethink the basis of global politics (Sainsbury 1985). The year 1943 can
be seen as the real turning point for Europe because since then the
continent ceased to be the only engine of international politics. In political
terms, this is symbolized by the same inter-allied conferences, in which the
major parts were played by the Soviets and the Americans. The down-
grading of Europe is also symbolized by the case of Italy that will be
discussed later in Chapter 3. The Anglo-American landing in Sicily in the
summer of 1943 represents the first invasion of the European territory
since the last Ottoman expansion of the seventeenth century. This shift of
power from Europe to the extra-European world was confirmed in the
following years. Thus, we can consider 1943 as the beginning of a traslatio
imperii from the British empire to the American one, which was finally
accomplished with the Suez Crisis in 1956 (Owen and Roger 1989).
The process of the westernization of Europe and the consolidation of
an Atlantic community went on until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
This date is selected by many scholars as the last benchmark date with a
European significance. Realists, in particular, attached an important sig-
nificance to this year, since it implies the shift from a bipolar world to a
unipolar one (Hansen 2011). There is, however, a controversy on the
ability of 1989 to explain the global changes which have recently shaped
the world system. Looking at this date from a political perspective, one
cannot deny its weak global significance with regards to continents such as
Asia or Africa. With reference to global balances of power, it does not
perfectly explain the emergence of the United States as a unipolar power.
From this perspective, a date with a stronger explanatory power is prob-
ably 1991 because of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Furthermore,
1989 does not provide an explanation of the technological changes which
would have reshaped the economic and also political balance of power in
the following two decades. From this point of view, the spread of all
television news networks and the World Wide Web from 1991 tells us
much more.
The best solution could be to choose the interlude 1989–1991. It is
still unclear if the emergence of a global security problem, which has its
ITALY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: EUROPEAN . . . 17
United States to invade Iraq and to carry out a war against so-called global
terror (Kagan 2003). In addition, the United States has increased their
search for a global standing, which has to some extent endangered the
traditional transatlantic partnership.
The adjustment to the parameters defined by the Maastricht Treaty and
the following treaties has proven to be challenging for more than one state
of the EU. The economic crisis of 2008 has increased the gap between the
member states of the EU and also inside the so-called Eurozone. Leaving
apart the effects of the crisis on national economies, we see that the crisis
has highlighted the different needs expressed by the European countries.
While the most stable and dynamic countries want to maintain the general
economic stability and prevent destabilizing trends, other countries, espe-
cially the Mediterranean ones, argue for a more dynamic Europe, which is
also expected to promote a significant and shared growth. The political
events culminated with the Brexit vote show that the traditional phenom-
enon of anti-Europeanism is outdated, and we are now experiencing an
“opposition to the EU polity” (de Wilde and Zürn 2012).
The crisis that the EU is now experiencing might raise the question if
the path taken in Maastricht can be reversed or interrupted. Nevertheless,
we believe that Maastricht marked a turning point in the history of
Europe: it gave a model of aggregation to other European countries and
also to the founding member states. We can also imagine that the EU will
continue to serve as a model for non-European states which share the
principle and opportunities offered by the European model. However,
there are also European countries, like Italy, which are between the pure
adaptive countries and the “big” European members, whose weight allows
them to reopen the negotiations on the rules of the process of integration.
The main question, to this regard, is if Italy should be encouraged to act as
a pure adaptive power or as a more independent power. This is the main
dilemma of the current Italian standing on the international scene.
power in the late fifteenth century. On the Italian peninsula, this process
never started and the interaction with foreign invaders became the main
problem of the Italian states (Arnaldi 2009). In the year 1500, which
symbolizes the beginning of a new age in the world after the geographic
discoveries of the Americas, Italy was experiencing one of the most dra-
matic moments in its history. A few years before, in 1494, Charles VIII of
France inaugurated the long season of the Italian wars, which ended only
in 1559 with the peace treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. The absence of a
unification project had a severe and long-lasting impact not only on the
political condition of the Italian peninsula but also generating an identity
problem.
In their commitment to building the new state, the French and Spanish
monarchies used the past to justify their domination and political project
(Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). At the same time, those monarchs acted
to overcome the past and to emphasize the importance of the creative
process that was occurring (Gillis 1994). Such a selective process did not
take place in Italy. As a consequence, the reference to the past had no
practical sense apart from the celebration of the princes and patrons who
fed the writers and artists who celebrated that previous glory. The histor-
ian Federico Chabod perfectly portrayed the perverted relationship
between the humanists and the myths of the past: “like in all the ages
when the passion and political commitment of a tired population decrease,
during the 15th century the foundations of glory are searched among the
ruins of another world. They [the humanists] create a fictitious religiosity,
that will never be able to activate the deep spirit of the nation when the
time of the fight will come” (Chabod 1993, p. 48).
In the Pandora’s box of unmetabolized traditions and myths, the most
relevant one was that of Rome. It survived for five centuries from the fall of
the Western Roman empire and landed in the new millennium. There was
no other model that could compete with the Roman one, not even that of
Venice. The Serenissima, which survived from 742 to 1797, also con-
curred to maintain the greatness of Italy: Pope Gregor VII said that “the
liberty and the true spirit of Rome are expressed in all its vigour by Venice”
(quoted in Rodolico 1954, p. 27). But Venice never inspired the same
sense of greatness and had two structural limits: the first was its incapacity
to address the challenge of modernization (the Republic was structured in
an archaic way, which left no room for change); the second was in the
geopolitical orientation of the Republic, which had a maritime perspective
and could not serve as a model for the territorial unification of the
20 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
which spread in France, Austria, Prussia and also Russia, is very complex
and had very differentiated effects on the European countries. Italy was
touched by this movement in a belated and also superficial way. This
weakness has been explained through the tardiness of the reform process
especially in the South. But the lack of success in enlightening and
Europeanization of Italy was not because of the Italian cultural resistance.
The French historian Pierre Chaunu wrote on this point: “chi può valutare
il peso, nella Toscana del XVIII secolo, del troppo brillante quattrocento o
il peso, per la Roma settecentesca, della Roma imperiale o cristiana?
Troppi uomini, troppo passato” [One cannot understand the role that
the too much brilliant fifteenth century had on the Tuscany of the eight-
eenth century. The same can be said regarding the impact the Christian or
imperial Rome on the Rome of the eighteenth century] (Chaunu 1982).
This overview on Italy in the eighteenth century gives a nuanced
picture of a country which was getting closer and closer to European
culture and politics. At the same time, one get the impression of a country
never willing or able to metabolize its past and completely engage in a
process of modernization and growth. This argument is confirmed by the
analysis of the impact that the largest turmoil of the late modern age – the
French revolution – had on the Italian states. In 1796, Italy witnessed the
second invasion of a French army since 1494. From December of that
year, a project was carried out to transform the Italian states on the basis of
the principles of the revolution. The first concrete change was in the
regimes which were all transformed into republics. The experience of the
Jacobin republics proved to be short lived and we see that also in this case
the Italian ground proved to be less fertile to external influences than
expected (Broers 2005). The penetration of the revolutionary ideals did
not reach the deepest soul of the country not only because of the counter-
action of Austria, Russia, Prussia and Great Britain but also because of the
spontaneous reaction of the Italian people (Meriggi 2002, p. 37). The
Italian insurgencies, which have been biased by a certain historiography as
expressions of ignorance manipulated by the reactionary leading classes,
were in fact the expression of a far deeper sense of identity, which always
lead the Italians to reject any attempt to culturally colonize the country.
An old historiography, deeply influenced by nationalist sentiments, saw
in the troubled eighteenth century the starting point of the Italian
Risorgimento or the awakening of national forces. The poet Giosuè
Carducci considered the Treaty of Aachen as the starting point of what
he called the spiritual Risorgimento. Years later, the historian Ettore Rota
22 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
(Petrignani 1987). Only after the capture of Rome did the alliance’s pro-
blem assume a clearer centrality and France and Germany emerged as the
main reference points for Italy. As the next chapter will demonstrate, the
Triple Alliance, which linked Italy to Germany and Austria-Hungary from
1882 to 1914, drew the attention of the most prominent Italian scholars of
the last century (Salvemini 1944; Serra 1990; Monticone 1971).
However, if the key category for the study of Italian international action
is the one of adjustment to the European system, then the focus should fall
on 1861, when the newly established state had to decide its place on the
European scene. After the failed democratic national revolutions of 1848,
in Italy, as in Germany, the pragmatic political leadership of Piedmont and
Prussia adopted the agenda of nationalism to expand political control.
There are similarities between the two cases, but unlike Germany the new
Italian state formally erased other states of the peninsula from its political
map. Comparing the two national critical junctures, Daniel Ziblatt (2006,
pp. 6–24) accorded relevance to the highly developed infrastructural
power of the German subunits. This factor would explain the two different
domestic outcomes: Italy’s centralism and Germany’s federalism.
However, looking at the international system, we can recognize a major
shift occurred in 1860 from a “polycentric world with no dominant
center” (Buzan and Lawson 2013, p. 625) to a core–periphery hierarchical
international order in which the leading edge was in northwestern Europe,
Great Britain and France. In 1860, nationalism, socialism and liberalism
shaped the social and political life of Europe. At the same time, during this
period, the economic and political developments were included in the
broader process of modernization. The role of industrialization in gener-
ating a core–periphery world market was conjoined with the emergence of
the “rational state” (ivi, p. 628). In a sort of retrospective “case fitting”,
we can conclude that the Italian élite choose the centralized and rational
French model for national social and political development. This choice
immediately influenced the foreign policy alliances.
Italy had to face the same problem of choosing an external model at the
end of the First World War. In 1919, the Italian leading class did not
understand the challenges of the peace settlement: the Italian delegation
focused exclusively on the Italian territorial requests, showing no or little
interest for the German question or for the main global issues (Pombeni
1999). Year 1919 was a decisive year, but in a completely different sense
when compared with 1861. It symbolizes the clash between the adjust-
ment to the international system and the forces which were shaping the
ITALY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: EUROPEAN . . . 25
ruled for the previous 40 years; terrorist attacks against magistrates carried
out by the Mafia; the unexpected downgrading of the Italian economic
outlook, which pulled the Lira out from the European Monetary System.
The vacuum generated by the crisis of 1992–1993 was filled by new
political forces and by the attempt to establish a new political system, the
so-called Second Republic. The change in the political system has
attracted the interest of scholars, who have attempted to explain the nature
of the new political forces and especially the “Berlusconi phenomenon”
that emerged in 1994. The importance attached to the change in the
political system has also influenced the research on foreign policy and
IR. The main question that researchers have attempted to answer refers
to a supposed new bipartisan path in foreign policy. But scholars have also
attempted to address the novelty of Berlusconi, who believed that Italy
had to follow its own process of civilian, economic and political develop-
ment. This proposal went against the belief that Italy should be an adap-
tive country and that in the adjustment to the EU Italy would accomplish
its process of development. As a political entrepreneur, Berlusconi failed to
mobilize the necessary coalition to achieve his goals. The year 1992
remains a “near-miss critical juncture” since it opened a rather protracted
phase of national incertitude. The problem is that “the longer the junc-
ture, the higher the probability that political decisions will be constrained
by some reemerging structural constraint” (Capoccia and Kelemen 2007,
p. 351). However, as we shall see, the adoption of this interpretation
brings us to see in 1992 a date more important than 1989 or 1991.
Similarly to 1943, in 1992 a governing minority decided to impose the
adjustment of the country to the European system under construction.
The main difference between 1943 and 1992 is in the fact that the
adjustment to the system embedded in the Maastricht Treaty has proven
to be much more controversial than was expected.
CHAPTER 3
was Ugo Foscolo, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century embo-
died the prototype of the national poet deeply influenced by the ideas and
ambitions of the French Revolution. By the end of the nineteenth century,
when the French hegemony was replaced by the German one, the myth of
Rome was used in the same way.
Elaborating on the importance of myths in the history of Italy, one can
argue that their role in the process of nation-building has been much
larger than in other Western European countries. Myths have played a
crucial role in the process of nation-building of each country, since they
contributed to generate a preliminary common identity upon which the
state could flourish. In the European history of the nineteenth century,
however, myths became crucial for those nations which were not yet
independent, giving them the inspiration to fight against pre-existing
empires and consolidate structures of power. This is especially true for
the Balkan countries, from Greece to Bulgaria to Serbia, for which histor-
ical myths, mixed with surviving Christian beliefs, contributed to the fight
against the Ottoman domination. This was also true for Italy but in a
particular way. As stated in Chapter 2, Giosuè Carducci considered the
Treaty of Aachen (1748) as the beginning of what he called the spiritual
Risorgimento. This movement was not homogeneous and included peo-
ple with opposing visions of the values which should inspire Italian poli-
tics. But for them, the glorious past of Rome and the classical myths were
an instrument to mark both the Italian identity from the Austrian dom-
ination as well as from the cultural invasion of the French revolution.
These powerful myths strongly contributed to the process of nation-
building. After the accomplishment of unification, they continued to be
an inspiring factor for the Italian leadership and, as we shall see, while they
led to many successes they also contributed to some epic failures.
The third peculiarity of Italy, which became clear from the sixteenth
century, refers to the changing geopolitical picture of Europe. Intellectual
elites from that century witnessed the Italian soil being the favourite
battleground for foreign armies and mercenaries. This was and continued
to be the symbol of the incapacity of the Italian states to prevent external
invasions and was a source of personal frustration for many of them. But it
was also the confirmation of the geostrategic importance of the peninsula
for the major European countries. The entire history of modern Europe
confirms that the control of Italy was crucial in the hegemonic fight
between the leading powers of the time: initially between France and
Spain and from the eighteenth century between Austria and France.
MARCH 1861. THE CHALLENGING MYTH OF THE POST-IMPERIAL LEGACY 35
England, from the perspective of the leading naval power, also considered
the settlement of the peninsula a crucial factor for the balance of power in
the Mediterranean.
Intellectuals and politicians of Italy were always aware of the fact the
Italian question was a purely international one. The main barrier to uni-
fication was the agreement between major European powers to maintain
the country divided. But exactly for this reason, as the Count of Cavour
(1810–1861) would have understood, an incentive could have emerged in
the same European major powers to support the process of national
unification. After the Congress of Vienna of 1815, which confirmed the
division of the peninsula into different states incorporated in two spheres
of influences, a debate spread on the factors which could have solved the
Italian question. Intellectuals belonging to the so-called neo-Guelph
movement argued that the solution to the Italian question could not be
achieved without the explicit consensus and support of Austria. Cesare
Balbo, who served as prime minister in the Kindom of Piedmont, was the
most notorious interpreter of this school of thought. From the 1820s, he
analysed the geopolitical re-orientation of the Austrian empire towards the
Balkans, referring to what he called inorientamento (or the process of
Easternization). In his view, the Italian unification, which he believed
should be a confederate form under the presidency of the Pope, could
only be possible after the Austrian empire shifted its geopolitical centre to
the Balkans and abandoned the Italian territories.
The peculiarity of the Italian situation was perfectly understood by
Cavour and the Piedmont elite, who contributed to the accomplishment
of unification from the end of the Crimean War (1856), with the first
attempts to address the Italian question at the Paris conference and later
the proclamation of the Kindom of Italy (1861). Cavour elaborated the
idea that the Italian question could only be solved at the European level
and one of the most important actions he took as prime minister of
Piedmont was to obtain the right to present the issue at the Congress of
Paris in 1856. In the following years, Cavour accomplished the unification
of the country through a political project which incorporated the national
military campaign into a broader design of European diplomacy.
Given the lack of extensive military and economic power and con-
sidering the geostrategic importance of the country, the Italian gov-
ernments always had to pursue their goals through alliances with one
(or two) major European powers. To this regard, the year 1861
represents a national critical juncture which incorporates all the
36 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
3.2 UNIFIED ITALY: THE LEGACY OF THE PAST AND THE ROLE
OF FOREIGN POLICY
power. For all these reasons, there were few incentives for Mussolini to
modify the existing order. But despite Mussolini’s intentions, the evolu-
tion or, more correctly, the involution in European politics was such a
game-changer that it made it impossible for Italy to carry out its traditional
foreign policy.
The European interwar crisis changed the meaning and value that
alliances traditionally held for Italy. The basic assumption of Italian for-
eign policy was that the main continental powers, namely Germany and
France, should be in competition for political and cultural predominance.
This was Mussolini’s expectation after his appointment as prime minister.
For him, the survival of the axis with Paris and London should have served
as an instrument of containment for German revisionism. The Italian
diplomatic documents confirm that during the 1920s, Mussolini acted
on the European scene with a conservative approach, in order not to waste
the heritage of Versailles. All the initiatives of Mussolini’s foreign policy in
the first phase were in fact aimed at backing the Versailles’ order. The main
instrument of this policy was the promotion of Austrian independence.
From the perspective of Mussolini, this alliance had another purpose,
i.e. to serve the greatness of Fascist Italy at the international level.
Mussolini had the burden to reinvent Italian foreign policy after the
mission of national unification was accomplished. Old myths, in particular
the imperial one, proved to still be useful (Arthurs 2012). Imperial ambi-
tions did not belong to the Fascist heritage, considering the Socialist
DNA, and can be viewed as an old-fashioned nationalist myth. But once
the regime was consolidated with the Lateran Pacts which regulated the
relationship between the State and the Vatican in 1929, Mussolini under-
stood the potential of the imperial idea, which consisted both in the
vindication of Adua and, at the same time, in the increase of the Italian
influence in the Balkans. In Mussolini’s view, this project had to be
accomplished with the support of France and Great Britain and should
have been a continuation of the Risorgimento, whose success was based
on the alliance with London and Paris. Mussolini was also confident in
overcoming the traditional hostility of both the French and British
towards Italian imperialism. He believed that the Italian commitment to
erecting a firewall to German revisionism entailed a “green light” from
London and Paris to the Italian colonial project.
Mussolini’s strategy proved to be wrong when in 1935 he understood
that both France and Great Britain did not share his assessment of the
German revisionist threat. The Anglo-German naval agreement of that
MARCH 1861. THE CHALLENGING MYTH OF THE POST-IMPERIAL LEGACY 43
decisions taken by the Duce, even though this promise could endanger
the national interest. It is for this reason that the Italian government
decided to respect the Pact of Steel even when it became clear that this
was in contrast with national interests and goals. One can argue that
Fascism, despite its hyper-nationalist self-representation, acted as an anti-
national force.
Another contradiction generated during Fascism refers to the nexus
between the action in the international arena and the domestic political
regime. As observed above, alliances also operated as a vincolo esterno,
orientating the reform process and thus contributing to the definition of
the political, social and economic patterns of development. As already
discussed, between 1861 and 1915, both France and Germany served as
a model for the development of the young nation. Mussolini was the first
Italian leader who officially refused to refer to a foreign model and
asserted the original nature of the Italian political system. In order to
legitimate his movement, the Duce adopted a rhetoric based on the
novelty of Fascism in comparison to the decadent regimes in force
among the main European powers. The Duce targeted not only the old
decadent parliamentary democracies of France and Great Britain but also
Germany during the Weimar Republic. Mussolini finally claimed that
Fascism was not for export. By doing so, he officially refused to include
Italian Fascism in the galaxy of European Fascism, also rejecting any
strict correlation with Hitler’s movement. The capacity of Mussolini to
limit the Italian dependence on foreign models is debatable. According
to recent interpretations, however, from the 1930s, the foreign policy
dimension started to have influence again over the domestic dimension
of Italy. Philip Morgan (2007), for instance, speaks in favour of a nexus
between the domestic fascistization of the late 1930s and the German
connection in foreign policy.
Since the very beginning, the Fascist movement had played on the
general sentiment of the vittoria mutilata, considering Italy as winner in
war but defeated in peace. In this propagandistic context, Mussolini tried
to cope with national dissatisfactions claiming a more powerful interna-
tional position for the country. Particularly, he insisted on the necessity to
benefit from the reannexation of Trieste, projecting Italy initially into the
Adriatic sea and, along this route, into Africa and Asia through the eastern
Mediterranean. Already in 1926, his government considered the oppor-
tunities to implement this “new course of Adriatic policy” (Cattaruzza
2014, p. 183). Ethiopia’s subjection to Italian rule, between 1935 and
MARCH 1861. THE CHALLENGING MYTH OF THE POST-IMPERIAL LEGACY 45
1936, is often seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for the
Second World War. The Italo-Ethiopian war demonstrated both the
infectiveness of the League of Nations and the responsibilities of the
Italian colonialism. This new course had a long-term geopolitical bias
based on the doctrine of mare nostrum, thought as a combination of sea
power and land power (Diodato 2014, pp. 72–83). Yet this singular
geopolitical synthesis was subordinated to bolster economic policies in
the Danubian–Balkan region in the aftermath of the economic crisis of
1929. Making the Mediterranean an Italian mare nostrum, as it was during
the continental Roman empire and the maritime Venetian republic, would
have meant for Mussolini to think this area as a strategic pivot of a “Euro-
African heartland” in order to promote economic interests. On September
1937, the new course of foreign policy chanced an important episode
during an academic re-encounter, when national education minister
Giuseppe Bottai asked the Italian geographers to promote an Italian
geopolitics independent from the German Geopolitik (Sinibaldi 2010,
p. 11). Later, on January 1939, the journal Geopolitica began its publica-
tion in Trieste with Bottai’s support and the scientific direction of two
geographers, Giorgio Roletto and Ernesto Massi. Having had the oppor-
tunity to meet Mussolini, the editors of the journal interpreted the Fascist
geopolitics into a new theoretical framework for foreign policy.
Leaving apart the heated debate on the relationship between Fascism
and Nazism (or between geopolitica and Geopolitik) and on the subjuga-
tion of the first to the second, we can argue here that the establishment of
an alliance with Germany was not accompanied by a recognition of the
role that Germany could play for the civil and political growth of the
Italian nation. On the contrary, Mussolini always contrasted all the
attempts to Germanize and Nazify Italy. It can even be argued that in
Mussolini’s perspective, the aversion against Germany was stronger than
the anti-British and anti-French sentiment. His anti-democratic sentiment
(which led him to put together France and Great Britain) was less stronger
than the opposition to the German political and ideological programme.
Mussolini and the Fascist intellighenzia perceived the German ideology as
a cultural threat to Italian primacy in Europe. The idea of the supremacy of
the Italian civilization was widespread in the cultural debate of the late-
1930s and early 1940s, and many initiatives were implemented to contrast
the German hegemonic attempt. The most significant case is probably
Primato, the most famous cultural review edited by Bottai, that was often
expressed in terms of superiority over the German culture. One can also
46 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
and 1947 (the signature of the peace treaty and the establishment of a
closer cooperation with the United States). In those years, alliances, in this
case with the Western powers, started again to play a key role, contributing
to the protection and promotion of the international standing of the
country. As in the past, the international alliance served as an instrument
to change the political system, promoting the values of liberal democracy.
In the same years, myths started again to influence and inspire the national
and international politics of the country. The aspiration to restore the
grandeur of Italy contributed to the definition of the regional dimension
of Italian foreign policy, especially in the Mediterranean area. As will be
discussed in the next chapter, the new stage of Italian foreign policy
inaugurated in 1943 witnessed a coexistence between the adaptation to
the new international order and the prosecution of old myths and
ambitions.
CHAPTER 4
Abstract This chapter examines the main features of Italian foreign policy
from the fall of Fascism to the establishment of the European Union. It
provides a critical assessment of the process of democratic transition,
evaluating its impact on the foreign policymaking of the country. It
analyses the contradiction between the alignment to the West and to the
European Community and the search for a more independent standing in
the international arena (especially in the Mediterranean). Finally, it dis-
cusses the reasons behind the incapacity of the country to act as a pure
adaptive “middle power”, challenging the European order and searching a
third way in the Mediterranean.
relations could penetrate the political system, imposing their own logic.
But subsequent events showed that by adopting a solid strategy of inter-
national adaptation and re-legitimization, Italy could preserve its indepen-
dence. The international constraints of the bipolar system did not overpass
assertive aspirations that animated and still animate public debate about
national preferences and international choices. Italy became an adaptive
power, but Italy chose an “internationalist policy” only in order to pro-
mote national goals. By the mid-1950s, the Italian governments were able
to act with greater autonomy, equidistance and neutrality, especially in the
Mediterranean. It is true that Italy’s policy of presenza (the desire to act as
a mediator and conciliator in the Cold War) soon became proverbial and
frequently derided at home and in diplomatic circles. Italian foreign policy
was described as merely a reflection of domestic manoeuvres, greatly
fragmented, mostly conceived for internal consumption and probably
motivated by “the tradition of sacro egoismo” (Kogan 1963, p. 153). But
in the context of the Cold War, namely in the condition of a border
country lying in the Mediterranean region, security constraints were also
relevant.
The nexus between national culture, such as the presence of mythological
burden, and geopolitical constraints, such as the objective or perceived
obstacle in adapting to the international system, is crucial and lies in the
historical formation of a democratic sociopolitical coalition after the capitu-
lation. In our opinion, a broad interpretation of the notion of blocco storico
well illustrates the rise of a republican and democratic élite primarily inter-
ested in modernizing Italy while preserving its peculiarities. Over time, a
hegemonic social bloc was able to handle changes and difficulties involving
different elements and creating a larger unity. As we shall see, this hegemonic
bloc was led by the Cristian Democratic Party (Democrazia Cristiana [DC])
and arose through a particular understanding of the international as a
historical rather than ideological category. This development was inter-
rupted only with the end of the Cold War, when a republican turn occurred
in Italy. The mode of political adaptation – that we define as international
adjustment – does not result from rational calculation but originates “in the
cultural impulse, historical precedents, and structural circumstances”
(Rosenau 1981, p. 14). Nonetheless, it is important to emphasize that the
mode of adaptation followed by any political entity is a matter of choices:
“The maneuvering of states within national and international arenas can be
conceived of as controlled by strategies that states develop to cope with
adjustment problems” (Ikenberry 1986, p. 57).
SEPTEMBER 1943. DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION . . . 51
in turn receives help from the Allies. However, the announcement of the
armistice on 8 September marked a decisive turning point in Italy’s inter-
nal affairs. According to Elena Aga Rossi (2000, p. 1), it was “a symbol not
only of the total collapse and dissolution of the state, but also of a deeply
rooted crisis of the nation itself”.
From the last part of 1940, British propaganda had stressed that one man
alone was responsible for the Italian decision to enter the war. The purpose of
the propaganda was to induce the Italians to dissociate themselves from
Mussolini. The British government accorded great relevance to the possibility
of Italy’s disengagement from Germany, in particular for the military con-
sequences of this decision on the Mediterranean front. After entering the war
in December 1941, the United States was in favour of an anti-fascist move-
ment led by the diplomat and liberal politician Carlo Sforza (at that time in
exile in the United States). Roosevelt himself thought to apply the principle of
unconditional surrender only to Germany and Japan, excluding Italy from the
capitulation in order to encourage the regime’s collapse. But the Italian
peninsula was only a part of the complex military strategy of the three great
powers, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The uncondi-
tional surrender principle was finally adopted against Italy when the Allies
decided on the military landing in Sicily which occurred on 10 July 1943. To
some extent, “Italy constituted the acid test both for applying the principle
and for settling the differences between contrasting viewpoints” (ivi, p. 27).
From the overthrow of Mussolini on 25 July to the announcement of
the armistice on 8 September 1943, the new Badoglio government and
King Vittorio Emanuele III did not adopt operative measures against the
German plans to rule Italy in the case of capitulation. The Brenner Pass
was not closed to prevent the entry of Hitler’s divisions. Probably, the
government overestimated its own ability in negotiating the armistice:
“the idea cultivated by Fascism that Italy had become a ‘great power’
did not disappear” (ivi, p. 60). But Italy was a defeated country and the
Italian government was not allowed to see the conditions of capitulation
before accepting them. After the armistice and the Italian failure to defend
Rome against the Germans, the Anglo-American troops that controlled
southern Italy advanced into the German-occupied north. As a conse-
quence of the army’s disarray, the peninsula became one of the main
frontlines of the war for 20 months. Although the position of Italy had
formally changed from that of enemy to that of cobelligerent, the country
was to experience the most difficult part of its participation in Second
World War.
SEPTEMBER 1943. DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION . . . 53
finally stated that “even the sentenced to death are wont to second meekly
in their gesture the executioner who puts them to death. But approval,
no!” (ivi, p. 6171).
When this debate took place on 24 July 1947, the main political
forces in Parliament were the DCs, the Socialists (PSIUP) and the
Communists. At that time, they still cooperated in special committees
to design and propose the draft Constitution that would finally be
approved on 22 December. The three main parties agreed on the
measures to be taken in the Constitution to prevent the resurgence
of Fascism. But in March 1947, the fragile power-sharing deal in the
coalition government had been replaced by a growing antagonism
between the Socialists and the Communist, on the one side, and the
DCs, on the other. The period of national unity started in 1944 and
which had reflected the post-war climate of international solidarity,
ended definitively at the end of May 1947, namely 2 months before
the parliamentary debate on the peace treaty.
There are many reasons for this political outcome, but the major cause
goes back to the armistice of September 1943. After the capitulation, Italy
faced political and administrative uncertainly, if not chaos, provoked by
the violent collapse of the fascist regime and the consequent military
occupation. In addition, the Italian economy had suffered greatly from
the effects of the war. Although industry in the northwest had survived
and small quantities of raw materials were available to restart production,
most of the infrastructures, communications and industrial centres were
gravely damaged by air strikes (Kogan 1981). Furthermore, the recon-
struction was hampered by a lack of monetary reserves and, above all, by a
negative balance of payment. In these circumstances, the Bank of Italy was
called upon to play an important role in the necessity to restore financial
stability as precondition for recovery. This belief was shared by Alcide De
Gasperi, the Christian Democratic prime minister, who felt increasingly
frustrated by the concessions he had to make to his left-wing coalition
partners (Socialist and Communist).
In March 1947, the Italian government signed an agreement to imple-
ment the post-war monetary system of Bretton Woods. This international
anchorage would have allowed Italy to adopt stability-oriented policies,
aimed at fighting inflation and reducing deficit. But it was exactly this
choice that caused the exclusion of Socialists and Communists by the
government (Clement 2015, p. 77). On 31 May, De Gasperi took a leap
of faith and announced the formation of a new DC-dominated cabinet,
SEPTEMBER 1943. DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION . . . 57
from which the Socialists and the Communists were ousted and “to large
extent replaced by liberal-minded technocrats, the most important of
whom was central bank Governor Luigi Einaudi as the new Minister of
the Budget and Deputy Prime Minister” (ivi, p. 79).
In the beginning, the Socialists and Communists alike had shared the
idea that the peace treaty was not a sentence of capitulation, but rather the
way to become an adaptive power. But on 31 July 1947, when the Assembly
finally ratified the treaty after 1 week of hard debate, they dissociated from
the approval interpreting the international document as nothing more than
the prerequisite to increase financial assistance from the United States. In
their opinion, this represented a move towards the Western camp against
the Soviet Union. This interpretation was not at all wrong. Despite the
claims of Croce, De Gasperi and Sforza wanted to reaffirm a solid strategy of
international re-legitimization by entering into the Western camp. Secular
liberals (including Republican Sforza) and DCs that were often in clear
disagreement before the Second World War found a common ground on
foreign policy (Varsori 2010, p. 66). With the left-wing forces ousted from
cabinet, the reshaping of the domestic political system opened a new phase
for Italian foreign policy. The US invitation to the July 1947 Paris con-
ference, which launched the Marshall Plan, was the real “first step toward
the international rehabilitation of Italy” (Nuti 2011, p. 32). The approval of
the peace treaty at the end of the same month became a sort of second step:
the definitive move on the tracks of Italy’s post-Second World War foreign
policy. This reorientation of Italy’s foreign policy towards the West, of
course, was largely influenced by the incumbent logic of the Cold War.
But the new pattern of post-war Italian foreign policy was not born over-
night. It was the outcome of a thorough reshaping of the domestic political
system from 1944 to 1947, as well as of a “difficult process of adjustment to
the new realities of the bipolar era” (ivi, p. 29).
The alliance between the DCs and the liberal-minded technocrats
found its compactness when the Bank of Italy, branches of industry, the
military and also the Vatican chose a certain role in the Western system.
According to Ennio Di Nolfo (1979, p. 107), “more than undergo an
external dictation, they chose to rebuild the country by starting it in a
certain direction”. This hegemonic blocco storico emerged despite the fact
that the three anti-fascist political parties, which had fought together in
the Resistenza, remained the major forces of the Italian political system.
Between 1947 and 1948, increasing tensions involving the West and the
Soviet Union broke out into open confrontation. The Italian election
58 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
began to take shape and, within the space a few years, it was definitively
strengthened thanks to the process of the European integration. In this
way, the international system definitively became the anchor to modernize
the country’s economy and consolidate its democracy, overcoming the
contradiction produced by the unconditional surrender.
foreign minister added that, after the general election, democratic Italy
was ready for any limitation of national sovereignty in order to promote a
“federal Europe” (ivi, pp. 488–491).
De Gasperi and Sforza worked together to create close economic ties
with other European countries, in particular France. On 18 April 1951,
they finally supported the idea of European integration by approving the
Schuman Plan and establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.
Although Italy’s post-war foreign policy was undoubtedly characterized
by a strong European perspective, this foreign policy reorientation took
place in the midst of international and domestic difficulties. On the inter-
national front, difficulties emerged with regard to perspectives on national
security, in particular over the opportunity to combine the European
defence system with NATO. On the domestic front, the government
faced unstable trends in public opinion and the emergence of neutralist
positions in the Vatican. Italy’s European foreign policy “took shape only
through a slow and continuous process of adaptation, without being able
to avoid all the shots and effects of the general situation” (Vigezzi 1997,
p. 307). But De Gasperi and Sforza were finally able “to coordinate several
elements, sometimes relatively heterogeneous, and they got it pretty well
when it came time to pull the strings” (ibid).
Italy’s European foreign policy remained for a long time the subject of
domestic political disputes. In order to understand the development of
Italy’s foreign policy towards Europe, it should be noted that the Italian
political system underwent remarkable changes throughout the Cold War.
Two major turning points can be outlined. The first occurred in 1963,
when the Socialists returned to government with the first cabinet of Aldo
Moro. Since 1956, the Socialists progressively moved further away from
their original position of anti-Atlanticism and Euroscepticism. This move
finally led them to the “acceptance of NATO as a ‘purely defensive’
organization and as a pillar of the international order, as Nenni defined
it in a parliamentary debate of January 1962” (Brighi 2013, p. 104). The
Socialist leader Pietro Nenni, who preceded Sforza as foreign minister,
returned to that role in 1968 with the first cabinet of Mariano Rumor. The
second turning point occurred in the mid-1970s, when the Communist
leader Enrico Berlinguer in a famous interview with Il Corriere della Sera
in June 1976 declared that the Communists accepted “the Western pillars
of Italian foreign policy” (ivi, p. 96), that is to say NATO and the
European community (EC). According to these two turning points,
three phases can be outlined:
SEPTEMBER 1943. DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION . . . 61
• During the first phase (from the general election of 1948 to the first
turning point in the mid-1960s), the dynamics of the Italian political
system are well explained using the thesis of “polarized pluralism”
(Sartori 1982). The attempt of the DC party to extend the centre
towards the right and the left, by including in the coalition govern-
ments secular liberals and later the Socialists, was a tactical reaction
to the centrifugal drives which would otherwise determine a pro-
gressive polarization of the political spectrum. In this way, the coali-
tion governments converged towards the centre of the spectrum
with a proper degree of cooperation, particularly in foreign policy;
• During the second phase (between the two turning points in the
mid-1960s and in the mid-1970s), there was a new trend towards an
“imperfect two-party system” (Galli 1996), namely a firm competi-
tion between DC-dominated cabinets and PCI. DCs maintained
their crucial function in the managing of the political system. But
the specific institutional setting of Italy, with a strong Parliament
compared to short governments, prevented the total isolation of the
Communists. The opportunities to exercise influence created condi-
tions for gradually reducing the anti-system attitude of this party.
Through a process of ideological transformation, the PCI tried to
become a normal force of opposition in a democratic system;
• In the following third phase (from the mid-1970s to the end of the
Cold War), the compromesso storico between DCs and Communists
experienced a partial success in the realization of a government of
national solidarity (1978–79). But the participation of Communists
in government failed as a consequence of the economic and social
crisis of the 1970s, when Italy experienced terrorism, institutional
crisis, poor economic performance, and was not able to renew its
Western choice.
the Secretary General of foreign ministry Vittorio Zoppi, Sforza wrote “all
have declared themselves against the participation of Turkey. The reasons
are those that one can imagine; plus a kind of self-righteous horror of
northern Protestants towards the Turks, Muslims, Mediterranean”
(quoted in Malgeri 2006, p. 185 italics in English). The Italian attitude
towards the defence issue was one of prudence, aimed, on the one hand, at
overcoming difficulties among the Western allies, and, on the other, to
secure the Mediterranean front. As we will see, this attitude produced
remarkable changes throughout the three phases.
It is often said that chronic domestic political instability, poor policy
coordination and week administrative structure have consistently under-
mined Italy’s political influence in Europe (Daniels 1998). Different
perspectives can be adopted in order to analyse the relationship between
Italy and the European institutions. But, all things considered, Italian
authorities have always been cautious in dealing with security and defence
problems, looking for NATO support in the Mediterranean. This has
influenced the Italian commitment to implement a European foreign
policy. It is not easy to evaluate the degree of Europeanization in Italy’s
foreign policy, both during the years of the EC and, later, within the EU,
when member states committed themselves to a common foreign and
security policy. But it is not surprising that the traditional and absolute
(and most of time rather passive) Italian reliance on the EC/EU has
paradoxically produced “ever stronger incentives to free ride” (Brighi
2011, pp. 57–58).
Moving on to economic and social cohesion, it is useful to remember
that this dimension is the most important expression of interstate solidarity
in Europe. Cohesion is the European policy of reducing structural dispa-
rities between countries and regions, while promoting equal opportunities
for all individuals. More specifically, the immigration policy and the so-
called structural funds are involved in this dimension of the process of
European integration. The Italian government always insisted on ensuring
free movement of labour and protection for all European workers, as
already witnessed during the negotiating of the Schuman Plan. But the
purpose beyond this federal ideal on mobility was to safeguard the Italian
emigrants in northern Europe. Italy always called for the introduction of
structural funds in order to give financial support to underdeveloped
regions. But in this case, the purpose was also to assist southern Italy
(Varsori 2010, p. 86 and p. 142). The problem of immigrant workers and
the issue of regional development changed over time. Initially, the most
64 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
World War, two severe economic crises erupted in 1974 and 1976.
Furthermore, to speak of what the 1970s represented in Italy’s political
history is also to speak of social crisis and political tensions including
domestic terrorism.
The overall national situation was indubitably complicated by the
United States’ decision to end the dollar’s convertibility into gold in
1971 and by the oil crisis that erupted in 1973. In this context of inter-
national instability, the economic crisis and social unrest affected each
other. In order to face the crisis, the EC member states had already tried
to protect their economies introducing the so-called monetary snake.
Later, when the EMS took effect in 1978, the Italian government decided
for immediate membership despite its serious economic difficulties. For
the second time in its republican history, Italy made an international
choice to face domestic problems and recover the national economy. A
central role was once again played by the Bank of Italy and a group of
technocrats. The Communists opposed this decision because, according
to Roberto Gualtieri, “the European constrain (vincolo europeo) did not
constitute an independent exogenous variable [ . . . ] it was a political
instrument which operated within a confrontation between different
options in the Italian ruling class, each of which was based on a specific
and different ‘combination’ of domestic and international dimension of
development” (Gualtieri 2009, p. 318).
In 1979, the announcement of the possibility to install the so-called
Euromissiles in Italy further strengthened the Communist opposition.
The subsequent deployment of the Cruise missiles facilitated “a policy of
marginalization of the Communist party and the reprise of an alternative
domestic line-up” (Nuti 2011, p. 41). However, when the contrast
between different options on economy and defence increased in the
1980s, the Communists adopted a pacifist position maintaining a pro-
European and a pro-Western attitude. The turning point of the mid-
1970s marked, by this time, a decisive break with respect to the period
in which the PCI’s leader Palmiro Togliatti emphasized the backwardness
of Italy, trying to create a counter-hegemonic bloc through an alliance
with the national bourgeoisie most afraid of the “Atlantic organization of
the European trade” (Galante 1992, pp. 178–179). From the 1940s to
1960s, Togliatti had tried to break the link between international and
domestic politics, proposing a national way towards a polycentric world
system (Vacca 1991, pp. 130–138 and 198–217). This perspective dis-
appeared in the mid-1970s with the progressive convergence of PCI
66 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
towards the acceptance of the two pillars of the Western camp. The reprise
of an alternative domestic line-up in the 1980s pushed the Communists to
adopt an only more eurosceptic and pacifist position.
In conclusion, Italy participated in the process of European integration
aspiring to become a European middle power, but facing difficulties
throughout the three phases: on the one side, federal ideals of the
European political integration and the need to modernize national econ-
omy and society strengthened each other and in the same suitable direc-
tion; on the other side, Italy progressively accepted increasing constraints
on monetary and fiscal issues, while defence and foreign issues were
subordinated to the Atlantic anchor. After all, it was not easy to be a
European middle power accepting monetary constraints while trying to
anchor defence issues to the Atlantic system. As we will go on to see in the
next paragraph, the re-emergence of Cold War tensions in the 1980s
allowed Italy to resume its role as a NATO stalwart in the
Mediterranean. But it was exactly during this last phase, with the margin-
alization of the Communist party, that Italy was not able to find a com-
mon path to renovate its Western and European choices.
the second school. On 11 September 1951, during the trade show Fiera
del Levante in Bari, and in the presence of an Egyptian delegation, Taviani
delivered a passionate speech which received widespread diffusion in Italy
and Egypt. He stated “two worlds meet in the Mediterranean: Christian
Europe and Islam. In this meeting, Italy is certainly one of the main
protagonists and sometimes even the interpreter. It belongs to Europe.
But Europe throws Italy as a bridge to the East (levante). So we intend our
Mediterranean consciousness” (quoted in Pizzigallo 2008, p. 49). The
following October, the Egyptian government unilaterally abrogated its
historical tie of alliance with Great Britain. This act inaugurated the end of
European colonialism in the Mediterranean. During a parliamentary
debate on foreign policy, De Gasperi himself underlined the historical
amity between Italy and Egypt and the Italian support to all national
aspirations in the Mediterranean. He stated, “Italy follows closely the
developments of the crisis and will be pleased if there will be the oppor-
tunity to help in solving the difficulties and reconciling the legitimate
aspirations of those peoples with the need to defend the common
Mediterranean civilization” (quoted in Onelli 2012, p. 115). For the
first time, De Gasperi officially stated that Italy could function as mediator,
involving all the Islamic states and avoiding the use of military force in the
Mediterranean. In this way, he inaugurated a policy of potential neutrality
in international crises. This was a partial remake of the clean hands’
formula of the liberal epoch, but certainly not the end of the post-war
policy of not isolation.
When the De Gasperi era finished in 1953, the politics of neutrality and
equidistance developed within a wider spectrum, including the recogni-
tion of China without US approval and the policy of rapprochement with
the Soviet camp. But it was Italian politics in Egypt from 1951 to 1956
that was the incubator of what was later called neo-atlantismo (Onelli
2013). According to this new doctrine, the strategic collaboration with
the United States should have been flanked by an autonomous commit-
ment to international dialogue with postcolonial countries, especially in
the Mediterranean. Without any doubt, the Mediterranean basin became
the “centre of neo-Atlanticism” (De Leonardis 2014, pp. 329ff). The
political guidelines of this policy were developed in the decade between
1958 and 1968 by Amintore Fanfani, who was prime minister and foreign
minister several times (Giovagnoli and Tosi 2010). But significant accel-
eration in this direction had already occurred in 1954, as a consequence of
the partial settlement of the dispute on Trieste, and in 1955, with the
70 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
Abstract The year 1992 marked a turning point in European and Italian
history. The Treaty of Maastricht established a new political and institu-
tional framework for European countries. The chapter suggests ways to
understand the last two decades of Italian foreign policy and to design the
future scenarios of Italian foreign policy: the decision made by Italian
government to anchor Italy to the European Monetary Union was in
line with the rationale of Italian foreign policy. At the same time, this
new European external constrain (vincolo esterno) is progressively loosing
appeal among the Italians. Nevertheless, Italy can still contribute to the
strengthening of the European Union.
policymaking process. Actually, states differ from each other not only in
terms of military power and national resources (such as economic output)
that can be employed in the international arena but also in terms of their
ability to implement foreign policy (according to the nature of the domes-
tic regime). There is no primacy which can be determined a priori:
strategic adjustments to the international environment occur only when
an organizational predisposition of states towards stasis can be overcome.
This implies a nuanced understanding of foreign policy: neither the inter-
national primacy of realist views nor the domestic primacy of liberal views
can fully catch the dialectic interplay between domestic politics and inter-
national politics and its influence on outcomes.
This understanding is very relevant in the case of Italy when choosing
the critical juncture of 1992. In 1943, the domestic–international inter-
play was crucially mediated by discourses on national preferences and, in
particular, by the evolution of a specific blocco storico primarily interested in
modernizing the country while preserving its peculiarities. As we shall see,
a new hegemonic bloc did not emerge in Italy after the end of the Cold
War. According to the theory of critical junctures, turning points should
be relatively short periods of time during which there is a substantial
probability that agents’ choices will affect the outcome of foreign policy
and generate a long-lasting institutional legacy. But if uncertainty as to the
future is rather protracted or the period of transition is longer, then
political and social forces may lose the momentum for change. Equally,
this could result in the greater probability that political decisions will be
constrained by some re-emerging structural pattern (Capoccia and
Kelemen 2007, p. 351).
Since the 1990s, Italy undoubtedly moved into a new phase of its
republican history. This period followed the end of the Cold War and it
developed together with the implementation of the Treaty of Maastricht.
As already argued in Chapter 2, the European agreement signed in 1992
can be seen as a turning point for all of Europe. It contributed to the rise
of the European Union (EU) as a model not only for the new candidate
states but also for the founding members. The European role of Germany
after the reunification and European enlargement after the fall of the
Soviet Union confirm this point. In the Italian case, however, the
Maastricht Treaty was a particular turning point as it opened a succession
of periods characterized by a protracted process of rapid and episodic
adjustments (the so-called Seconda Repubblica). After all, it was a near-
miss critical juncture.
FEBRUARY 1992. ITALY IN A POST-BIPOLAR WORLD 77
élite under pressure. Within a few years of the end of the Cold War, all the
major parties disappeared or underwent radical transformations, while new
parties emerged filling the political vacuum. The electoral success of the
separatist movement Lega Nord (Northern League) in the general elec-
tions of April 1992, and the terroristic attacks ordered by the Sicilian Mafia
against two popular judges, in May and July 1992, contributed to the
increase in political instability. Downgraded by Moody’s rating agency
from Aaa to Aa1 in July 1991, Italy faced another economic downgrading
in August 1992 from Aa1 to Aa2. In September 1992, Danish citizens
opposed to the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty causing a currency
crisis that forced the Italian Lira out of the EMS. The Italian currency was
one of the most affected victims because it lacked credibility on the path
towards EMU policy and the single European currency.
If the dramatic national economic crisis strengthened serious world-
wide doubts about Italy’s capacity to meet the Maastricht criteria, the
tendency to mythologize Europe remained strong among the Italians with
66% holding positive attitudes towards European institutions
(Eurobarometer 1992, 21). However, the Italian government was aware
of the difficulties and needed to show both at the European and interna-
tional level that it was able to assume global commitment in a post-bipolar
world. The rise of Italy’s foreign policy profile and its assertive role in
participating in military missions aboard were perceived to compensate for
economic problems and domestic difficulties. On 4 December 1992, the
government announced the Italian participation in a multinational mission
in Somalia. Despite the economic crisis, the intervention in Africa was the
largest and most significant military operation since 1945. The overall size
of the Italian contingent was second only to that of the United States. The
mission represented the first attempt of the UN to develop robust peace-
keeping operations. In this challenging new context, the intervention in
Africa was considered a real test for the evolution of the Italian armed
forces (Ignazi et al. 2012, p. 96). However, a rather composite anti-war
movement opposed the military operation and the Italian engagement on
the battlefield was rather isolated. While the Italian government tried to
show that it was reliable in assuming global commitments, the US govern-
ment and the UN preferred to distinguish their engagements from the
Italian one (Loi 2004).
In the second period (1993–1994), two different cabinets familiarized
the country with technical and extraordinary economic reforms according
to the Maastricht criteria. But in March 1994, the political situation
82 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
included for the first time in history the ex-Communist party. Seen
together, the 1994 and 1996 results suggested that Italy had finally over-
come its historical difficulties in achieving alternation in government
between centre-right and centre-left (Newell and Bull 1996). Thanks to
the first Prodi government, notwithstanding uncertainties about the coun-
try’s ability both to respect the Maastricht criteria and to control the
European borders, from 1996 to 1998 Italy succeeded in joining the
Euro group and also in implementing the Schengen agreements. The
excessive rigidity of the Stability and Growth Pact, adopted by an EU
Council of Amsterdam in June 1997, fuelled debates over heavy economic
burdens for the Italian adoption of the single European currency (Diodato
2015, p. 62). Furthermore, during the legislative process, the centre-left
coalition faced litigious fragmentations and the Prodi cabinet was followed
by three different governments led by two different prime ministers. But
despite this political uncertainty, the internationalism of the centre-left –
with Dini continuously in the post of foreign minister – prevailed as a
pattern of state behaviour to face global competition. As we shall see, it
was in this period that bipartisanship in foreign policy seemed to emerge as
a new pattern of state behaviour to face instability in the Balkans, such as in
Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo.
With the return of Berlusconi to power in June 2001, the political
situation changed radically entering into a fifth period (2001–2006).
The centre-right victory in the general elections was perceived like a
referendum on Berlusconi’s credentials and his capacity for leadership.
Most of the international press had emphasized that he was under inves-
tigations on several charges relating to money-laundering, links with the
Mafia and tax evasion. On 26 April, The Economist concluded: “Mr
Berlusconi is not fit to lead the government of any country, least of all
one of the world’s richest democracies” (The Economist 2001). Despite
this very controversial aura, Berlusconi achieved a clear victory and was
able to govern during the entire legislature. But 3 months into its term,
Italy faced a radical transformation as consequence of 9/11. Berlusconi
fully supported the so-called “war on terror” and was personally in favour
of the US military engagements both in Afghanistan (2001) and in Iraq
(2003). He exhibited little patience for European dilemmas regarding the
military campaigns. Despite the crucial moment for the EU (with the Euro
entering into circulation on 1 January 2002), the Italian government
found itself progressively isolated in Europe. On 5 January 2002, the
pro-European foreign minister Renato Ruggiero resigned after giving an
84 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
the Italian participation in the Libyan war, citing reasons of public security
related to immigration. During the military intervention, the general
impression was that Rome was living a sort of political anarchy. On 16
November 2011, 4 days after Berlusconi’s dramatic resignation, the for-
mer European commissioner Mario Monti was appointed by the Italian
president to lead a technical government called upon to deal with the
situation of real emergency. The cabinet was composed mainly of aca-
demics and grand commis, including an ambassador as foreign minister
and a naval officer as defence minister (Marangoni 2012). Major parties of
the centre-right and the centre-left made up the parliamentary coalition
supporting Monti. On 17 November, after Monti’s programmatic state-
ment, the Financial Times used the following headline: “The man who
could save Italy” (Financial Times 2011).
The new cabinet not only generated high expectations in Europe and
worldwide but also debated about a possible democratic deficit. In Monti’s
public discourse, the European vincolo esterno was presented as an opportu-
nity to push reforms forward, not as an external tie imposed on an indebted
country. The most relevant decision made by Monti was the fiscal part of the
Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance, signed in March 2012
(the so-called “Fiscal Compact”). The European agreement reinforced strict
economic conditions with rules on national budget to be implemented
through the provision of a binding force and constitutional character. But
in December 2012, the Monti government lost the trust of Berlusconi who
accused him of too much austerity. Monti had played a decisive role on the
European level rekindling relations with Germany and finding a new entente
with France. However, he finally failed in convincing Great Britain to join
the Eurozone (Greco and Colombo 2013, p. 14). Meanwhile, anti-
European sentiment increased in Italy with a surprisingly 61% believing
that the economic integration of Europe had weakened the national econ-
omy (Pew Review Center 2012, p. 2). It is worth noting that in the 2013
general elections, Berlusconi regained electoral support with a campaign
centred on an anti-German Euroscepticism. But the main novelty was the
anti-establishment Movimento 5 Stelle (five-star movement) of the come-
dian Beppe Grillo which became a third force overcoming the tendency of
the electorate towards bipolarity. This made the political framework
unstable, giving the impression that the Seconda Repubblica had probably
never started. Eventually, a coalition between the centre-left, centre and
centre-right was formed and headed by Enrico Letta and, 1 year later, by
Matteo Renzi.
86 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
All these periods considered, we can conclude that if a new blocco storico
did not emerge in Italy after the Cold War, the republican turn none-
theless produced major changes. The first consisted of cognitive adjust-
ment. In the second part of the 1990s, the Europeanism of the centre-left
prevailed as a pattern of state behaviour. This cultural orientation, namely
Prodi’s call for entry into Europe, became relevant on the wave of a
general optimism generated by the globalization process and, in particular,
by the Europeanization process. However, a significant part of the electo-
rate supported a political force, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, that emphasized
the opportunity to pursue national interests without strong European
commitments. The neo-nationalism of the centre-right gave importance
to the ability of the Italians to be themselves in the global competition.
After 9/11, signals of a more pessimistic scenario prevailed and political
actors devoted attention to the problem of global terrorism. After 2008,
the problem of the international financial crisis increased the pessimistic
feelings. The neo-nationalism of Berlusconi’s centre-right framed these
two problems and devised different solutions: in the first case, a sort of
neo-Atlanticist policy was adopted in the Mediterranean and the Middle
East, breaking the bipartisan path in foreign policy. In the second case,
Berlusconi’s foreign policy was finally adjusted in order to cope with the
European anchorage. On the other political side, in the face of a more
pessimistic scenario, the internationalism of the centre-left encountered
many difficulties leading to the collapse of the coalition.
A second source of change consists of institutional adjustment. The
European commitment was certainly the main institutional setting that
characterized the entire Seconda Repubblica. But in accordance with the
changing circumstances, Italy faced bursts of activity and difficulties that
emerged while achieving room for political autonomy. Given the alter-
natives in the post-Cold World, Italy tried to adapt its foreign policy to the
changing international environment. But effective strategic adjustment
can occur only when an organizational predisposition of states towards
stasis can be overcome. Successive Italian governments bargained with
societal and economic actors that were strategic players in the context of
domestic and international structures. But they adopted different or oppo-
site approaches. With the optimistic atmosphere spread by globalization,
Italy was able to implement the Maastricht criteria, although relevant
social forces emphasized the country’s opportunity to pursue national
interests without European anchorage. But with the pessimistic atmo-
sphere generated by the war on terror and, later, by the international
FEBRUARY 1992. ITALY IN A POST-BIPOLAR WORLD 87
Why did a new blocco storico not emerge in Italy? Why did the country face
difficulties in achieving room for political autonomy? Why can February
1992 be considered a near-miss critical juncture? Can we frame the
evolution of Italian foreign policy in the last decades evaluating causal
claims?
As already said, PET can help us to answer to these questions. But for
this purpose, we have to consider almost two relevant attempts to explain
Italy’s foreign policy in the Cold War: the first provided by Angelo
Panebianco and the second by Pierangelo Isernia. Since these two studies
refer to Italy in the bipolar system, they allow us to propose an innovative
interpretation about the changed nature of the vincolo esterno in the post-
bipolar world. Panebianco (1997, pp. 227–251), for example, considered
Italy as a peculiar case (if compared to other Western democracies) and
Italian foreign policy as primarily dependent on three domestic factors: (1)
the consensual democracy of the first republican period, (2) the leverage of
the main political parties (DC, PCI, PSI) and (3) the pacifist bias of the
Italian public opinion. Yet Panebianco also considered the international
constraint as an intervening variable, noting that Italy was on the frontline
of the same ideological cleavage that divided the country from inside. All
these factors considered, and in order to explain the domestic–interna-
tional interplay, Panebianco referred to the concept of a “penetrative
system” introduced by James Rosenau. According to Rosenau (1969),
events and informational flows originating outside become linked to
phenomena inside a single country in the process of policymaking. The
most common form of linkage is a reactive process, when the behaviour of
88 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
and peculiarities within the foreign policy process and its transforma-
tion after the Cold War.
We believe that only a dialectical interpretation of the international–
domestic interplay can clarify Italian difference and explain national pecu-
liarities. After the republican turn of the 1990s, the leverage of the Italian
political parties (which continue to use public resources to maintain
positions within the political system) and the pacifist bias of the Italian
people (always influenced by the presence of the Vatican) remained
relevant factors and, to some extent, independent variables. But both
the international and domestic structure have become contextual vari-
ables, that is to say interconnected, coextensive and transitory structures
that involve the setting in which the policymaking process occurs. This
dialectical interpretation helps us to review the nature of foreign policy’s
processes on more than one institutional level. The Cold War or the
bipolar logic was a strong intervening factor. But it is equally true that
neither the international system nor the domestic one has reached a new
equilibrium in the post-bipolar world. In general, domestic sources of
foreign policy can be considered as inputs of political processes in which
distribution of output changes is generated within the two structures.
However, today, these two structures are more interconnected and tur-
bulent than in the past.
Our analytical perspective can be understood using the metaphor of the
“punctuated equilibrium”. According to PET, we can visualize a policy-
making system (Italy) where it is more or less able to adjust to the
changing circumstances it faces, in the sense of efficient adjustment to
environmental demands. As a pattern of adaptation to a complex, multi-
faceted environment, in which multiple informational input flows are
processed by the political system, foreign policy is considered in terms of
distribution of output changes as resulting from the accumulation of
problems over a long period of time, nonetheless concentrated in certain
phases (or “time frames”) with bursts of activity and policy punctuation.
There are two major sources of change in translating inputs into policy
outputs. The first consists of cognitive adjustment: political actors recog-
nize signals, devote attention to them, frame the problem and devise
solutions for it. The second source consists of institutional adjustment: a
policymaking system generally acts to maintain stability and to overcome
stasis, thus resulting more or less able to face changing circumstances.
By considering the cognitive adjustment, we can say that the problem
of national preferences or issue definitions in post-Cold War Italy has been
90 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
strongly related to the influence of mass media on both the national and
international agenda. Instead of evoking a generic orientation of the
domestic forces, we can link debates on foreign policy to cognitive frame-
works which emerged in the coextensive interplay between domestic
narratives (entry in Europe, economic austerity, migration policies, etc.)
and international ones (globalization, war on terror, international financial
crisis, etc.). By considering institutional adjustment, a central place is given
to the system of procedures that involves, likewise, the domestic system
and the European one, as well as other international levels (NATO’s
military command, the UN system, etc.).
It should be added that a dialectic approach to foreign policy could
explain the Italian case from the very beginning. After the unification, the
swinging between the (Anglo-)French model and the German one was
not the schizophrenic oscillation of a young country. It was the result of a
shared sensation that Italy, given its belated nature, needed an external
model to catch up with the most advanced areas of Europe. Already at that
time, the domestic structure and the international/European one were
interconnected to a certain extent, involving the setting in which Italy’s
foreign policy decision-making occurred. After the Second World War,
alliances with the Western powers contributed to the promotion of the
international standing of the country. Once again, international alliances
served as instrument to change the political system, promoting its eco-
nomic modernization and the liberal democracy. In both periods, myths
influenced and inspired the national and international politics of the
country to restore in some way the grandeur of ancient Italy. The inter-
national anchorage (vincolo esterno) operated as an instrument contribut-
ing to the definition of the political, social and economic patterns of the
Italian development. Discourses on foreign policy and national prefer-
ences were inputs of a decision-making process in which distribution of
output changes were generated, at the same time, within both the domes-
tic and the international structure. Mussolini was the only Italian leader
who officially refused to refer to a foreign model. Fascism was conceived as
an Italian model valid for Italy. But the country destiny was finally deter-
mined by decisions taken on the international arena, namely by the Nazi
regime. As already clarified in Chapter 2, the positive peculiarities of the
past were transformed into negatively impacting factors since the dialectic
interplay between the domestic and the international was broken and the
myth of Italian grandeur betrayed. When international alliances defini-
tively ceased to be the supply chain of models for the domestic
FEBRUARY 1992. ITALY IN A POST-BIPOLAR WORLD 91
Conclusion
ambitions, but also because that alliance was not productive for the civilian
and political growth of the country.
The historical record of Italian foreign policy confirms that the
country is integrated in the international system and that it has syn-
chronous reactions to the changes occurring in the European system.
In times of structural and dramatic change, Italy used its foreign policy
instruments to be part of the change and to adapt to the new emerging
conditions, choosing new alliances in line with its constitutive values
and orientations. This happened also after 1992. But in accordance
with the changing circumstances, Italy faced bursts of activity and
difficulties that emerged while achieving room for political autonomy.
Given the alternatives in the post-Cold World, Italy tried to adapt its
foreign policy to the changing international environment. But succes-
sive Italian governments adopted different or opposite approaches.
With the optimistic atmosphere spread by globalization, Italy was
able to implement the new criteria of the European Union (EU). But
with the pessimistic atmosphere generated by the war on terror and,
later, by the international financial crisis, the dominant cleavage in
foreign policy became a division crossing the Atlantic and challenging
the European choice.
In terms of concrete politics, this book has showed that Italy is far
from being the exceptional country in the Western European land-
scape. Italy has its own peculiarities in terms of self-perceptions and
understanding of international problems but does not show any sig-
nificant divergence. This is a strong argument in favour of the proac-
tive role that Italy plays and is expected to play in Europe and, more
specifically, in the EU. The basic features of Italian foreign policy
confirm that Italian governing élites are committed to reinforcing
European institutions and policies. At the same time, we have to take
into account that the same élites have rejected alliances which were
considered unable to generate a civil and political growth for Italy.
The capability of the European system to guarantee such growth in the
future remains an open question.
The Italian thinker and diplomat Giovanni Botero, well known for his
work Della ragion di Stato (1589), used to divide the states between i
grandi, i piccioli o i mezani [great, small and mid-size], the latter to
identify those middle powers which do not threat neighbours and do
not need the support of the others to stand alone. The most controversial
CONCLUSION 105
and debated aspect of middle powers’ status concerns their position and
role in the international system. They cannot be seen as pure adaptive
states, given their ambition to actively contribute to the evolution of the
international system. At the same time, they do not have all the necessary
forces to change the system.
The idea that the EU is composed of middle powers is not consistent
with reality. The case of France and that of the United Kingdom are
explanatory: despite their downgrading to middle range powers, France
and the United Kingdom still display an ambition to act and be recognized
as great powers. The rise of Germany after reunification has also stimulated
a debate on its nature in the European power hierarchy (Kundnani 2015).
The definition of middle power seems to be intrinsically not sufficient to
fully explain the peculiarities of European countries. At the same time, the
comparison between EU countries shows that a correlation does exist
between the foreign policy of each European country and its position
and role on the continental political scene. To be explicit, Italian national
foreign policy is characterized and shaped by the definition of middle
powers in Europe.
We hope that this book will pave the way to new approaches of the
study of European foreign policies. Frustrated by the never-fitting analy-
tical category of middle power, scholars are often attracted by Sonderweg’s
interpretations. These interpretations tend to explain some foreign poli-
cies, from the German one in the past to the Italian one today, as being
divergent from a fictive European model of foreign policy. The theory of
critical junctures adopted in this book and applied to foreign policy has a
relevant advantage: it does not identify the peculiarities of each foreign
policy with a structural divergence, since the differences between foreign
policies are the result of the national interpretation of a major event
occurring in the international system. As a consequence, the adoption of
this theory helps to identify a significant divergence in the foreign policy of
a single country. This is a very useful tool for the study of foreign policy
convergence/divergence in areas and regional groups such as the EU. The
results of this work suggest that European studies would greatly benefit
from the adoption of these new research methods in foreign policy
analysis.
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A D
Adjustment, 6, 7, 17, 18, 24, 25, 27, De Gasperi, Alcide, 26, 56
29, 50, 53, 57, 66, 67, 73 Democratic transition, 49, 55, 80
Adriatic Sea, 25, 44 Divergence, 2, 11, 18, 84, 93, 100,
104, 105
B
Benchmark date, 5, 7, 9–13, 15–18, E
101, 103 Empire, 13, 16, 17, 19, 25, 34, 35, 37,
Berlusconi, Silvio, 82 40, 45, 103
Bipartisanship, 79–80, 83, 92 European Community, 2, 11, 49,
Blocco storico, 50, 51, 57, 76, 86, 87, 60, 64
96, 107 European Union, 2, 12, 49, 59, 75,
76, 104
Euro-skepticism, 60
C
Cavour, Camillo, 35, 36, 39
Civilization, 45, 55, 59, 69
F
Cold War, 5, 26, 31, 49–51, 57, 58,
Fascism, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 43,
60, 61, 66, 67, 70–73, 76, 78,
44–46, 49, 52, 53, 55, 56, 78,
79–82, 86, 87, 88, 89, 62, 93, 96,
90, 102
98, 102, 103, 108
First (Italian) Republic, 26, 87, 95
Colonialism, 40, 45, 68, 69
Foreign Policy Analysis, 1, 4, 75, 105
Constitution (of the Italian
Republic), 84, 94
Critical juncture, 5, 6, 7–11, 18,
23–27, 35, 41, 51, 76–78, 87, G
100, 103, 105 Governing minority, 26, 27, 100, 102
Croce, Benedetto, 22, 30, 54 Grandezza, 6
I N
Imperialism, 37, 42 Narrative, 11, 90
Imperial myth, 37 Nation, 14–16, 19, 22, 34, 38, 39, 44,
Inorientamento (Easternization), 35 45, 46, 52, 103
Integration, 2, 8, 12, 13, 18, 36, 53, Nationalism, 14, 24, 43, 59, 71
59–63, 66, 77, 79, 80, 85, 100, Neo-atlantismo, 69–71, 108
101, 102 Neo-nationalism, 80, 86
Internationalism, 1, 15, 55, 80, 83, 86 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
International system, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10–15, (NATO), 17, 58, 60, 62, 63, 66,
24, 26, 29, 50, 51, 55, 58, 59, 61, 71, 90
62, 89, 91, 99, 100–105
(Italian) Fascism, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32,
43–46, 52, 53, 55, 56, 78, P
90, 102 Paese mancato, 31, 108
Perception, 11, 12, 97, 103, 104
Political agent, 5, 10, 78, 98
L Punctuated Equilibria Theory, 77
League of Nation, 15, 45
R
M Reformation, 22
Maastricht, 2, 5, 6, 17, 18, 27, 75, 76, Renaissance, 12, 22, 32, 95, 103
78–83, 86, 91, 92, 100, 101, 108 Resistenza, 53–54, 57, 108
Machiavelli, Nicolò, 32–33 Risorgimento, 21–23, 30, 31, 34, 37,
Mare nostrum, 45, 91, 107 39, 41, 42, 46, 77, 102, 103, 108
Mazzini, Giuseppe, 30 Rivoluzione liberale, 30
Mediterranean Sea, 13, 50, 62, 63 (Roman) Church, 20
Middle power, 48, 58, 59, 66, 67, 78,
79, 95–100, 104, 105
Military interventions, 79, 84, 87
S
Missed country, see Paese mancato
Sacro egoismo, 50, 109
Modernization, 12, 15, 19, 21, 24, 39,
Second (Italian) Republic, 27, 96, 108
41, 73, 88, 90
Statuto Albertino, 26
Mussolini, Benito, 25, 29, 30, 40,
41–45, 52, 53, 90
Myth, 4, 6, 19, 20, 22, 29, 31, 33, 34,
37, 41–42, 46, 47, 53, 59, 90, 91, T
94, 96–100, 102, 103 Triple Alliance, 24, 38, 39, 98
INDEX 123
W
V West, 49, 57, 62, 102
Vienna, Congress of, 13, 14, 22, 35, 36 Westphalia, 13, 15