The Italian foreign policy: challenges and continuities

Abstract

Italian foreign politics is facing tough challenges in the near future. For more than 60 years, the Italian foreign policy compass was set on two poles, the European Union and the United States. Sometimes alternatively, much more often conjointly, these two polar stars oriented each and every Italian government’s choice since the end of Second World War. All this has been changing over the last few years. In this context, the article intends to introduce the special issue on Italian foreign policy drawing a stylized map of theoretical approaches that knits together the dispersed theoretical and empirical studies of Italian foreign policy, using a couple of theoretical perspectives as light posts in orienting the articles in this special issue. This introduction is organized in four sections. First, it discusses the approaches that explicitly combine together domestic and international factors in explaining foreign policy. Next, it maps studies on the Italian foreign policy within these frameworks. Then the main characteristics of Italian foreign policy, using these theoretical perspectives, are discussed. The article concludes summarizing how the contributions in this special issue fits into these theoretical frameworks and help shed light on present Italian foreign policy.

Why did Italy contribute to UNIFIL II? An analytical eclectic analysis

“… 1 The lack of ‘theoretical cumulation’ has also been recently noted by Pierangelo Isernia and Francesca Longo (2017: 113) in their up to date map of theoretical approaches to the study of Italian foreign policy.…”

National role conceptions and populist parties in Europe between heterogeneity and convergence

“…NRCs do not emerge exclusively out of one ‘actor’s own consideration of its place, position and appropriate behaviour vis-à-vis others in a given social environment (‘ego’ part of the role); they can be also affected by the expectations of other actors (‘alter’ part), which can be either achieved, ascribed or cast in the broader process of international socialization (Isernia and Longo 2017 , p. 112; Harnisch et al 2011 ). In general, therefore, the identification of a role demonstrates particularities that stem ‘both from what the type of actors’ ego and alter are, and from their respective cultural repertoires as attitudes and actions needed to both resonate with domestic audience and be accepted by international others’ (Wehner 2020 ).…”

“…244-245;Thies 2010). In addition to being the first step in trying to explain, and even predict, a given country's foreign policy choice and implementation (Wish 1980;Le Prestre 1997), identifying existing NRCs represents a promising strategy to understand how the preferences and ideas of political leaders combine with considerations of national material and cultural resources and capabilities in a 'narration' that reproduces the expected foreign policy posture these conceive for their country (Isernia and Longo 2017;Wehner 2020). In this case, the focus of analysis can be moved from foreign policy implementation to foreign policy discourse and be applied regardless of the position that the leaders under consideration play in national governments.…”

How do international norms matter? The impact of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women in Italy

“…The poor domestic debate and the lack of preparatory initiatives may be interpreted as a sign of state resistance and of the little interest in the domestic effects of the convention (and of other international norms in general), a reiterated behaviour of the governments ever since. There is a wide consensus among scholars (Isernia and Longo, 2017) that since the end of the Second World War (until today) the Italian decision-makers chose to adapt the domestic structure to the international norms according to the 'policy of inactivity' with the aim to protect the dynamics of the domestic politics from external challenges and pressures.…”

“…Based on this, it is of interest that the periodic reports submitted by the Italian government to the CEDAW Committee describe domestic measures and laws (among them, the 1977 law on equal pay, the 2000 law on parental leave, and the 2004 law on electoral gender quota for the European Parliament) without mentioning that they were the effect of EU obligations. Italy has manifested its domestic policy weakness (or 'policy inactivity', see Isernia and Longo, 2017) not only in enacting measures that prohibit discrimination against women but also in implementing the recommendations of the CEDAW Committee. Italian decisionmakers and civil servants responsible for the implementation of CEDAW minimise the effects of the legal character of the convention.…”