Emidio Diodato, Federico Niglia (Auth.) - Italy in International Relations - The Foreign Policy Conundrum (2017, Palgrave Macmillan)

Italy in International Relations
Emidio Diodato • Federico Niglia
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
ISBN 978-3-319-55061-9 ISBN 978-3-319-55062-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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vii
CONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 Italy in International Relations: European Benchmark

Dates and National Critical Junctures 7
3 March 1861. The Challenging Myth of the Post-Imperial

Legacy 29
4 September 1943. Democratic Transition and International

Adjustment 49
5 February 1992. Italy in a Post-Bipolar World 75
6 Conclusion 101
Glossary 107
Bibliography 111
Index 121
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Abstract Italy is always presented as a contradictory actor in terms of

foreign policy. The chapter addresses this foreign policy conundrum by
adopting a new research approach, which mixes the method and research
instruments of Political Science (in particular, Foreign Policy Analysis)
with the ones of International History. The research objective is to under-
stand the extent to which the Italian international vision and action is
convergent or not with other EU countries.
Keywords Historical and political studies Italian international vision

Italy and the EU
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
© The Author(s) 2017 1

E. Diodato, F. Niglia, Italy in International Relations,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6_1
2 E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA
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
of Italian foreign policy in its historical development. Historical and

political studies are quite unfamiliar with long-term developments, above
all those shaped by untouchable forces such as collective mentalities,
myths and stereotypes, which normally shape the orientation of societies
and public opinions. In order to overcome the limits of past scholarship,
this book invests in a new methodological approach. The basic novelty
stands in the close dialogue between history and political science. To some
extent, this book is, first of all, a personal dialogue between the two
authors, since they are scholars of the two disciplines. We exploit the
different approaches provided by history and political science to address
what should be labelled as an “Italian conundrum.”
The first approach comes from the history of international relations. As
defined by the French school headed by Pierre Renouvin, the history of
international relations overcomes the rigidity of traditional diplomatic
history. The latter saw the historical development of international relations
as the interaction between foreign policymakers which were only super-
ficially touched by the forces shaping societies at international level. On
the contrary, the history of international relations sees the international
action of a country as dependant on both international and domestic
variables. Among those variables, one can list military and political
power, demographic and economic forces, as well as the ideas which
shape the attitudes of societies. This approach opens the doors to meta-
political factors and recognizes the importance of transnational forces.
Nonetheless, it remains based on the centrality of states and on the
existence of an international system in which states are included.
Furthermore, the approach confirms the politique d’abord principle,
namely that individuals and/or political groups are the agents in the
definition of their political relations.
The aim of this book is to integrate the historical framework with the
Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), to describe both political and social phe-
nomena and to evaluate causal claims. To this end, we refer to the analysis of
process tracing: that is tracing the process that led from a situation in which
several options are open to a new equilibrium based on the choice of one of
them. We assume that human beings, acting individually or in collectivities,
are the source of most changes in international politics. As argued by Valerie
M. Hudson in a founding essay on FPA, “states are not agents because
states are abstractions and thus have no agency. Only human beings can be
true agents, and it is their agency that is the source of all international
politics and all change therein” (Hudson 2005, pp. 2–3). It is true that
INTRODUCTION 5
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
benchmarks dates. In the following three chapters – each devoted to a

selected national critical juncture – the reader will be introduced to the
main features of the “Italian conundrum.” The first (Chapter 3) refers to
the mythological burden of the glorious Roman past during the Kingdom
of Italy. The second (Chapter 4) refers to the tension between the adjust-
ment to the international system and the search of an autonomous role
during the republican age. Finally, in Chapter 5, by reconsidering and
updating these two features, the reader will find the reasons why, in our
opinion, 1992 was a turning point during which momentum was lost since
institutional change was not achieved. This allows us to offer an inter-
pretation of the current Italian foreign policy. The conclusion focuses
exactly on this point. Notwithstanding that Italy lost an opportunity to
change after the Maastricht Treaty, the country can still positively con-
tribute to the process of enforcement and reform of the EU, operating as a
barrier against the anti-policy stances spreading all around the European
continent. But Italy is not a simple adaptive power and this means that
from Italy’s view-point, the system, namely the European one, has to be
recognized as productive for the growth of the country. If this does not
happen, history will register two victims: the EU, deprived of a pivotal
member, and Italy, left alone with its dreams of grandezza.
CHAPTER 2
Italy in International Relations: European

Benchmark Dates and National Critical
Junctures
Abstract The chapter analyses the benchmark dates of European his-

tory and compares them with the turning points of national Italian
history. The research framework of benchmark dates is integrated
with the one of the critical junctures in order to assess the impact that
main European events have had on Italy. The selected methodological
framework allows the authors to assess the convergence between the
Italian historical trend and the European one. Three main benchmark
dates of Italian history are highlighted: 1861, 1943 and 1992. The
argument is that the understanding of these three turning points is
fundamental to having a comprehensive picture of the structural fea-
tures of Italian foreign policy.
Keywords Critical junctures Benchmark dates International system

Integration Adjustment
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

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6_2
impact on traditional diplomatic history, which relied in an extensive

way on the formal aspect of the interstate relations and on the diplo-
matic negotiations (Febvre 1992). Such criticism fostered a reaction
from the community of political historians, who were able to capitalize
from those critics and to overcome the rigidity of the discipline.
Subsequently, scholars of international politics improved their metho-
dological approach: French historians Pierre Renouvin and Jean-
Baptiste Duroselle emphasized the importance that deep (or remote)
forces have in history and on current international affairs (Renouvin
and Duroselle 1967). The main deep forces are the demographic
trends, the changes taking place in economic productions and eco-
nomic integration and the scientific and technological developments.
Renouvin and Duroselle also believed that cultural emotional factors,
such as collective mentalities and mass emotions, have to be included in
the list. But some traditional diplomatic historians, like Andreas
Hillgruber and Klaus Hildebrand (see Sheenhan 1981), intervened to
contain the use of metapolitical factors to explain international history.
In his last book and intellectual testament, Duroselle (1981) proudly
reaffirmed the centrality of the individual in the making of history.
The extreme opposition between the individualist approach, which
assumed the actors of international politics as pure rational actors not
influenced by factors other than political ones, and the cultural–structuralist
approach, which saw the historical change as the result of long-term pro-
cesses underestimating the initiative of individuals and groups, has been
overcome by scholars for many decades. In achieving this synergy, political
scientists and theorists of international relations (IR) have given a relevant
help: they incorporated the long tradition of historical institutionalism
providing models of foreign policy and focusing on the decision-making.
Among the scholars of political science, the obvious fact that history matters
was conceptualized and systematized starting with a seminal study of Ruth
Bernins Collier and David Collier. They defined a critical juncture in history
as “a period of significant change, which typically occurs in distinct ways in
different countries [ . . . ] and which is hypothesized to produce distinct
legacies” (Berins Collier and Collier 1991, p. 29). Stressing the difference
between countries seen as units of analysis, the critical junctures’ approach
promoted comparative or cross-national policy research. Looking at the
concrete application of this theory, however, one has to regretfully observe
that it gained more fortune in the study of social and economic history
rather than that of the history of international politics.
ITALY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: EUROPEAN . . . 9
In this book, we give relevance to the use of critical junctures to

indicate turning points in the continuity of international history.
Historians and scholars of IR have usually taken significant advantage,
in their research on the evolution of the international community, from
the use of benchmark dates. Benchmarking in history helped to clarify
how changes occurred in the composition of the international commu-
nity and draw light upon the interaction between the actors. In the
study of IR, benchmark dates have been a standard way of simplifying
history and fixing attention on particular issues areas of changes in the
world system. However, despite the importance attached to some dates
(the most commonly used are 1500, 1648, 1919, 1945 and 1989), the
selection of benchmarks has been the result of the practice rather than
the output of a theory-based discussion (Buzan and Lawson 2014).
Furthermore, main academic controversy emerged on the legitimacy of
the mainstreaming of benchmark dates. It has been argued that these
dates are not adequate, especially to serve as global benchmarks in that
too often they are focused on a certain interpretation of European
history and have no relevance for other areas of the globe (Carvalho
et al. 2011).
Capitalizing on this debate, we refer to benchmark dates but only to
pave the way to the adoption of the theory of critical junctures. We attach
to benchmark dates a very large explanatory significance. In addition to
the primary function of dividing history into understandable portions,
benchmark dates have a secondary, but no less important function of
serving as an indicator of national involvement in a specific historical
event. If we believe that a selected benchmark can summarize a specific
event/process, then the significance that this date has for a specific country
(but also to individuals, groups, populations, nations, etc.) can be useful to
understand, at least in qualitative terms, its level of participation in the
event/process. This role of benchmarks can be explained through a simple
example: given the task of explaining the structuring of the European
interstates community (intended as a community composed of sovereign
states, reges superiorem non recognoscentes), we can identify 1648 as a
potential benchmark date summarizing the process. This date has rightly
been challenged (Teschke 2003). But it can help us in drawing up a list of
the European countries involved in the process of state-building: with
France, Spain and England at the top. Of course, for the history of the
nomadic tribes of the Sahara, the 1648s benchmark is completely
senseless.
The function of benchmarks as an indicator of involvement helps us to

rethink the theory of critical juncture. According to Bernins Collier and
Collier (1991, p. 30), the concept of critical juncture contains three
components: (1) The claim that a significant change occurred in each
country considered. (2) The claim that this change took place in distinct
ways in the different cases. (3) The explanatory hypothesis about its
consequences (if the hypothesized critical juncture does not produce a
legacy, it cannot be selected as a critical juncture). In the approach chosen
for this book, a benchmark date should fulfil these three requirements and
should be considered equivalent to a critical juncture. However, there are
two significant differences: (1) The first difference is that the change
indicated by the chosen date occurred also in the international system: it
may concern organizing principles, distribution of capabilities, dominant
units, the geographical scale of the system itself, etc. (2) The second point
of difference is that to be selected the hypothesized date must produce a
legacy also within the structure of the international system.
The first methodological consequence of this approach is that the
international system is considered as an additional level of analysis, namely
a constraining structure external to states and regulated by its own pat-
terns of developments. As David Singer underlined more than half a
century ago, “this particular level of analysis almost inevitably requires
that we postulate a high degree of uniformity in the foreign policy opera-
tional codes of our national actors” (Singer 1961, p. 81). States may differ
widely in what they consider to be the national interest, but the interna-
tional system is a wider level of analysis which requires specific observa-
tions on its own patterns of development. However, this does not mean
that the theory of critical junctures cannot be adapted to IR. During
moments of social and political fluidity, the decisions and choices of the
key international actors are freer and may influence new organizing prin-
ciples and distribution of capabilities (except in the case when these
changes are the product of major wars). In normal times, the dynamics
of IR are regulated by patterns of developments subject to the logic of
equilibrium, power politics or institutional path dependence. But occa-
sionally, the structural antecedent conditions are interrupted by critical
junctures that occur when the intersubjective construct of meanings of
political agents emerges as a driver for change.
There is another methodological consequence of our approach. If
we focus on agency and contingency as key causal factors of foreign
policy change, then a single or national case study is relevant according
to the degree of involvement of the polity considered within the

international system. That implies that the process of comparing cri-
tical junctures can move from “multiple narratives” of spatial unit
comparisons (foreign policies of different states) to the analysis of the
degree of “criticalness” in a single-polity longitudinal or cross-time
comparisons (Capoccia and Kelemen 2007, pp. 359–363). The pro-
blem with critical junctures, as well as with benchmark dates, is that
scholars may select opposing junctures or may debate about how much
they are critical. To overcome this problem, research design used in
comparative politics or cross-country studies has the advantage that
they can count on the general theoretical framework that identifies
similar historical processes in different units. In the case of foreign
policy, however, the single case study can count on the possibility to
link national critical junctures to benchmark dates in the international
systems. Criticalness will emerge from the interplay between the
domestic and the international, that is to say the degree of involvement
of the polity considered.
This chapter will focus on the main benchmark dates related to the
process of institutional change in the European history. They will be then
used to analyse the divergence of a specific country, Italy, with regard to its
main national critical junctures. This will be a test for two main research
arguments:
• establishing a common understanding of the international system

among Western European countries. A common understanding
does not mean a shared approach to international politics and
even less a common foreign policy. A common understanding
means that the core of founding members of the European
Community shared a common experience of the system. Each
of these nations has its own peculiarities, in terms of national
interest, geopolitical vectors, self-perception and expected role on
the international scene. Nonetheless, an outlook of their long-
term history shows that they share a common attitude towards
the international system which is the result of five centuries of
history and can be summarized thanks to a number of selected
European benchmark dates;
• understanding the participation of Italy in European history. The
question here is if Italy can be seen as a pure adaptive country or if it
presents specific peculiarities.
2.1 THE EUROPEAN UNDERSTANDING OF THE INTERNATIONAL

SYSTEM: A PROPOSED SET OF BENCHMARK DATES
The idea that the countries of Western Europe share a common under-
standing of the international system has to be clarified. Unfortunately,
there is no comprehensive scholarly analysis on the European vision of the
international system and most of the literature considers the international
vision and action of single European countries. A helping hand comes
from the analysis of the European Union (EU), seen as the most ambitious
result of the convergence among the European countries. For example,
Lucarelli and Manners (2007) attempted to identify the main VIPs
(values, images and principles) which are behind the construction of the
EU: peace, human dignity and human rights, freedom and liberty, democ-
racy, equality, justice, rule of law, solidarity, regulated capitalism, ecolo-
gical modernization (which can be interpreted as the European version of
the general idea of sustainable development). However, these VIPs are not
the result of the process of integration that the Schuman Declaration
activated in the 1950s. In addition, the EU refuses to officially recognize
the existence of these deeper roots.
Throughout the centuries, European countries have developed a com-
mon sense of identity, a common idea of the balance of power between
independent polities and a final ambition to guarantee the peace on the
continent. Thanks to this set of principles, which are rooted in the reli-
gious, social, political and economic history of the continent, Europeans
have developed an identity or self-perception which makes them different
and identifiable in both territorial and sociopolitical terms. Leaving apart
the references to the ancient Greeks and to Imperial Rome, one can date
this process back to the Renaissance. Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405–
1464), a humanist later crowned as Pius II, was one of the first who
identified Europe as a cultural reference. He differentiated Europe from
the neighbouring territories and kingdoms. This process of self-identifica-
tion became important after the geographic discoveries of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries and was consolidated through the containment of
the Ottoman expansion. Battles like the one of Lepanto (1571) cemented
the identity of Europe as Christian and opposed to the non-Christian
world (Meret and Betz 2009). But the creation of a European identity
went well beyond the opposition against Islam. Montesquieu’s Lettres
persanes (1721) are the best example of this differentiation between
Europe and the other regimes, underlining that Europe is an exception
on a global scale because it is the only reality which rejected despotism.

During the age of enlightenment, the creation of a European identity
found another source of integration.
As the benchmark date for this process, one can symbolically choose
1500. This date is generally used to symbolize the age of geographical
discoveries. But it can also be used to explain the process of the self-
identification of Europe. We observe two changes in the European under-
standing of the international system after 1500. First of all, the turning
point of modern secularization that started with the displacement of the
geopolitical axis from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and Indian oceans
with clear consequences. The powers confined to the Mediterranean,
namely the Italian city states and the Ottoman Empire, saw the beginning
of their decline and, with that, the two religions that had their territorial
centre in the Mediterranean region also started to decline. Secondly, the
impact that this displacement had on the global economy; for some
scholars, this marks the beginning of world capitalism (Wallerstein 1974).
A second benchmark for Europe is 1648, the year when the Peace of
Münster and the Peace of Osnabrück (commonly identified as the Peace of
Westphalia) were concluded. Realist scholars have always considered this
benchmark as the cornerstone of the theory of IR and this over-simplified
presentation has been rightly challenged (Teschke 2003; Osiander 2007).
But “Westphalia” still remains a crucial turning point since it involves the
basic principle of the European balance of power (Asch 1997; Diodato
2010). This principle served as an inspiring and common value in order to
understand, reject and contrast the hegemonic projects in the continent
from Napoleon to Hitler. Westphalia can also be seen as the cornerstone
of the project of a European “concert of powers”, which was consecrated
by the Congress of Vienna and of all the following programmes aimed at
promoting a balance between the European powers. This principle was
masterly expressed by Friedrich von Gentz (1806), whose work can be
seen as the intellectual base of the anti-Napoleonic coalitions. But the
balance of powers’ principle is strictly connected with the idea of peace in
Europe. This idea gathered momentum in the late years of the enlight-
enment and obtained an alternative systematization in Immanuel Kant’s
On perpetual peace (Wilkins 2007).
Between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, the face of
Europe changed significantly (Blanning 2007), not only in political
terms but also in those of a social and economic nature. According to
Barry Buzan and George Lawson (2013), the nineteenth century marked a
global transformation of the international system with the making of

modern IR. However, the problem is that potential new benchmarks –
1789, 1815, 1848, 1870 – seem to have a very limited explanatory power.
The French revolution can be seen as a challenge to the European balance
of power. The Congress of Vienna confirmed the search for equilibrium in
Europe but its conservative nature did not produce any changes in life of
the continent. Turmoil in 1848 summarized the lost battle of liberal-
democratic national movements (Dowe et al. 2001). But as correctly
pointed out by Robert J. W. Evans and Hartmut Pogge von
Strandmann (2000), the revolutions of 1848 can be seen as a catalyst to
social, political and cultural developments that had begun with the French
revolution. A more intriguing date is surely 1870 for a number of reasons.
This is the year when the ambition of significant European forces towards
change began to clash with the conservative attitudes of the European
leadership. It is also the year of the French defeat and German unification.
Research on European politics published before the First World War saw
1870 as a significant date in the history of Europe, but without any
structural relevance (Fyffe 1890). At the end of the First World War,
closer attention was given to this year, which emerged as a crucial turning
point. Historian Werner Kaegi pointed out that 1870 marked the decline
in the idea of the state based on the Medieval idea of Pax et Iustizia
(Vivarelli 1981). Johan Huizinga underlined that 1870 could be seen as
the point of clash between two different ideas of nations: that of Giuseppe
Mazzini, who intended nation as the expression of democratic and huma-
nitarian values, and that of Otto von Bismarck, who perverted the idea of
nation to serve militarist ambitions. But this interpretation, fomented by
the Bielefeld School, has been rejected in succeeding literature (Hillgruber
1980). The problem with 1870 is that it focuses too much on the
European balance of power and especially on the rise of Germany as a
challenge to the European order. The risk with this date is that it generates
a deterministic interpretation directly linking the rise of nationalism to the
First World War.
A good solution is the one proposed by Buzan and Lawson, who
identify the year 1860 as the “biggest, deepest, widest cluster of transfor-
mative processes in the last 500 years” (Buzan and Lawson 2014, p. 453).
While there are issues with the proposal to identify a cluster instead of a
single date, this is the only benchmark that, apart from 1500, is able to
incorporate changes taking place in the global economy. Furthermore,
1860 had a strong political significance: nationalism, socialism and
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
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
momentum in 11 September 2001, will lead to a new radical change in

international affairs. In the uncertainty on future developments, we should
draw the attention to the changes ingenerated in the main global areas by
the event of the last decades (Jayasuriya 2005, p. 2). But the interlude
1989–1919 could be seen as the main accelerator of European history for
two main reasons. Firstly, the fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way to the
German reunification, traditionally seen as the most disruptive alteration
of the continental balance of power. The challenge of the German reuni-
fication served as a strong incentive for the cooperation in Europe to
achieve a stable, peaceful and balanced compromise. The second reason
has to be found in the vacuum created by the withdrawal of the Soviet
power from central and eastern Europe, with the NATO offering a new
security umbrella (Zielonka 2006).
In our opinion, this two reasons clarify the huge turn made later by the
signature of the Maastricht Treaty (7 February 1992). This treaty paved
the way for the EU and reframed the European architecture. The
Maastricht Treaty can be seen as the real benchmark date for Europe
that followed the interlude 1989–1991. “Maastricht” transformed the
European institutions into a model of democracy, freedom and justice to
which European countries could apply in the pursuit of economic devel-
opment within a framework of democratic stability. It has to be underlined
that the Maastricht Treaty generated a model not only for the new
candidate states but also for the founding members of the EU. In fact, it
contributed to the rise of the Union as a point of reference. In addition,
the treaty paved the way for the EU as a political and security player at
both the regional and global level (Larivé 2014, pp. 51–68; Orbie 2009).
The interlude 1989–1991 remains decisive for major processes of
macro-historical transformation: the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reuni-
fication of Germany; the fall of the Soviet Union and the agreements on
the EU (the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated in 1991). From our per-
spective, however, the year 1992 is even more crucial since the signature of
the EU treaty added a new reference point at the international level: even
though the definition of the EU as an “empire” is ambitious and con-
troversial (Behr 2007), one can state that the EU emerged as an institu-
tional model able to independently coexist with the Western one led by
the United States. In theory, the adjustment to the EU model should have
been complementary to the adjustment to the American-led system. But
the convergence has been denied by the history of the last 25 years: the
European powers have reacted differently to the decision of the
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.
2.2 A DIVERGING COUNTRY? ITALY THROUGH EUROPEAN

BENCHMARK DATES AND NATIONAL CRITICAL JUNCTURES
The main divergence highlighted in the comparison between the history
of Italy and other Western European countries is the delay experienced in
the accomplishment of the process of state-building. In continental
Europe, France and Spain engaged in the process of concentration of
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
peninsula. If the modern age saw the incubation of a mythological dimen-

sion, then it had its centre in the idea of Rome. The understanding of this
point is crucial because this element played a crucial role in the long-term
history of the country and shaped its political life until the twentieth
century (De Francesco 2013)
The unmetabolized tradition of Rome goes along with another sup-
posed peculiarity: the presence of the Pope. To what extent the temporal
power of the Church delayed the process of state-building is a controver-
sial question, which has stimulated political and academic debates for
centuries. Scholars have been divided as in the theatrical tragedy between
neo-Guelph and neo-Ghibellines, the former believing in the positive
contribution of the Pope to the national cause and the latter seeing him
as the main barrier to unification. While this may not be central to our
argument, we can see the presence of the Pope as an additional factor of
the peculiarity of Italy in the modern age, resulting from the particular
nature of the Pope. He was a real temporal king, whose presence made the
picture of Italian power even more articulated. The Pope was seen by
many as a potential leader of Italian unity, but he was still and despite the
de-legitimization operated by the Reform, a superior moral authority for
Catholic kingdoms, which relied on his formal approval (Coppa 2008).
Thus, the conclusion can be drawn that Italy faced additional barriers to its
unification in comparison with the monarchies which accomplished their
transformation into modern states after 1648.
The missed trains of unification definitely transformed Italy into a
passive subject of European politics and two and half centuries were
needed to guarantee the peninsula with a stable and durable settlement.
From the mid-1550s, the country was systematically partitioned between
the great powers: the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis recognized the Spanish
domination, which was replaced by the French and the Austrian ones
when the Spanish power began to decline. The situation in the Italian
territories was finally settled only in 1748 by the Peace of Aachen, which
defined the first peaceful and stable order in the peninsula. While Rome
and Venice were by that time two ruins of the past, the most dynamic
states and territories (Lombardia, Tuscany, Parma and Naples) were
placed under European dynasties, who wanted to export their reformist
programmes to Italy (Valsecchi 1990, pp. 18–19). After the Peace of
Aachen, Italy ceased to be the battleground of foreign armies. It partici-
pated in the large wave of political reforms promoted by the so-called
enlightened monarchs. The phenomenon of enlightened absolutism,
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
(1883–1952) elaborated on this point presenting the Risorgimento as a

reaction to the cultural challenge of the European enlightenment. Rota
and others also believed that the Italian Risorgimento was nourished by its
myths, principles and models which Italy should resist substituting with
others from outside (Rota 1939, p. 32). The acceptance of this interpreta-
tion would lead to the conclusion that the rise of Italy as an united,
independent and internationally active nation was the result of an internal
process, which took as long as it did because of external interferences. The
final consequence of this argument would be that Italy represents an
eccentric case in the history of Europe, and the lack of convergence with
the main events and turning points of continental history would confirm
the existence of this gap.
This interpretation has been questioned by many authoritative Italian
intellectuals, from Benedetto Croce to Luigi Salvatorelli. In particular,
Salvatorelli criticized the thesis of the Italian Risorgimento as opposed to
the main ideas which were shaping Europe in the age of enlightenment:
“During the 18th century Italy reconnects with its tradition. The
Risorgimento reconnects with the Renaissance. But this reconnection
does not take place remaining of the national soil; it takes place through
Europe. Through its reconnection with Europe Italy begins to find herself
again after the isolation of the Counter-Reformation in the 17th century”
(Salvatorelli 2003, pp. 42–43). In his interpretation of the wider European
history, Croce presented the Risorgimento as a key component in the
affirmation of liberty in Europe. According to him, the main defendant in
Europe was not Italy, but Germany, which with the Reform begun a long-
term process of estrangement from the positive spirit of Europe.
Of course, the judgement on Germany can be discussed. But if we apply
the thesis that nations are “imagined communities” (Anderson 2006),
then we see that the Italian case is perfectly in line with the other
European cases. This thesis envisages three phases: in the first one, an
aware intellectual community is devoted to the study and presentation of
the common linguistic and historical roots of the nations; in the second
phase, patriots transform this cultural heritage into a political project; in
the third and final phase, the population is involved in the process and
plays a crucial role in the set-up of the nation-state. In Italy, the intellec-
tual elaboration was carried out from the mid-1700s to the Congress of
Vienna. From the restoration of 1815 to the revolutions of 1848, the
patriotic movement animated the uprisings and finally the unification was
accomplished. Italy had its peculiar history based on the coexistence of a
popular movement and a dynastic initiative, but in general terms the

Italian case perfectly fits the model. The conclusion is that Italy had its
own historical trajectory summarized by three main peculiarities: the crisis
of the sixteenth century, the presence of a heavy mythological burden, a
delayed process of national unification. Despite these peculiarities, Italy
never abandoned its projection and connection with Europe.
Taking these factors into consideration, the year 1861 can be viewed a
national critical juncture that is related to the European benchmark of
1860 already mentioned in the previous paragraph. Indeed, the national
unification was accomplished together and in line with the European
spirit. Despite being the official date of national unification, 1861 has
rarely been selected as a critical juncture for Italy by historians, regardless
of their academic and political orientations. There are many reasons
behind this lack of attention for 1861, but the main one is probably that
in 1861, Italy was only in part a national state, both in terms of territory
and political unity. The most authoritative Italian historians attach a much
more relevance to 1870, the year in which Rome was included in the
national territory and elected as the capital city of the kingdom (Croce
1967; Chabod 1993). They select 1870 because in that year, the main
territorial and also political goals of the Risorgimento were accomplished.
This also highlights the fact that the incorporation of Rome ingenerated
new expectations for an increased Italian activism on the international
scene. To explain this point, Croce recalled the famous question raised
by the historian Theodor Mommsen to Italian finance minister Quintino
Sella immediately after the capture of Rome: “Which are your plans in
Rome? This is worrying us: one cannot stay in Rome without cosmopo-
litan purposes” (quoted in Croce 1967, p. 3).
Most historians considered 1861 as a transitional date, quoting the
famous Massimo D’Azeglio’s statement: “we have made Italy, now we
must make the Italians!” The historical literature emphasized the idea of a
unified Italy as an unaccomplished country. Emilio Visconti Venosta,
diplomat and foreign minister for the first time between 1863 and 1864,
claimed that the Italians should be “indipendenti sempre, isolati mai”
(always independent, never isolated). Indeed, Italy was an isolated coun-
try, whose independence was at risk in the years following the kingdom’s
proclamation. This is probably the reason why the debate on post-unifica-
tion foreign policy focused on the alliances, seeing the years between 1861
and 1870 as a transitional period in which the young state remained
isolated and was not completely integrated in European politics
(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
domestic social and political life. As confirmed by a strong research record,

Versailles satisfied most of the Italian requests: Trento, Trieste, the
achievement of a leading position in the Adriatic Sea. Only a few requests
were not satisfied, such as the municipality of Fiume and the Antalya. This
explains the reason for the anti-revisionist stance of the last governments
of the liberal age and, to some extent, also the foreign policy maintained
by Benito Mussolini until the mid-1930s (De Felice 1997; Pastorelli
1997). But the concessions obtained at the diplomatic table were strongly
in contrast with the turbulent domestic environment of the post-war Italy.
The experience of the war had created a new “emerging middle class”,
whose request for political participation had a destabilizing effect on the
political system (De Felice 1997). This condition had consequences on the
international choices that Italy would have to take. However, neither 1919
nor 1922 (the year of the Fascists march on Rome) or even 1939 (the year
Italy decided to fight the war on Hitler’s side) can be considered national
critical junctures.
Fascism, which is still the most studied among the periods of Italian
history, can be summarized as the most extreme contradiction between
international adjustment and the rhetorical search for autonomy and
independence. Mussolini “the diplomat” – to echo Gaetano Salvemini’s
book of 1932 – had initially no intention to break with the old allies. At
the same time, Mussolini had to promote the Grande Italia dreamt by
nationalists and expected by the Italian people. So he relied on the illusion
of being able to increase the international power of Italy or to transform
Italy into an empire in Africa and in the Balkans with the agreement and
support of the traditional allies, Great Britain and France. But he could not
ignore the unwillingness of the First World War allies to support the
Italian ambitions. From January 1936, he decided to play the dangerous
game of the pendulum, swinging between the Anglo-French and the
Germans in the hope maximizing Italian gains. Mussolini did not solve
the antithesis between international adjustment and national indepen-
dence and made the choice to join the German alliance, which was foster-
ing neither the achievement of the national goals nor the independence of
the country. For all these reasons, we argue that 1919 was not a very
transformative date for Italy, but a date which showed a greater degree of
continuity with the past in comparison with other European countries
(Germany for instance). For years, historians underestimated the continu-
ity in Italian history also because they looked at Fascism as the main
turning point in Italian history. Studies over the last 30 years have
elaborated a more nuanced approach and are more hesitant in defining

1919 as a primary turning point in Italian history (Pastorelli 1997).
Scholars have shown more unanimity in choosing 1945 as a key turning
point in national history. Historians of the postwar period, who were
strongly influenced by the ideology of the national resistance to Fascism,
believing that the most important date in Italian history was 1945, when the
country was liberated, Nazi-Fascism defeated and democracy restored
(Battaglia 1953). Others have seen an alternative date in 1946, the year in
which the republic was established through the referendum. Also 1948 can
be included in the list for three strong reasons. It is the year that the new
republican constitution entered into force marking a turning point from the
Statuto Albertino (the constitution which defined the institutional system
since 1848). In April 1948, the first general elections took place. The
political system of the first republic was defined and this allowed the
prime minister Alcide De Gasperi to take the political initiative to place
Italy in the international bipolar scene of the Cold War (Formigoni 1996).
But our preference is for the 1943, which is, in our view, the year of the
phoenix of the Italian history as well as for the European system. It has
always been presented as the year in which the Italian homeland died
(Galli della Loggia 1996; Aga Rossi 2003). On October 13 of that year,
a few days after the signature of the unconditional surrender, the govern-
ment joined the United Nations as a co-belligerent in their fight against
the Germans. If 1943 is a real critical juncture of Italian history, it is
because in those circumstances, Italy solves most of its past contradictions.
Facing the critical moment, a governing minority decided that the future
of Italy would be better served adjusting the domestic political system to
the emerging international system. In this year, a process of adaptation
began, which led Italy to become a member of the Western or US-lead
world and a relevant part of an economically integrated Western Europe.
The participation in the Western and European system was the supreme
principle of Italian foreign policy of the post-war decades. As we shall see
in Chapter 3, the institutional legacy of 1943 survived until the fall of the
Berlin Wall.
As often pointed out in the literature, in the aftermath of fall of the
Berlin Wall, Italy ceased to be the frontier of the free world and lost the so-
called situation rent of the Cold War. We believe, however, that the main
turning point of this last stage of national history is 1992. Similarly to
1943, Italy experienced one of the most difficult national moments:
corruption scandals that led to the fall of the party system which had
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
March 1861. The Challenging Myth of the

Post-Imperial Legacy
Abstract This chapter considers the process of Italian unification and

discusses the nexus between domestic and international factors in the
Italian foreign policymaking process. The foreign policy of unified Italy
is defined by two opposite forces: the legacy of the imperial past and the
adjustment to the European and international system. The tension
between myth and adjustment is discussed though an overview on the
years between the unification and the fall of Fascism. The chapter also
provides an insight on the strategy of the alliance of unified Italy, high-
lighting that for Italy, alliances always have a double role: not only to
guarantee the security of the country but also to serve as a chain transfer-
ring best policies and practices into the country.
Keywords Nation Risorgimento Unification Fascism Imperial myth
When analysing Italian foreign policy, a controversial question arises over

whether Italy thinks and acts differently from other Western European
countries and, above all, if the peculiar position often taken by Italian
governments depends on the particular circumstances in which the process
of unification took place. From the beginning of the twentieth century and
during Mussolini’s regime, questions were asked about the effectiveness of
the unification process concluded in 1861. A mainstream interpretation
emerged which considered Fascism the result of an unaccomplished

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6_3
process of reform. Piero Gobetti, the young director of the Rivoluzione

liberale, suggested that the Italian Risorgimento could be defined as a
“missed revolution”. According to Antonio Gramsci, the communist
leader who was in a fascist prison between 1929 and 1935, the incapacity
to accomplish the Risorgimento provoked structural weaknesses within
the Italian government.
Critical thinking on the Italian peculiarity gained growing consensus in
post-war Italy, both internally and internationally with many scholars
crediting the incapacity of Italy to develop a functioning democracy as
the result of a long-term historical accident or, even worse, of a degen-
erative historical process. After the fall of the Fascist regime (1943) and
especially at the end of the Second World War (1945), the question
became of paramount importance, given the need to rethink the national
and international patterns of the state. Between 1944 and 1946, a demand
emerged amongst a number of intellectuals and politicians to embark
upon a second Risorgimento, as the process was still unfinished due to
the First World War and the following Fascist dictatorship. They sup-
ported the political project of the Partito d’azione (Action Party) referring
to the heritage of Giuseppe Mazzini and proposing an ambitious project
of purging and structural reforms. However, this radical project was
rapidly dismissed. In the cultural milieu that followed, the idea that the
country should accomplish its Risorgimento lost most of power, as shown
by the evolution in the dispute over the nature of Fascism. The majority of
Italians within both the political leadership and the intellectual elites
uncritically adapted to the mainstream interpretation provided by the
philosopher Benedetto Croce, who portrayed Fascism as a moral disease
which struck the civil and political heart of the country. Croce wanted to
draw a distinction between Fascism and Nazism. While the latter was the
expression of a long-term degeneration of German ethical awareness, the
former could be seen as an accident in the national Italian history. From
this perspective, the rise of Mussolini could be considered a result of the
moral crisis generated by the First World War. This interpretation was
perfectly fitting for a country which aimed at discharging its past: the
differentiation of Fascism from Nazism – the real nightmare of Europe –
allowed the Italians to present themselves as simply followers of the wrong
project.
However, some mainstream intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s
continued to believe that the process of nation-building remained
incomplete. The debate gathered momentum as a result of the
MARCH 1861. THE CHALLENGING MYTH OF THE POST-IMPERIAL LEGACY 31
evolution in the domestic situation in the country. By the end of the

1960s, Italy experienced a rapid deterioration, with political violence
and terrorism threatening the institutional order and poor economic
performance fuelling class conflicts. This weakness was also perceived at
an international level and Italian accountability in the Western world
was questioned. The situation that existed in those years influenced the
intellectual debate and had an impact on the controversy over the
functionality of Italian democracy.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, this interpretation survived and
encountered the favour of a certain intellectual milieu which considered
Berlusconi’s Italy as another missed opportunity to radically reform the
country. The idea of a paese mancato gained increasing support among
notable historians, economists and sociologists alike and gave rise to
numerous important publications by eminent authors such as historian
Guido Crainz (2003) and Paul Ginsborg (2006). In addition, a number of
international scholars have given their attention to this interpretation
including Denis Mack Smith who represented Italy as a country which
always attempted (during the Risorgimento, after the First World War,
after the Second World War, after the end of the Cold War) to engage in
structural reforms, or even more in a revolution, yet always failed. After
Mack Smith, the main interpreter of this line was Christopher Duggan
(2008), the author of The force of destiny: a history of Italy since 1796, who
attempts to establish confirmation of the Italian eccentricity, while under-
estimating the deep existing connection between Italian history and the
entire history of Europe.
In our opinion, Italy is different rather than eccentric. It performs
differently from other central Western European countries as well as
from countries from Mediterranean Europe. The idea of paese mancato
is correct, but only to identify some sources of the “Italian conun-
drum” during the Risorgimento and, consequently, in 1861. By focus-
ing on that year, one can observe the interaction of all the factors
which made Italy different: a peculiar balance of power between
European countries, a changing geostrategic scenario, a changing
political systems in Europe and last, but not least, an overlapping
between the myths of an ancient imperial past and the challenges of
that time.
In order to clarify the vague formula of the Italian peculiarity and attach
to it a scientific status, this chapter will provide a historical excursus on the
specific circumstances which led to the Italian unification.
3.1 THE (RE)BIRTH OF ITALY IN A CHANGING EUROPE

The thesis of an Italian peculiarity in Europe has been fiercely rejected by
generations of Italian intellectuals, starting from Croce whose reading of
Fascism as a moral disease went well beyond the specific discussion on the
Italian authoritarian drift. In fact, he denied the peculiarity of the Italian
case to present the country as a pure product of a unique European
history. Federico Chabod (1993) and Rosario Romeo (1977), among
others, portray the domestic and foreign policy of unified Italy as being
in line with the social, political and economic tendencies which have
inspired the history of Europe. This interpretation correctly explains
many aspects of Italian history and also the pro-European attitude of
Italy today. At the same time, it is important to investigate the factors
and events which contributed to the differentiation of Italy from other
European countries. It is interesting to observe that already during the
sixteenth century the peculiarities of the Italian situation were highlighted
by historians and intellectuals.
The first and most important peculiarity is the presence of the Pope,
which has long been considered the main hindrance to unification.
Without overstating radical or anticlerical interpretations, it cannot be
denied that the temporal power of the Pope hindered, until the emergence
of the royal family of Piedmont, the rise of a monarch promoting a project
of national unification similar to the one promoted by other European
royal families. As a result of coexisting factors, in particular the parochial-
ism animating the leaders of the Italian states, the Italian territories
remained divided while other European monarchies were rapidly moving
towards unification. This situation was clearly recognized by Nicolò
Machiavelli in the sixteenth century, who called for a new Prince who
could restore the unity of the country that had become a battleground for
foreign armies. But the problem remained unresolved until 1861 and
despite the expectations of many neo-guelphs, Pope Pius IX refused to
become the champion of national unification, ultimately becoming the
main enemy of the process.
The second peculiarity rises from the importance given to the glorious
past of the country, specifically the heritage of ancient Rome. Starting
from what the historian Charles H. Haskins (1972) identified as the first
renaissance of the twelfth century, this period started to be recalled in a
more and more insistent way. The rise of a collective mentality, which
incorporated the mythical idea that Italy should be rebuilt on the ruins of
ancient Rome, was also favoured by the emergence of a new literary

movement during the thirteenth century. Petrarca’s poem All’Italia [To
Italy] is unanimously considered as the work which paved the way for a
national artistic current that lasted centuries. In the sixteenth century,
when the peninsula experienced one of its darkest times, the reference to
the glorious past became a source of inspiration not only for novelists, but
also for the new emerging intellectuals and political thinkers. Machiavelli’s
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius indirectly addressed the
problem of the Italian unification. After stating that the unification of a
country has to be considered as a summum bonum, Machiavelli advocated
in favour of a country liberated from the external influences of France and
Spain. Machiavelli openly expressed his considerations on the Italian
question in his Discourses. Francesco Guicciardini went on to contribute
to the reconnection with the past of the country in his History of Italy
(1561), which for the first time portrayed Italian politics as a single
process.
The national political movements, which grew in the Italian states
following the turmoil generated by the French revolution at the end of
the eighteenth century, inherited this mythological idea of Italy and gave
them a new position of paramount importance. Mazzini (1805–1872)
based his entire political project on the idea of a third Rome to be
established after the Rome of the Ceasars and the Rome of the Popes.
This new political and institutional creature would have regenerated the
greatness of the two past ages, while at the same time introducing a new
democratic political society and political system. The myth of Rome also
served as an instrument to mark the specific cultural identity of the Italian
nation compared with the others of Europe, especially France and
Germany. In the early part of the nineteenth century, when France was
changing the picture of many European countries, the remembrance of
the Roman myth contributed to the rejection of its aggressive foreign
influence. Dramatist Vittorio Alfieri had already illustrated this idea in
Misogallo (1799), arguing that the hostility against the French revolution
served as an artificial tool to highlight the Italian identity. The reaction
against the cultural challenge generated by the French revolution fuelled
the intellectual debate for many decades, as confirmed by a historical essay
on the French revolution written by Alessandro Manzoni (1889). But
Rome also served the cause of those who supported (or at least were not
opposing) the fresh air coming from France and believed that the French
revolution could have positive consequences also for Italy. Among them
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.
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
three peculiarities of the past history of the country. It represents not

only the partial fulfilling of a mythological thinking but also a con-
firmation of the fact that the achievement of the national programme
was subordinated to the existence of a functioning and effective diplo-
matic plan. Moreover, the year 1861 also led to the official opening of
the Roman question since Cavour himself proclaimed that Rome was
the natural capital of Italy, explicitly creating a controversy between
the newly established Italian government and the Pope.
3.2 UNIFIED ITALY: THE LEGACY OF THE PAST AND THE ROLE
OF FOREIGN POLICY
On 17 March 1861, all the Italian provinces were incorporated within

the national borders with the notable exception of Rome, Venice,
Trento, Bozen and Trieste. The proclamation of the kingdom in
Turin represented a watershed between the age of sentiment and the
age of rationality. Differently from previously accomplished unifications
(Greece, Belgium and Romania), the Italian state-building was unan-
imously judged as a revolutionary act, which had a destabilizing impact
on the European balance of power established in 1815. The attention of
all the European cabinets turned to Turin and sentiments towards the
newly born state were at best of cautious suspicion, in the case of
London and Paris, and at worst hostile, in the case of Vienna. In
1861, Italy was totally unsafe. The country was not yet considered a
legitimate state by a significant number of the European states and was
at risk of retaliation by a coalition led by Austria. Differently to
Germany, whose unification also confirmed its military supremacy over
France, Italy had poor military capacity, whose limits were further
emphasized by the integration between different regions. The main
source of concern after the unification was the possibility of a military
attack. As a consequence, the political initiative in the international
arena was a key instrument in preventing the emergence of a hostile
coalition. Despite the support of London and Paris, the Italian ambas-
sadors had to overcome the hostility of Austria and the German states
still under the influence of Vienna. The struggle for the recognition of
Italy lasted until 1865, when Bayern and the other small states of the
German confederation implicitly recognized the kingdom of Italy
(Anchieri 1963). This difficult condition was also exacerbated by the
sudden and unexpected death of Cavour in June 1861.
Romantic myths, which had inspired the cultural Risorgimento, were

put aside in favour of a more cautious leadership. La Marmora, Minghetti,
Ricasoli, Farini and especially the main architect of the Italian foreign
policy of those years, Emilio Visconti Venosta, adopted a prudent
approach to international questions. The priority was the consolidation
of the state-building. The Italian government had no intention of endan-
gering the achievements of 1861 by following the revolutionary myths of
an ancient grandeur. However, unified Italy also incorporated the main
peculiarities which characterized national movements before the unifica-
tion. Myths continued to play a crucial role for the orientation of both
domestic and foreign policies. The primary function of these myths (in
particular the myth of Rome) was to consolidate the national pride of a
weak and still divided country in which local dialects and constituencies
were stronger than the idea of a unified state. As a result, reference to the
myth of Rome was crucial in order to promote the transformation of Italy
into an effective and unified country.
Furthermore, myths contributed to the cause of Italy at an international
level, serving as a legitimizing argument. The newly established Italian
diplomacy had the challenging task of convincing the international com-
munity that the Italian unification was, far from being a revolutionary act,
a kind of reconciliation with history. Most importantly, myths contributed
to the orientation of Italian foreign policy and the decision between
alternative alliances. The idea of Rome was the fixed inspiration for the
entire leading class (with the exception of clerics) and, after 1870 (when
Rome was included in Italy), the myth of the ancient grandeur continued
to fuel the ambitions of Italy on the international scene. The belief that all
Italians had to be incorporated within the national borders became the
criteria for choosing appropriate international partners and abandoning
the alliances which would prove to be fruitless. This remained the basic
motivation behind Italian foreign policy during the first five decades of
unification. The will to conclude national unification gave direction to the
foreign policy of the country from 1861 to the First World War.
If the imperial myth actively contributed to the making of Italian
foreign policy, then the belief in the grandeur of the country and the
capacity to recreate an empire emerged in the 1880s as a reflection of the
rise of imperialism at the European level. However, those imperial ambi-
tions ended, as is commonly known, in complete failure. The attempt of
Francesco Crispi to conquer Ethiopia was frustrated and the Italian defeat
at Adua (1896) is always remembered as the first case of a European power
defeated by an African population. The writer and historian Harold

Nicholson noted that Italian policymakers based their power on diplo-
macy, not their diplomacy on power (Fubini 2000, p. 26). This statement
contains a partial truth given the incapacity of the young nation to achieve
its political and territorial goals uniquely through military action. Italian
governments had to take advantage of the changes which were taking
place on the European scene and to establish alliances.
Differently from the other great European powers, which used alliances
as a secondary instrument for the empowerment of their foreign policy
design, Italy interpreted alliances as a constitutive element of the national
political instrument, crucial to pursuing the goal of national unification.
Italy did not have sufficient military power to undertake military action for
its irredentist project and, consequently, alliances were the only instru-
ment to negotiate the acquisition of new territories or, eventually, to be
included in a military coalition. In order to obtain Venice (1866) and
Rome (1870), the Italians profited from the Prussian dynamism and
started their military campaigns during the Austrian–Prussian and
French–Prussian conflicts. The stabilization of European politics, which
followed the German unification in 1871, deprived the Italian diplomacy
of this tool, since it became practically impossible to profit from the
contrasts between the great European powers. However, the question
concerning the inclusion into a system of alliance went far beyond the
tactical dimension.
A major issue for the Italian foreign policymakers was the choice
between two alternative alliances: France or Germany? As pointed out by
Pietro Pastorelli (1997), the national idea was the inspiring factor of the
policy of alliances carried out by Italy from unification to the First World
War. This explains the traditional linkage between Italy, on the one hand,
and France and Great Britain, on the other, as these two powers were the
only ones that could support the Italian national cause against Austria. But
the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria in 1882 can also be seen as
an instrument to guarantee the protection of the already accomplished
acquisitions and as a diplomatic framework for negotiating the transfer of
Austrian territories to Italy. The fact that this ambition remained the
wishful thinking of the Italian diplomats does not mean that this was not
the goal of the alliance.
Another less discussed function of alliances is their capacity to serve as a
model of political and social development that could inspire the building
of the Italian nation. In nineteenth century, Europe, France and Germany
were in competition for cultural supremacy as both had the ambition to be

the model for other European powers. Italy had traditionally looked to
France as a model. The Italian Risorgimento was strongly influenced by
the values and practices of its Latin sister. After unification, the Italian élite
choose the centralized and rational model of France for national and
political development. But from the 1870s onward, German influence
grew in many fields (politics, economy, culture, society) and replaced, to
some extent, that of France. The two alliances to which Italy belonged
(the Triple Alliance from 1882 to 1915 and, later, the Triple Entente with
France and Great Britain from 1915 to 1923) influenced the national
political system, economy and society. The impact that those alliances
had on the domestic dimension still requires further critical and historical
analysis.
Adopting a contemporary terminology, one can affirm that alliances of
that age operated as a vincolo esterno contributing to the reform and
modernization of the country. For the successors of Cavour who ruled
until 1876, the alliance with London and Paris meant an anchorage to the
values of liberalism and democracy. Following Cavour’s personal and
political beliefs, the post-unification governments thought that the inter-
action with the two leading countries of liberal democracy could have
contributed to the establishment of a stronger and more efficient consti-
tutional monarchy. The leaders of the so-called Historical Left (which led
the government from 1876 to 1896) as well as Giovanni Giolitti (who
remained the unopposed leader of Italian politics from 1903 to 1915)
were less influenced by this legacy of the Risorgimento. Apart from their
political vision, they also shared the idea that the external influence could
have beneficial effects for the political and economic growth of the young
nation. The alliance with Germany was not only a military pact (whose
usefulness was also questionable given the fact that Italy was not at a
concrete risk of a military attack by France) but was, first and foremost,
an instrument to promote the modernization of the country within a
conservative social pattern (Rusconi 2005; Niglia 2012).
It is important to recognize that the alliance-making of the liberal age
not only satisfied the international needs of the country, in terms of
security and enlargement of the national territory. Alliances also served
as the transmission chain of models and best practices for the implementa-
tion of the political and bureaucratic structures, for economic moderniza-
tion and for the establishment of the new society. The swinging between
the (Anglo)-French model and the German one should not be seen as the
schizophrenic oscillation of an uncertain country. It was (and probably still

is) the result of a shared sensation that Italy, given its belated nature, needs
an external model to catch up with the most advanced areas of Europe.
According to this model, Italy can be seen as an intrinsically European
country, meaning that all the reference points of Italian foreign policy had
be to found in the European framework. At the same time, the national
vision was influenced by its geographic position, which oriented the
country towards the Mediterranean. Despite the decadence experienced
by this area in the modern age and the emergence of Carolingian Europe,
Italy always maintained a strong interest in the Mediterranean region.
Even after the unification and the formal inclusion of Italy in the
European concert of powers, the Mediterranean remained a strong attrac-
tion for the Italian leading elites, with a few notable exceptions (for
instance the Socialists). Chronicles tell that Italy was unable to fully satisfy
its Mediterranean and, broadly speaking, Southern ambition.
Italy entered into the colonial competition when it was too late. The
British and the French had already obtained the full control of large areas
of Africa. Other powers (Belgium, Spain and Portugal) maintained the
control of specific regions and countries. Italy also lacked political, military
and economic power to act as a pivotal player in the area. As a conse-
quence, the history of Italian colonialism enumerates more failures that
successes. In 1881, the Treaty of Bardo recognized the French protecto-
rate on Tunisia and the attempt to conquer Ethiopia resulted in a military
and political disaster. Two main conquests obtained before the First World
War were the small Eritrea and Libya, along with a promising but still
unaccomplished Balkan projection.
The role played by the Mediterranean and more extensively by the
non-European world is controversial. In the first 50 years after the
unification, it fuelled the nationalistic ambitions in the public opinion,
giving the illusion that Italy could transform itself into a great power
through the acquisition of an even modest colonial empire. Italy’s
Mediterranean policy before and after the First World War was inspired
by five factors: the ambition to be a great power comparable with other
European empires, the imperial legacy, economic interests, cultural ties,
the presence of Italian communities in some areas/countries, a cultural
and religious dialogue. The extra-European world always remained a
secondary option in the general framework of Italian foreign policy.
This pattern characterized the years before the First World War and
afterwards Mussolini’s foreign policy. An outlook on French–Italian
relations supports this argument: despite the competition between the

two nations in Northern Africa and the support given by Germany to the
Italian colonial ambitions, the twentieth century witnessed a growing
convergence between Rome and Paris on European affairs. One can
finally see the Mediterranean as a counter factor operating within the
general framework of Italian European politics.
This system properly functioned from 1861 to 1919. During those
decades, Italy opted for an alliance which could guarantee the security of
the country and its expansion, as well as domestic cultural and political
change. In the end, the alliance with France and Great Britain prevailed. It
was the only one which could guarantee the full and effective achievement
of national unification in case of a defeat by the Austrian-Germans. In the
first 60 years of national history, the interaction between myths and
national ambitions, on the one hand, and alliance-making, on the other,
performed fruitfully. Alliances operated also as a vincolo esterno contribut-
ing to the reform and modernization of the country. To conclude, the year
1861 was a national critical juncture since it allowed for political agency
and the choice to play a decisive causal role and produce a long-lasting
institutional legacy. How and when did this mechanism break?
3.3 THE MYTH BETRAYED: THE COLLAPSE OF ITALIAN

FOREIGN POLICY
Accusing Mussolini of being solely responsible for change in direction
would be too simplistic and a mistake. Until the mid-1930s, Italy firmly
remained on the anti-revisionist side of the European barricade. Despite
his muscular posturing, militarist proclamations and the actions of the
regime (such as the raid against Corfu), Mussolini’s actions on the inter-
national scene were in accordance with the political strategy of the liberal
governments. The main goal was to safeguard the achievements of the
First World War. The treaties of Versailles, Saint-Germain en Leye and
Trianon established new frontiers, which fully rewarded the Italian ambi-
tions. In 1924, when the disputed municipality of Fiume was also included
within the Italian borders, the territorial mission of Risorgimento was
accomplished. The territorial unification and the project to transform
Italy from a question for the European powers into one of those powers
were achieved. The country, which was always allegorically portrayed as a
woman among men (Szalgo 2013), was then admitted into the inner circle
of the European great powers dealing with the continental balance of
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
year, as well as the opposition to the Italian intervention against

Ethiopia, confirmed his miscalculation. The result was an Italian “green
light” to the German annexation of Austria and the establishment of the
Rome–Berlin axis in 1936. In the meantime, the participation of
Germans and Italians in the Spanish civil war was contributing to the
rapprochement between the two regimes. Mussolini, however, miscalcu-
lated German power and probably overestimated the flexibility of the
Anglo-French. As a result, Italy ended up in system of alliance which was
contrary to the Duce’s original plan.
Mussolini’s decision to play the German card with the Pact of Steel in
1939 symbolizes the failure of alliance-making as an instrument to defend
and promote the national interest. The decision to increase the coopera-
tion with Hitler’s Germany firstly implied the end of the traditional anti-
revisionism of Italy, namely the containment of German nationalism and
the support for Austrian independence. The practical result of this choice
was the end of Austria as a buffer state and the establishment of a direct
border between Italy and Germany. This marked a turning point in Italian
history. The Italian “green light” to the Anschluss weakened the northern
border and revamped, despite Hitler’s guarantees, the question of the
South Tyrol. After the signature of the Pact of Steel and, later on, during
the war, the anti-national nature of the German–Italian alliance became
more and more evident. The alliance with Berlin did not contribute to any
extent to the achievement of the national interest, both in the Balkans and
in Northern Africa. In the Balkans, the Germans never allowed the estab-
lishment of an Italian domination and took advantage of the Italian
military weakness to replace their partners in control of a strategic region.
Moreover, the subordination of Italian military goals to those of Germany
jeopardized the military performance of the country. Starting from mid-
1941, the Italian forces had to operate in different battlefields and this
resulted in a lack of effectiveness and a rapid exhaustion of those forces.
The participation in operations decided by the Germans, for instance the
Italian participation in the campaign against the USSR, could not be
explained in terms of the pursuit of national interests.
On this point one can conclude that Mussolini changed the meaning
that alliances had within the entire framework of Italian foreign policy.
Before Fascism and during the first age of the regime, alliances were an
instrument for the pursuit of the national goals. Starting from the late
1930s, alliances (namely that with Germany) were interpreted, if not in
terms of pure ideology, at least in terms of consistency and respect for the
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
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
mention the commitment of philosopher Giovanni Gentile, former min-

ister of Education, who stood even during the war against the subjugation
of the Italian culture to the German one. The presence of a strong cultural
opposition to the German cultural superiority and the weakness of the
pro-Nazi groups confirm that Italian elites did not believe in the fruitful-
ness of the existing alliance with Germany. In their perspective, Italy
would have been diminished by the participation in the German project.
In conclusion, one can observe that starting from the mid-1930s,
Italian foreign policy lost the role that it had had since 1861. Oscillating
between the two alliances (the Anglo-French on one side, the Germans on
the other) ceased to be productive for Italian national interests. Alliances
ceased also to be the supply chain of models for the development of the
still young Italian nation. The 1930s marked a change in the correlation
between myths and foreign policy. Fascism radicalized pre-existing myths
in order to guarantee a high degree of consensus for the regime and to
promote the international standing of the country. In the very end, Italy
became the victim of its myths and of its alliances. Between 1939 and
1943, Italy’s destiny was determined by decisions taken on the interna-
tional arena, rather than by the ones taken at the domestic level, and the
positive peculiarities of the past were transformed into negatively impact-
ing factors. During the Second World War, in short, the peculiarities of
Italian foreign policy became destructive factors that dissolved the heritage
of the First World War and, broadly speaking, of the Risorgimento.
A wide body of literature defines the Italian armistice with the Anglo-
Americans of 3 September 1943 as the “death of the fatherland” (Galli
Della Loggia 1996). On 8 September, when the armistice was proclaimed,
the entire Italian state-system collapsed. In just a few days, Italy was
divided in two parts and transformed, again after four centuries, into a
battleground of foreign armies. The capital of the Risorgimento was
completely annihilated. An attempt to rebuild the nation and to reconnect
it with its positive past took place in the part of Italy which was out of
German control. In the Southern regions, the governing elites operated to
recreate the Italian nation and to reintegrate the country in the interna-
tional community. It is interesting to observe that the restoration of
democracy in the country and its reinclusion within the international
community took place through a process which had an incredible similar-
ity to that of nation-building in the nineteenth century. The rebirth of
Italy was accomplished between 1943 (the decision to fight with the
Anglo-Americans to liberate the country from the German occupation)
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
September 1943. Democratic Transition

and International Adjustment
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.
Keywords Democratic transition Middle power Cold War European

Union Mediterranean Sea
With its problematic capitulation in September 1943, Italy became an

adaptive power whose main objective was to adjust its strategic conduct
to the new international environment. This new direction emerged slowly
and through a period of trial and error. After a brief phase of national
unity, which reflected the post-war climate of international solidarity, in
1947 the Italian government decided to link domestic politics to the logic
of the Cold War. The surrender and subsequent military occupation in
1943 had made it clear to the Italian elite how much international

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6_4
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
As well as 1861, 1943 can be considered as a critical juncture in the

Italian history. As already stated in Chapter 2, we refer the theory critical
junctures to developments of institutions broadly defined as organizations,
formal rules, public policies and political regimes. In the context of foreign
policy, however, critical junctures can be cast as moments in which uncer-
tainty as to the future of the international system allows for political
agency to play a decisive causal role. In particular, new forces have the
opportunity to direct a single polity on a certain path of development (that
will persist over a long period of time). This offers the theoretical basis for
a definition of critical junctures as relatively short periods of time during
which there is an increased probability that agents’ choices will affect the
outcome of what they consider national interests. A single event or a series
of events, typically exogenous to the institution of interest, leads to a phase
of political uncertainty in which different options for radical institutional
change are viable (Capoccia 2015). The institutional outcome of any
critical juncture points to the possibility that during situations of uncer-
tainty, only some actors are able to strategically promote new social norms
manipulating the preferences of social groups.
In the case of 1943 and the succeeding Italian transition towards
democracy, new forces led by the DC chose to rebuild the country by
placing foreign policy into the Western camp. More than undergo an
external dictation, this hegemonic blocco storico emerged from a succession
of events that followed the capitulation. After this key event, the new
democratic forces were able to impose a durable institutional path depen-
dency. This happened thanks to a series of successive events related to the
contextual restructuring of the international system: firstly, the US-led
economic recovery and, secondly, the advent of the Cold War.
4.1 THE TRAGEDY OF CAPITULATION AS A CRITICAL

JUNCTURE
There is a deep contradiction at the basis of the historical formation of an
Italian blocco storico at the end of the Second World War. To this regard, a
detailed excursus is needed, mentioning primary and secondary sources to
cast this period as a national critical juncture. It is fair to say that while
capitulation means to stop fighting in a war and accept defeat, the instru-
ment of Italian capitulation was in fact an armistice between Italy and the
Allies. On 13 October 1943, Italy obtained a cobelligerent status declar-
ing war on Germany. It presupposed Italian help against the Germans and
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.
During that period, in a mounting condition of civil war, Italy

remained divided in two different camps, both claiming legitimacy.
On 23 September 1943, the little town of Salò was named the capital
of the Social Republic of Italy as part of Mussolini and Hitler’s last
efforts to reorganize Italian Fascism. However, for many Italians, the
armistice meant not sharing Hitler’s plan until the finale. Since 1939,
the country had reluctantly followed Nazi Germany into the war and,
furthermore, as a consequence was pushed towards the decision of the
extermination of the Jews. The atmosphere of great uncertainty and
confusion that followed the disintegration of the Italian army, com-
bined with the brutal German reaction, encouraged the anti-fascist
political parties to organize the Resistenza. Since 1942, the
Communist Party (PCI), the Action Party and the Christian
Democrats (DCs) had already begun to reorganize their forces. After
the armistice of 8 September 1943, they become extremely active
against the Germans and the fascists of Salò in collaboration with the
Anglo-Americans.
This popular contribution to the liberation of Italy (September
1943–April 1945), together with the inability of the King to lead the
country out of the war, conditioned the monarchy’s fate and the post-
war transition. In March 1944, the Soviet recognition of Badoglio’s
royal government had already pushed the PCI to participate in govern-
ment. In the following June, political parties with different ideologies,
but the same anti-fascist bias (Communists, Socialists and DCs), had
set up a coalition government. The war ended in April 1945 and on 2
June 1946, with the Constitutional referendum, Italy become a
Republic.
While these events are well known, what is relevant here is that the
Italian republic was founded on the myth that the Resistenza had been a
decisive struggle for victory. This myth was very different from those
inherited from the past. Within the space of 13 months, Italy rapidly
became an adaptive power whose main objective would be to adjust its
strategic conduct to the post-war international community. But, as we
shall see, the way in which Italy capitulated was not generally clear to the
public opinion and to the large part of the social forces. The price of the
adjustment for a defeated country was not deeply considered or fully taken
into account by the Italians.
The first step for international adaptation and re-legitimization of
Italy was the approval of the treaty of peace. This international
agreement that concluded the military occupation was signed in Paris

on 10 February 1947. The treaty can be regarded as a diktat “relatively
bland” (Santoro 1991, p. 181). But it was in contrast with the general
feeling about the decisive role played by the Italians in the Resistenza.
The borders between Italy and Austria did not undergo changes. But
on the eastern frontier, Italy relinquished more than 800,000 square
kilometres with a population of more than 800,000 inhabitants. Apart
from the Free Territory of Trieste, the majority of this area, including
the province of Fiume and Zara, went to Yugoslavia. Italy also lost its
colonies in Africa and the Mediterranean, as well as concessions in
China. But the Italian government could not realistically oppose these
dictations. A signal in this direction had already emerged at the end of
the war in April 1945, with the exclusion of Italy from the Conference
of San Francisco. On that occasion, in a letter to the Times of London,
Benedetto Croce denounced the willingness of the Allies to “excom-
municate the Italian people” (Croce 1993, p. 247). The general hope
of many Italians was to be considered equal to all other members of the
coalition of the United Nations (UN), in accordance with the cobelli-
gerent status. Furthermore, the participation at the Conference would
have put Italy in a legal situation that would not require the conclusion
of a peace treaty (Di Nolfo 1999, pp. 181–182). However, the Allies
could not realistically endorse the proposal to accord a full cobelliger-
ent status during the negotiations.
On 10 February 1947, the foreign minister Sforza decided to sign the
bland diktat but deferring the ratification to the decision of the Assemblea
Costituente (established with the Constitutional referendum). On the
following 24 July, Sforza presented the agreement to the members of
the Assembly and, after having defined the text as an “unjust act” (AC
1947, p. 6164), declared that revisions should be obtained but only
through pacific means. He also recalled the danger of international isola-
tion, particularly for the implementation of the European Recovery
Program. This programme had been announced by the US Secretary of
State George Marshal on 5 June 1947. But it was launched at the inter-
national conference in Paris on 12 July, that is to say only 12 days before
the Italian parliamentary debate on the peace treaty. Concluding his
speech in the Assembly, Sforza stated “a foreign policy is only the mirror
of an internal policy” (ivi, p. 6169).
According to Norman Kogan (1963, pp. 135–136), since it established the
primacy of domestic politics over foreign policy, this statement symbolized
the reversal of a realistic conception of foreign policy, which is based on the

primacy of international and security concerns. In his opinion, Sforza’s
objective was to protect the domestic social structure from internal dangers
of fragmentation, rather than from external ones. But Kogan completely
misinterpreted the point. The goal of Sforza was to obtain, by virtue of the
signing of the peace treaty, the Italian admission to the international
community and to the UN. This was an attempt to appease the tensions
about the cobelligerent status and, above all, to open the door for the
Italian democratic transition, anchoring the domestic system to the inter-
national system. In Sforza’s viewpoint, the peace treaty was the final act of
Italy’s isolation and its approval would represent the recognition that Italy
could act like other Western democratic states, with peaceful means and
adapting its behaviour to the international community (Vigezzi 1988,
p. 4). In other words, Sforza adopted a policy of internationalism as a
new vincolo esterno, in order to promote national goals and interests.
To better explain this pivotal point, it is useful to consider the parlia-
mentary debate and the reasons why the Socialists and the Communists
finally did not approve the peace treaty. Croce was the first to take the
floor after Sforza. His speech is relevant in order to read between the lines
how Italy did not overpass its assertive aspirations or its self-representation
as a great power. According to Croce, the treaty was not only the notifica-
tion of what the winners asked or took from Italy, but was also a legal and
moral judgement on the Italians. In his opinion, the document read as a
punishment that Italy should have to atone in order to rise or return to
that supposed higher sphere of international community in which, appar-
ently, other states already lived, “even those of the African continent
(Continente nero)” (AC 1947, p. 6169). Croce was referring to political
clauses about measures to be taken in the Constitution to prevent the
resurgence of Fascism and to secure human rights and fundamental free-
doms. These clauses reflected the policy of unconditional surrender, since
this principle transformed the Second World War, during its last part, into
a moral crusade against Fascism and Nazism. According to Croce, the
treaty expressed the same spiritual distress that animated the courts insti-
tuted by the winners to judge politicians and officers of the defeated states
of Germany and Japan as war criminals. Croce insisted on the idea that
Italy was defeated but that the Italians still remained, after the “fascist
parenthesis” (ivi, p. 6170), among those peoples who had most shaped
European civilization. Without opposing to the execution of dictations,
Croce appealed for the rejection of the treaty and, using a metaphor, he
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,
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
campaign in April 1948 become a sort of “Cold War propaganda battle”

(Ellwood 1993). Italy had already joined the Western camp participating in
the launch of the Marshall Plan and accepting the peace treaty. That is to say
that the Italian decision makers had already resorted to a vincolo esterno in
order to implant into the Italian society a set of ordinances that, from the
inside, did not have the capacity to produce (Carli 1993, p. 6). But once the
DCs won the general elections in 1948, it became possible also to secure the
Western choice and, on 4 April 1949, Italy signed the Atlantic Treaty
(NATO) adhering to the Western collective security system against the
Soviet Union. It should be considered that De Gasperi conceived the
Atlantic alliance “as a mere surrogate of the European choice which, in
some ways, the circumstances imposed to him” (Galante 1992, p. 175).
This political reluctance towards NATO explains the Italian difficulties in
the early years of the Atlantic Pact (Varsori 1992). According to Kogan,
“from the beginning Italy protested against its exclusion form the alliance’s
military command . . . composed of the United States, Britain, and France”
(Kogan 1963, p. 143). However, Italian interests for Atlanticism and strong
relations with the United States increased over time.
In conclusion, the foreign policy that Italy adopted in the aftermath of
the Second World War was a remarkable combination of dynamism and
immobility, a mixture of new and old. Through a contradictory period
starting in September 1943, the new pattern that slowly emerged was that
of the foreign policy of a “middle power” (Nuti 2011, p. 31), namely a
country that had finally discarded the grandiose ambitions of the past, that
had partly embraced the new values of democracy, but that also intended
to defend its economic interests. In this complex mixture, the search for a
preferential relationship with Washington, originating during the last part
of the war and strengthened by the economic recovery, was implemented
by a restricted élite. In the aftermath of the war, this élite was able to
anchor Italy to the international system in order to promote monetary and
financial recover. By approving the peace treaty and placing the country in
the Western camp, the government adopted a solid strategy of interna-
tional re-legitimization. The general elections of 1948 consolidated this
choice allowing the process through which a social class or an alliance of
social classes became a historical force. This political outcome did not
create a general consensus. Long-standing relevant forces, the
Communists and the Socialists, opposed the Western choice and
demanded greater equidistance and neutrality. However, the Western-
oriented foreign policy adopted to promote economic interests gradually
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.
4.2 DEMOCRATIC ITALY: A EUROPEAN MIDDLE POWER

The process of European integration strongly influenced the reorientation
of Italy’s foreign policy. The Marshall Plan had the objective of promoting
European cooperation and the project was taken by the Italian govern-
ment as another opportunity to promote Italy, its modernisation and its
international position. Of course, the prospect of political integration with
other European countries was largely inspired by federalist principles and
anti-fascist ideals. It was during the period that anti-fascist figures such as
Altiero Spinelli were being held captive on the island of Ventotene that
Italian federalism increasingly became a political stance to counteract the
destructive force of nationalism. However, the prospect of European
integration was also linked to the Italian aspiration to initiate a new course
in foreign policy, recovering its international power. Decisions makers and
political leaders believed that Italian interests would be better served
within the European framework. This rational purpose was also strength-
ened by the myth, evoked by Croce, of Italy as one of the countries that
had most shaped European civilization. Furthermore, the US project to
integrate Western Europe stimulated the action of those who supported
the idea that Europe was a bulwark against the Soviet threat and the way to
consolidate the transition to a free market and liberal democracy.
The interpretation of the Marshall Plan as an aspect of a wider process
of European integration was shared by De Gasperi and Sforza (Varsori
2010, p. 42). De Gasperi served as prime minister from 1945 to 1953 in
eight consecutive governments. During this so-called “De Gasperi era”,
the head of government, together with other European leaders, promoted
well-known initiatives aimed at the integration of Western Europe. For his
part, Sforza strongly helped him to develop the idea of the European
Union (EU) into the Atlantic setting. On 11 April 1948, during an
election campaign speech in Milan, Sforza stated “for the first time in
Italy we are called to vote on an international dilemma: that is, to vote for
or against the Marshall Plan” (Sforza 1952, pp. 54–55). On 18 July, in an
opening lecture as rector of the Università per Stranieri of Perugia, the
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:
• 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.
According to this periodization, two general elements emerge: first, a

gradual convergence on foreign policy; second, a relative ability of the
decision makers to coordinate heterogeneous elements, both in the
domestic and international system. At the domestic level, as already said,
there was a general convergence on foreign policy, although this process
was weakened by the economic and social crisis of the 1970s. At the
international level, two different evolutionary processes operated at the
same time: that of the Cold War and the other of European integration.
Putting aside for a moment the Cold War, we can now consider
developments in the process of Italy’s European integration throughout

the three phases.
To this regard, four complementary European policies can be framed
separately: political union, defence and foreign policy, economic and social
cohesion, and monetary and financial policy.
Looking first at political union, the Italian commitment towards
Europe was certainly motivated by reasons of an ideal nature. This was
true throughout the three phases. But this commitment was also justified
by the belief that national interests would be better served within a
supranational framework. For example, Italy tried to increase the role of
the European Parliament but recognizing it as an Assembly in which a
country demographically relevant, such as Italy, could count on a signifi-
cant presence of its representatives. It is difficult to say how much this
twofold attitude, or federal idealism versus national interest, was managed
successfully by the decision makers. Surely, Italy was not the “Cinderella
of Europe” (Varsori 2010). It hosted some of the key events in the history
of the EU. However, the venues of these events did not reflect a real
proactive role. For example, in order to overcome strenuous British objec-
tions, Italy forced the European procedures during a famous summit in
Milan on 28–29 June 1985 (when the European Council decided to
create a single European market by the end of 1992). This tactical
move, while certainly important in the history of the European integra-
tion, did not alter the strategic cooperation between France and Germany
that was taking place during those years and that later led to the birth of
the EU (ivi, p. 352).
When considering defence and foreign policy, it is necessary to separate
the two issues. In order to understand defence policy, it is important to
remember that the military weakness of Italy was the consequence of the
dictations of the peace treaty. While fully aware that the country could not
isolate itself from the international system, De Gasperi believed that Italy
should avoid risky decisions on military issues because of this weakness. In
1951, the United States supported the project of the European defence
community in sharing the burden of collective security and, at the same
time, allowing the rearmament of West German. This policy was viewed
with suspicion by the Italian government. In general, governments were
worried about the strengthening of the eastern front of Europe at the
expense of the Mediterranean one. For example, in 1950, Sforza was the
only foreign minister to speak in favour of Turkey’s request to join NATO
during the fifth Atlantic Council in New York. In a confidential report to
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
relevant problem was Italy’s exclusion from the Schengen agreements in

1985. This agreement can be interpreted as “a foreign policy initiative
aimed at protecting the geopolitical core of the European Community
from a security threat” (Paoli 2015, p. 134). The decision of France and
Germany to act outside the Community framework was not primarily
intended to put pressure on Great Britain (using, as often said, the threat
of a “two-tier Europe”). Rather, it was a way to pressure Italy and other
southern states to secure their borders from unwanted mass immigration.
A few days before the already mentioned European Council of Milan,
France and Germany agreed to abolish internal border controls while
simultaneously building up external border controls. They were worried
about irregular migrants transiting from Italy. But the Italian government,
particularly the Socialist component, was persuaded that the reduction of
immigration flows would have compromised Italy’s economic and political
relations with the Maghreb countries. For these two reasons, Italy was the
only founding member of EC to be excluded from the Schengen
agreements.
The issue about changes over structural funds intertwined with the last
dimension, namely the monetary and financial policy. After the negotia-
tions on the EC, the Italian government was in favour of place-based
policies aimed at spurring development in less successful regions. This
position followed the idea of correcting market imperfections with public
intervention and welfare. The implementation of regional autonomy in
Italy during the 1970s favoured the Communists gaining power in those
regions where they were historically rooted. In 1975, with the creation of
the European fund, the regional aspects of supranational solidarity were
finally introduced in the EC. Although for a long time, the fund had only
modest resources, it facilitated the process of the ideological transforma-
tion of the Communists towards a more pro-European attitude. However,
contradictions between public intervention in support of development, on
the one side, and monetary and financial stability, on the other, quickly
spilled from the national economic debate into the European institutional
framework. This occurred in December 1978, when the PCI’s opposition
to the European Monetary System (EMS) became the casus belli for the
failure of the politics of national solidarity (Ignazi 1999, p. 178). In order
to understand the reasons for this rupture, it is important to underline that
the high rates of economic growth that Italy had enjoyed during the
1950s and 1960s disappeared in the 1970s. The Italian economy suffered
low balance of payment difficulties and, for the first time, since the Second
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
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.
4.3 ITALY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: A PROBLEMATIC

(RE-)ADJUSTMENT
Throughout the Cold War period, Italy’s foreign policy operated within a
framework that consisted of a plurality of actors and agendas. This plur-
ality resulted in an increasingly complex decision-making process that
revealed the growing importance of domestic politics in foreign policy.
But internal explanations of foreign policy decisions, involving the choice
for Europe, must be matched with international constraints and their
impact in each of the three phases of the Italian political system. In
particular, we should consider the geostrategic location of Italy in the
Mediterranean and the evolution of the Cold War from the 1950s to the
1980s. The choice for Europe was affected by an economic cleavage
between public intervention (welfare state) and monetary stability (market
liberalization). The Italian governments chose to coordinate core eco-
nomic policies and surrender sovereign prerogatives into the European
framework. They rationally pursued, as well as other European gov-
ernments, national economic advantage through the exploitation of
asymmetrical interdependence and the manipulation of institutional
commitments. But the decision to establish the EMS in 1978 and to
create an area without border controls in 1985 was part of a strategic

vision of Europe from which Italy felt marginalized. This uncomfortable
condition opened a confrontation between different options in the Italian
ruling class. The ideal sources of Italian cooperation in Europe began to be
challenged, especially with reference to monetary policies and public
spending, on the one side, and sovereignty of border controls, on the
other.
These contradictions have their roots in the Italy’s problematic (re-)
adjustment in the Mediterranean since the 1950s. Although changing
significantly only over time, the signals of an Italian difference in Europe
with regards to the Mediterranean affairs emerged during the De Garperi
era. As already said, the Italian choice for Europe was affected by the pre-
eminence of national security concerns and, in particular, the Italian
attitude towards national defence was one of prudence. Since the begin-
ning, this calculation influenced Italy’s foreign policy compared with other
European states, in particular France and Great Britain. While the
European choice remained a constant source of Italy’s foreign policy,
the Mediterranean policy oscillated considerably and this movement was
due to constant confrontations between different schools of thought. One
school assumed that Italy should be a middle power in Europe and, in
consequence, in the Mediterranean, while another questioned the
European foreign policy, taking advantage of the window of opportunity
opened by the Mediterranean issue. In this second case, the goal was to
plan a more autonomous foreign policy in order to become a
Mediterranean power and implement principles of cooperation beyond
the bipolar logic. The contrast between these different options took place
inside the country but directly involved the understanding of the interna-
tional and its potential transformation throughout the Cold War.
Therefore, dialectics between these two schools are relevant to best eval-
uate Italy’s post-war adjustment.
In 1947, Italy was forced to abandon its African colonies under the
terms of the peace treaty. Among these colonies, the UN gave temporary
responsibility of Libya to Britain and France. On 10 May 1949, in order to
avoid Soviet interference, the British foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, and
the Italian foreign minister, Sforza, promulgated a joint UN plan to grant
trusteeships to Britain in Cyrenaica, to France in the Fezzan and to Italy in
Tripolitania. This complex plan provided for a trusteeship period of 10
years, after which Libya would become independent. But the project met
hostility in Libya and was rejected by the UN General Assembly 8 days
later. This refusal, as unexpected as feared, led to a sudden change of the

foreign policy pursued by Sforza in the Mediterranean (Pizzigallo 2008,
p. 40). As already underlined, the approval of the peace treaty in July 1947
had been perceived by Sforza as a necessary condition to finally achieving
admission to the UN and renegotiating the peace treaty. However, the
Italian diplomatic initiative to gain admission to the UN failed in October
1947, as a result of the Soviet veto. On 21 November 1949, 6 months
after the first vote on Libya, Italy was definitively forced to relinquish its
colonies by a new resolution of the General Assembly. This second pro-
nouncement firmly closed the door to Italy’s re-legitimization in the
Mediterranean. Notwithstanding the US support, the vote was perceived
as an embarrassing failure for Italian diplomacy.
However, the formal end of Italian colonialism forced the government
to rethink its international strategy in the Mediterranean. The UN refusal
pushed the government to consider a new Mediterranean policy of recog-
nition and the support of those African peoples looking for independence
and self-government. Although the second UN vote also stipulated that
Italy should be invited to undertake provisional administration of the ex-
Italian Somaliland, a new “postcolonial” foreign policy was “destined to
mark a sharp break with the past” (Pizzigallo 2012, p. 24). Launching his
seventh government in July 1951, De Gasperi assumed the post of foreign
minister because of Sforza’s health problems. Subsequently, foreign affairs
were headed by the undersecretary Paolo Emilio Taviani, who had already
led the Italian delegation to the negotiations on the Schuman Plan
(Ranieri 1988, p. 551). Taviani was not only close to De Gasperi, but
also a member of a group of young DCs which included some forth-
coming prime ministers and foreign ministers, among which Moro,
Rumor and Emilio Colombo.
In accordance with the beliefs of this group, Taviani tried to convey in
foreign policy the ideals of solidarity and cooperation among
Mediterranean peoples (Pizzigallo 2012, pp. 9–10). This input produced
an increasingly complex decision-making process. On the one hand, the
Secretary General of the foreign ministry Zoppi, in office from 1948 to
1954, maintained a middle position between the two different perspec-
tives (ivi, pp. 8–9). On the other, the replacement of Sforza definitely
encouraged Italian diplomacy “to sail the Mediterranean autonomously
even if it could mean having to deal with the irritation of its European
allies” (Frusciante 2012, p. 35). Taviani was able to introduce innovative
elements in foreign affairs pushing the pendulum of foreign policy towards
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
Italian admission to the UN. In those years, Italy increased diplomatic

relations with Arab countries and, in particular, the Italian government
tried to organize a bilateral summit with Egypt, considering this country
of strategic relevance. After a series of postponements due to the Suez
Canal Crisis in 1956 and, above all, to the Western concerns over the
Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser’s non-alignment in the Cold
War, Fanfani visited Cairo on 7–8 January 1959. This trip concluded a
number of political and economic initiatives that also involved Enrico
Mattei, president of the state-owned energy company Ente Nazionale
Idrocarburi (ENI) founded in 1953 (Pozzi 2009, pp. 427–444).
Another leading actor of neo-atlantismo was Italian president Giovanni
Gronchi, who from 1955 was very active in trying to involve the Socialists in
the coalition governments. His initiatives were a mix of domestic politics and
foreign policy, sometimes at odds with the government. His opening up to
the Socialists included a more autonomous foreign policy in order to imple-
ment universal principles of cooperation beyond the bipolar logic. But
domestic manoeuvres towards the left did not fully explain Gronchi’s neo-
atlantismo. Much more important was the attempt to increase the power of
Italy in a phase of geopolitical changes (the loosening of the bipolar system
after the Stalin’s death in 1953) and national economic expansion (the so-
called miracolo economico) (Vigezzi 1997, p. 341). To this regard, it should
be remembered that the word neo-atlantismo emerged in April 1957 with
Giuseppe Pella. The then foreign minister introduced this new term with
reference to his project to convert the return of the US funds of the Marshall
Plan into a new aid plan for the Arab countries (De Leonardis 1999, p. 209;
Calandri 2003, p. 355). Pella was not only very close to moderate liberals
and member of the right wing of the DC but he was also the ultimate
interpreter of Italian irredentism. In August 1953, right after the last De
Gasperi government, Pella was prime minister and tried to maintain a line of
continuity with the past, without moving towards the left. In October,
combining the posts of prime minister and foreign minister, he ordered
the mobilization of two divisions and sent them to the Italian eastern border
to force the dispute on Trieste. The neo-atlantismo of Pella was in search of
prestige and new markets for Italian state capitalism since the bipolar logic of
the Cold War was declining.
Neo-atlantismo did not mark a very significant break with the past.
Despite the debate between schools, or even heated controversy fuelled
by the press, it cannot be identified with the politics of opening to the
Socialists. Neither was it a way to obtaining the support of the
Communists in foreign policy. In the mid-1970s, the political turnaround

of the PCI took place with the acceptance of the two pillars of the Western
camp, Europeanism and Atlanticism. The Mediterranean issue didn’t play
a relevant role. We can state that neo-atlantismo was more coherent with
the logic of polarized pluralism than that of the imperfect two-party
system. The equidistance between the Arabs and the Israelis, claimed by
Fanfani as a milestone of neo-atlantismo, was approved by the
Communists and criticized by many liberal moderates. But several
Socialists were opposed to this policy as well (Calandri 2003, p. 365). In
the Mediterranean, of course, there were symbolic resources to employ in
the domestic arena. But it was most important to maintain good relations
with the Arab countries to promote national security and to develop
national energy interests. If anything, politicians such as Gronchi, Pella
and Fanfani all have in common a trait of populism that was functional to
bypass the post-war crisis of Italian nationalism.
Italy’s Mediterranean policy expressed the desire to better protect
national interests and, above all, was the combined result of economic
growth and evolution of the Cold War. But the achievement of this out-
come was unrealistic in as much as it was covered by a pacifist rhetoric. Not
by chance, exactly in the Mediterranean, it became manifest “in a para-
digmatic way the international identity’s crisis of republican Italy” (ivi,
p. 352). Italian failure in Mediterranean foreign policy became clear dur-
ing the economic and social crisis of the 1970s. To this regard, it is worth
noting the fiasco of the project for the establishment of a conference on
security and cooperation in the Mediterranean presented to NATO in
1972 by foreign minister Moro. During the period 1968–1988, according
to Valter Coralluzzo, the public attention of the Italian decision makers
moved from the “Atlantic circle” and the “European circle” to the
“Mediterranean circle” (Coralluzzo 1991, p. 40). But “during the
1970s a number of factors combined to produce a foreign policy of a
lower profile, certainly different from the activism of the late 1950s and
early 1960s” (Nuti 2011, p. 38). The new international climate of détente
in the 1970s did not help Italy’s activism in the Mediterranean, although
the loosening of the rigid certainties of the Cold War should have encour-
aged much more the politics of neutrality and equidistance. This was true
in the Mediterranean and, more generally, in international relations.
In 1976, for example, Italy was finally recognized as a full member of
the G-7. But this outcome was the result of a major diplomatic effort after
the exclusion of the previous year.
Only after the marginalization of the Communists and the re-emer-

gence of Cold War tensions in 1979, did Italy came back to “a new
activism” in the Mediterranean (ivi, pp. 39ff). Probably, the deterioration
of the situation in the region favoured a more active role. If previous
activism had been encouraged by the easing of international tensions
after the death of Stalin in 1953, in the 1980s, it was the climate of the
so-called “second Cold War” (1979–1985) that opened a new window of
opportunity. The willingness to play a more assertive role in the security of
the Mediterranean emerged with the participation in the UNIFIL mission
along the Lebanese–Israeli border in 1979, and then by sending of a small
contingent to the Sinai Peninsula in April 1982 and with the contribution
to the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon in August. In order to
appreciate this last decision, which followed the Israeli invasion, “it must
be remembered that this was the first time since the end of the Second
World War that a major Italian force was deployed outside of the country”
(ivi, p. 40). However, this remarkable dynamism of the 1980s produced
many frictions with the Allies. We have already mentioned the Italian
opposition to the Schengen agreements, since the Socialist component
of the government was persuaded that the reduction of immigration flows
would have negatively impacted Italy’s economic and political relations
with the Maghreb countries. But the main friction was the dramatic
confrontation between the Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and
the US President Ronald Regan, during the so-called “Sigonella Affair”
in October 1985, when different points of view on how to deal with
Palestinian terrorists who had hijacked an Italian ship led to an armed
confrontation. The Mediterranean policy conducted by Craxi and Giulio
Andreotti, who was several times prime minister and foreign minister in
the 1980s, remained broadly Atlanticist in scope. The objective was to
empower Italy as a diplomatic mediator with the Arab countries and, in
particular, with regard to the Palestinian issue. However, this new trend in
foreign policy did not produce remarkable advantages. On the contrary,
the European commitment and Mediterranean policy started to diverge
since Italy was not able to integrate them into a common framework. The
Mediterranean remained “a border region” of Italian activism (Calandri
2003, p. 351).
In conclusion, Italian foreign policy in the Mediterranean was only
partially motivated by domestic manoeuvres. Certainly, the lack of an
effective decision-making centre in Italian foreign policy emerged much
more in this area than in others (Panebianco 1997, p. 232). However,
strategic readjustment in the Mediterranean arose by a dialectic interplay

between domestic and international politics. By means of Europeanism,
Italy sought and found economic modernization. By means of
Atlanticism, Italy tried to solve its problems of security. In both cases,
the anchors of the domestic democratic consolidation were established
outside the country. In the Mediterranean, on the contrary, foreign policy
reflected difficulties and anxieties of the Italians over problems of national
security and economic backwardness. The inability to find a common path
to renovate the Westerner choice in the 1980s generated more problems
than solutions. As we shall see, this would become dramatically truer when
the Cold War unexpectedly ended in 1989.
CHAPTER 5
February 1992. Italy in a Post-Bipolar

World
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.
Keywords Foreign policy analysis Bipartisanship Neo-nationalism

Vincolo esterno
When examining Italian foreign policy, it is worth noting that Foreign

Policy Analysis (FPA) has been dominated by a fundamental dichotomy:
the international primacy of realist theories as opposed to the domestic
primacy of liberal theories. The first position confers relevance to interna-
tional constraints, since external forces are shaped by security problems
which remain essentially the same regardless of domestic regimes and
historical change. The latter confers relevance to national preferences,
since democracies allow the incorporation of civil society into the

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6_5
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
Considering this kind of juncture requires a better definition of our

methodology. The history of natural science can help to this regard. On
the basis of Paul Feyerabend’s criticism of classical empiricism, in 1972 the
paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould introduced a punc-
tuated equilibrium model of natural evolution to describe situations in
which gradual evolution is replaced by short bursts of change that produce
long periods of stasis. This analytical framework (the so-called Punctuated
Equilibria Theory [PET]) is similar to that of critical junctures and has
provided an attractive metaphor in political science. PET has largely been
used to explain both stability and change as intricate elements of the public
policy process. According to a seminal definition proposed by Bryan D.
Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner (2005, p. 5), “punctuations in policy
outcomes reflect [ . . . ] an interaction between change in the environment
and reverberations inside the political system”. Though it has proved a less
directly applicable analytic tool than institutional path dependence
(Capoccia and Kelemen 2007, 345), we believe that PET is more useful
in approaching near-miss critical junctures. Indeed, the analytical frame-
work of PET can deal with both “policy stasis” and “policy punctuations”
(True et al. 1999, pp. 97–98). Furthermore, it allows for the integration of
both a cognitive and institutional approach, explaining bursts of change
and policy punctuations as arising from the interaction of discourses and
decisions. We can focus on situations of both stasis and punctuations (or
“time-frame”) in which something relevant occurs or takes place
(Eldredge 2014). In a protracted transition, such as the Seconda
Repubblica, policy punctuations may occur in different moments, being
the product of change in both discourses and institutions. Sentient agent
may infuse institutional rule with contextualized meanings, constructed
understandings, responses to critical moments, or come up with ideas that
lead to a more fragmented reinterpretation of an institution. The punc-
tuated equilibrium model is helpful, in short, to visualize a long period of
changes set in motion by a near-miss critical juncture.
To clarify the vague and overused formula of Italian difference or
peculiarity, we have covered the whole of Italy’s post-Risorgimento his-
tory focusing on two well-founded dates: 1861 and 1943. These dates
indicate almost short critical junctures during which the political output
was more or less immediately clear (1861–1870, 1943–1948). Now, we
need to analyse a more intricate period that characterized Italian history
and foreign policy (1992–ongoing). For this purpose, we will definitively
move beyond the divide between international relations and domestic
policy: first of all, referring to an approach that allows us to integrate both

a cognitive and institutional analysis into one framework; secondly,
explaining and understanding bursts of change and policy punctuations
as arising from the continuous interaction of discourses and decisions. A
dialectical interpretation of the interplay between the domestic and the
international levels will help us to recognize both policy stasis and policy
punctuations: that is to say stability, on the one side, and historical contra-
dictions as source of change, on the other. These contradictions should
not be seen conceptually, as existing logically, but in the real world of real
political agents where contradictions may continue to exist for prolonged
periods of time without any resolution or reconciliation (Teschke and
Cemgil 2014, pp. 612–616). As we are going to see, this will be particu-
larly clear considering the uncertain and problematic bipartisan path in
Italy’s foreign policy after the Cold War and, above all, considering the
changed nature of the vincolo esterno after the Maastricht Treaty. Along
these two lines, we can explain and, as a further step, understand the
current foreign policy conundrum: Italy in the EU.
In the first section, we will analyse the main steps of the long Italian
transition from the fall of the Berlin Wall until today. In the second
section, we will frame these steps benefiting from PET within an analytical
framework. In conclusion, we will try to answer the question of whether
the notion of “middle power” is still useful in order to understand Italy in
a post-bipolar world.
5.1 THE REPUBLICAN TURN IN THE 1990S AS A NEAR-MISS

CRITICAL JUNCTURE
In the early 1990s, public dissatisfaction with incumbent politicians
pushed the Italian political system towards a phase of electoral reforms.
While it did not generate a full majoritarian democracy, this process has
nonetheless challenged the democratic model of the previous republican
period. Studies concur in saying that, together with the First World War
and the collapse of Fascism, the end of the Cold War and the following
advent of the so-called Seconda Repubblica represents one of the three
major crises of the Italian political system (Salvadori 2013). The meaning
of this “transition from democracy to democracy” (Morlino 2009) is far
from becoming clear. It is still under debate as to whether the historical
equilibrium broken by the social and political crisis in the 1990s was that
of the international bipolar system or of the Italian party system. However,
major transformations occurred when Italy faced huge difficulties in adapt-

ing to the new international environment. In particular, the crisis in the
Gulf between 1990 and 1991 had a negative effect on “Italy’s ambitions
to reach the rank of regional middle power” (Varsori 2013, p. 236).
Mediterranean difficulties in the Middle East were confirmed again in
the Balkans, where the Italian government was compelled to recognize
the onset of Yugoslavia’s disintegration after having considered this coun-
try as the pivot of its foreign policy in post-Soviet Europe.
In the same period, the reunification of Germany was viewed with
concern by the Italian élite and, in this new European context, negotia-
tions for the EU in 1991 assumed a special relevance. The Italian govern-
ment bargained for an economic agreement, namely the European
Monetary Union (EMU), without the full awareness of its technical con-
sequences. This incertitude and the consequent contradictions clearly
emerge from a study of Kenneth Dyson and Kevin Featherstone (1999,
p. 452), in which national preferences along the road to Maastricht are
described more as an unconditional commitment to remain in Europe’s
inner circle (containing Germany), than a pondered political choice. The
impact on the domestic system of the European multilateral surveillance
and budgetary discipline (the main criteria introduced by the EMU) was
not very clear to the Italians, while a decisive role was played by a group of
technocrats led by the then treasury minister Guido Carli, who considered
EMU policy as a new vincolo esterno to implement compulsory reforms
which the Italian political system could not have accomplished indepen-
dently (Carli 1993, p. 432).
While scholars have considered Italy’s foreign policy as a particular case
study for a long time, it was only with the end of the Cold War that this
condition becomes a serious matter of concern. It is true that some
scholars have focused on the theme of bipartisanship in Italy’s foreign
policy as the main characteristic in the post-Cold War, especially with
regard to military interventions aboard. It has been generally accepted
that, as a result of the end of international bipolarity, Italy tried to play a
more assertive role (Carbone 2011). We recognize that a certain degree of
bipartisanship emerged to implement military interventions aboard, since
conflicting orientations inside government coalitions were more relevant
than those between them. The bipartisan nature of many foreign policy
choices Italy made was possible, as we shall see, in spite of the highly
divergent nature of the new party system. This attitude generated a
relevant growth of Italy’s international profile marked by a greater activism
in foreign policy. Nonetheless, “neo-nationalism” and “internationalism”

emerged very soon as opposite perspectives in the public debate (Aliboni
and Greco 1996). These conflicting orientations marked fundamental
differences in the way governments pursued their foreign policy goals
especially with regard to the EU (Carbone 2007, p. 904).
The theme of bipartisanship and the rise of Italy’s proactive profile are
undoubtedly important. However, the way in which successive govern-
ments responded to the changing international environment fluctuated
markedly. To this regard, the three main issues that should be taken into
account are: (1) Which type of transformation occurred when a significant
process of democratic transition took place in Italy? (2) Has the conduct of
Italy’s foreign policy reflected difficulties in adapting to the new interna-
tional environment? (3) Do these difficulties and, therefore, the absence of
a long-term bipartisan path purely reflect opposite orientations, or did
they emerge also with respect to the changed nature of the vincolo esterno?
In order to answer these issues, it is useful to provide a general synopsis
which matches international and domestic changes in the aftermath of the
Cold War. Seven periods will be considered. During the period spanning
the end of 1990 to the end of 1992, the political situation in Italy was
extraordinarily unstable. Many Italians were full of hope for the conclusion
of the Cold War but, as already said, Italy faced huge difficulties in
adapting to the new international environment. In December 1990, 2
months after the reunification of Germany, the European Council was
held in Rome. This summit opened the two intergovernmental confer-
ences whose work culminated in the Maastricht Treaty. During 1991, the
Gulf War and the onset of Yugoslavia’s disintegration distracted the Italian
government from the European negotiations. At the same time, there was
an increase of the disaffection with the political parties of the Cold War
(DC, PCI and PSI). After 1 year of negotiations, the EU was established
on 7 February 1992. A few days after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty,
the judicial inquiry Mani Pulite began in Italy with the arrest of a socialist
manager of a public hospice in Milan. The subsequent expansion of the
investigations across the whole country implicated six former prime min-
isters, more than 500 members of Parliament and 7000 local and public
administrators (Vannucci 2009).
The scandal produced an increase of pressure for more accountable
decision-making exactly when Italy should implement the new EMU
policy. Since the electoral referendum held in June 1991, the requirement
for institutional reforms had fascinated public opinion pushing the power
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
changed radically with the unexpected victory of Silvio Berlusconi in the

general elections. After a second referendum held in 1993, a new electoral
law was passed abolishing the proportional system and introducing a
plurality voting system with a party realignment on the axis centre-
right/centre-left. Even though signs of close competition between the
main party cartels remained rather ambiguous (Bartolini and D’Alimonte
2006), the transformation of Italy’s political system was nonetheless sig-
nificant. If proportional representation had shaped Italian politics during
the Cold War, then a new party system would begin to function according
to the logic of competitive democracy (Fabbrini 2009). Besides, even in
the absence of a formal institutional change, Italy was moving towards a
“presidentialized style of government” (Calise 2005). The internationali-
zation of politics, particularly pronounced within the EU, was leading
many heads of government to strengthen their role. At the same time,
the mediatization of politics, particularly pronounced in Italy, increased
the capacity of leadership power in the process of agenda-setting.
The first Berlusconi government opened a third phase (1994–1995).
The centre-right prime minister emphasized the country’s opportunity to
pursue national interests independently from the European context. The
political rhetoric of the government gave relevance to the ability of the
Italians to affirm their own identity in the face of global competition.
Berlusconi had invented a new political brand, Forza Italia, whose name
was borrowed from a sports cheer that means “Go Italy, Go!” (Pasquino
1994). This political rhetoric became a refrain of the so-called berlusco-
nismo in the 1990s, providing a mixture of conservatism and liberalism
(Orsina 2014). Foreign policy was considered less important than domes-
tic economic reforms. Nonetheless, the domestic perspective inspired a
neo-nationalist trend in foreign policy as a pattern of state behaviour.
Berlusconi appointed Antonio Martino as foreign minister. Despite
being the son of one of Italy’s leading figures of Europeanism, Martino
“made no secret of his skepticism about some basic terms defined in
Maastricht” (Mammarella and Cacace 2013, pp. 261–62). However,
after a few months in charge, Berlusconi was forced to resign.
What followed next was a long fourth period (1995–2001) of increased
albeit uncertain political stability, with five different cabinets and the
general elections of 1996. The first government was headed by
Lamberto Dini, a former director of the Bank of Italy. After Dini’s
resignation, the general election of April 1996 was won by a centre-left
alliance led by the former Cristian Democrat Romano Prodi and which
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
interview to the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera criticizing other ministers

in the cabinet for their hostile reaction to the arrival of the Euro. From
then on, the Italian government strengthened bilateral relations with the
United States in order to overcome its European loneliness.
In April 2006, the centre-left coalition won the general election with a
very close result, thus opening a sixth instable period (2006–2011). The
composition of the second Prodi government was extremely heteroge-
neous, combining parties with different opinions on ethical values, eco-
nomic issues and foreign policy. The government decided to provide the
main contribution to an UN intervention in Lebanon (after the Israeli-
Hezbollah war), emphasizing discontinuity with the Berlusconi cabinet.
But the coalition of centre-left imploded in January 2008 as a conse-
quence of the many divergences including foreign policy. In May 2008,
the political situation changed once again when Berlusconi came back to
power. Notwithstanding a favourable domestic scenario, the international
financial crisis put the fourth Berlusconi government in difficulty. Italy’s
response to the international financial crisis, starting in 2008 in the United
States, appeared too weak considering the magnitude of the Italian public
debt. While Italy was not involved directly in the financial crisis, because it
did not suffer from a housing bubble, its high public debt was perceived as
a sort of “time bomb” (Schmidt and Gualmini 2013). By July 2009, with
the parliamentary ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, Berlusconi showed an
unexpected enthusiasm for Europe (indeed, a more positive feeling had
already emerged in 2004 during the signing ceremony of the European
Constitution in Rome). In 2010, as the Greek economic disaster intensi-
fied, the international financial crisis directly invested the Eurozone.
Berlusconi continued to alternate in his statements between proverbial
national optimism and more pessimistic concerns, or criticism of EU
policies and enthusiasm for Europe. However, on 25 March 2011, he
accepted the Euro Plus Pact which committed Italy to adopt economic
and social measures defined directly in Bruxelles.
In the succeeding months, Italy entered into the last period of our
synopsis (2011–onwards). Political concerns about Berlusconi’s public
and private scandals contributed to the erosion of his leadership in
Europe and worldwide, and with this lack of personal credibility being
strongly linked to Italy’s public debt. The coalition partner Lega Nord
created further difficulties for the government. This party had never had a
particularly pro-European stance and it had always been opposed to
military interventions. In March 2011, the Lega Nord severely opposed
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.
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
financial crisis, the dominant cleavage in foreign policy became a division

crossing the Atlantic and challenging the European choice. This division
involved the Mediterranean policy and discourses on military interventions
aboard. The politicization of foreign policy for internal consumption
prevailed over efficient adjustment to international demands. The pro-
tracted process of adjustment confirmed difficulties in finding a bipartisan
path in foreign policy, as required by an efficient alternation in govern-
ment. Difficulties in achieving room for political autonomy emerged with
regards to the EU and became dramatic in 2011, when the Berlusconi
government was compelled to wage war in Libya before resigning in the
context of a national emergency.
5.2 THE CHANGED NATURE OF THE VINCOLO ESTERNO
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
international actors causes domestic responses that would not have

occurred otherwise. In the case of Italy, agreeing with Panebianco, while
the domestic political forces believed in their ability to control the foreign
policy process, their actions were strongly influenced from the outside.
More than a reactive process, or either an emulative one, Italy underwent a
penetrative foreign policy process. In our opinion, the linkage theory is
helpful in understanding the weakness of Italy and its historical peculia-
rities. However, rather than suggesting a theoretical explanation of the
international–domestic interplay, it lays special emphasis on its provisional
dissolution during the Cold War, denying any genuine autonomy to the
country. Furthermore, it does not explain Italy’s foreign policy in the post-
bipolar system. Not only two independent variables, the consensual
democracy and the leverage of political parties, varied significantly with
the transition towards the new republican phase, but also the intervening
variable changed radically with the end of the Cold War. Today, regional
and global equilibria are increasingly transformed by rapid and episodic
events.
For his part, Isernia (1996) tried to explain not the dissolution, but
the interaction of the international–domestic interplay. For this pur-
pose, he employed the metaphor of “two-level games” introduced by
Robert Putnam (1988). According to Putnam, on the national level,
domestic forces or political parties pursue their interests by pressuring
the decision-making process to adopt favourable policies, while on the
international level, national governments seek to maximize their own
ability to satisfy domestic pressures. Foreign policy outcomes are there-
fore significantly improved by understanding domestic bargaining with
respect to international compromises. In the Italian case, agreeing with
Isernia, the foreign policy process was a by-product of negotiations in
which national decision makers were able to manage domestic frag-
mentation in order to achieve better international compromises. In our
opinion, this argument is helpful in recognizing a margin of autonomy
of Italy’s foreign policy during the Cold War. Even if foreign policy
was a perennial captive of the internal struggle for power (influenced
by external forces), a more dualist interaction between inside and
outside was nevertheless possible. Besides, this interpretation confirms
that, traditionally, Italy’s alliance-making not only satisfied interna-
tional needs in terms of security or recognition but also the transmis-
sion of models and best practices for the modernization of the country.
However, this interpretation adds very little in explaining complexities
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
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
development, the fascist regime radicalized pre-existing myths in order to

promote the international standing of the country. In the very end, Italy
became the victim not only of its alliances (the Pact of Steel with Germany
and the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Japan) but also of its myths (the
Roman mare nostrum and, in part, the Venetian sea power).
Our dialectic approach explains Italy’s foreign policy since the very
beginning, including the fascist parenthesis. But it is particularly useful
in clarifying Italian foreign policy in the post-bipolar world, or the current
foreign policy’s conundrum. As already said, discourses and preferences
are generated within two structures that have not reached a new equili-
brium. With regard to the international system, some scholars even doubt
that it is moving towards a new geopolitical balance. This difficulty is also
increased by the fact that we are examining dates close to the present day.
For example, events such as the 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis, although
appearing to be relatively confined to certain issues or regions of the
world, may in retrospect end up as part of a broader configuration of the
world political system. But the international disorder is certified by the
inability of scholars to define the current world system. With regard to
Italy, institutional uncertainty seems to have become the political norm. In
this situation, the dialectic interplay between outside and inside is very
intense, and many events and informational flows originating outside are
linked to phenomena inside the country.
The current Italian conundrum concerns the condition of unfinished
transition and persisting turbulence, as result of the acceleration of political
processes also fuelled by the attention of public opinions and by the mass
media. However, as we are going to see, most relevant is the changed
nature of the vincolo esterno that has produced a condition in which only
partially foreign policy decision-making punctuated towards a stable and
definitive direction. Italian difficulties in consolidating competitive democ-
racy have been strongly influenced by the Maastricht Treaty. Between
1991 and 1992, a decisive role in the negotiations of the treaty was played
by a group of technocrats. Between 1996 and 1998, thanks to the first
Prodi government, Italy succeeded in joining the Euro group and also
implementing the Schengen agreements. Between 2011 and 2012, Italy
finally adopted economic and social measures directly defined in Brussels
reinforcing strict economic conditions with rules of a constitutional
character. This long-term process, with specific “time frames” (1991–
1992, 1996–1998, 2011–2012), can appear straightforward. But a sig-
nificant part of the electorate supported political forces that emphasized
the opportunity to pursue national interests without the European

commitment and, in the end, Italy failed in finding a bipartisan path
in foreign policy as required by an efficient alternation in government.
This was true not only with respect to European foreign policy but in
general with regard to all the aspects of the foreign policy decision-
making, including the proactive role in military missions.
Immediately at the end of the Cold War, Italy tried to play a more
assertive role participating in the Gulf War despite an anti-war domestic
opposition. After the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, Italy gave a sub-
stantial contribution to the first UN’s second-generation peacekeeping in
Somalia. In the same year, Italy was excluded from the planning of peace-
keeping operations in Yugoslavia on the basis of its status as a border
country. But in 1995, Italy sent a military contingent into Bosnia joining
the Contact Group (formed by the United States, Russia, the United
Kingdom, France and Germany). Becoming more proactive in Africa
and in the Balkans, Italy reinterpreted its Cold War role of multilateral
actor, introducing a new bipartisan approach. In February 1997, Albania
fell into political and social chaos after a dramatic financial crisis. Facing
the resulting influx of immigrants, Italy took the lead of the code-named
Operation Alba which operated in the Balkans under the UN. Italy’s
proactive role in the region was confirmed in 1999. The military effort
in Kosovo was a test of good relations with the United States and, as such,
it was contested within the centre-left’s coalition. But it was exactly for this
reason that bipartisanship emerged more clearly than before, allowing the
implementation of the military mission.
However, this undoubted convergence can be questioned. After 9/11,
US troops invaded Afghanistan in an effort to dismantle Al-Qaeda and
remove the illegitimate Taliban government. In 2003, the United States
invaded Iraq framing this military invasion within the enduring effort to
fight against terrorism. But the US government lacked the required
Security Council’s authorization. Berlusconi fully supported the United
States and participated to the US-led ad hoc coalition, presenting the
Italian mission in Iraq as a compulsory effort to guarantee a secure
environment for reconstruction activities. This interpretation was strongly
opposed by public opinion influenced by the Vatican. The main opposi-
tion parties abstained on the resolution to approve the mission. During
the second half of 2006, the new Prodi government decided on the
immediate withdrawal of the Italian troops from Iraq and, empathizing
discontinuity with the Berlusconi government, provided a relevant
contribution to a mission in Lebanon supported by the Security Council.

Another sign of discontinuity was the end of the support for Israel that the
previous government had provided (Coralluzzo 2007). This precarious
foreign policy readjustment only partially represented a typical oscillation.
It was the result of a deeper contradiction between the fluidity and
turbulence of domestic and international structures, on the one hand,
and the rigidity of the European anchoring, on the other.
The leverage of the political parties and the potential pacifist bias of
public opinion were certainly relevant in order to explain divergences
between coalitions. To this regard, scholars referred to the prevalence of
short-term domestic considerations over long-term strategies, namely the
phenomenon of “politics without policy” (Del Sarto and Tocci 2008). But
between 2006 and 2011, transformations occurred in the interplay
between domestic and international structures. Changes in the first
domain arose simultaneously with external changes, such as the military
impasse in Iraq (Berlusconi had already decided a gradual withdraw from
Iraq) or the abandonment of the European constitutional project and the
approval of the Lisbon Treaty (Berlusconi finally adopted a more positive
attitude towards Europe). However, these changes did not mean that
decision makers were able to find a final convergence on foreign policy
thanks to outside incentives. It is very difficult to find or recognize a
political project which incorporated military campaigns aboard into a
broader design of international foreign policy. Italian policymakers based
their diplomacy on military contributions, not military contributions on
diplomacy. This was particularly true in Libya, in 2011, when Italy used its
military power causing a regime change that compromised the most
important bipartisan initiative of the new republican phase, that was
reconciliation with Libya. This happened while the Italian government
complained about the lack of cooperation with France, namely the country
which took the initiative to protect the Libyan people by plunging the
African country into civil war.
What put Italy in difficulty was the contradiction between the instability
of domestic and international structures, on the one hand, and the
strengthening of the European constraints, on the other. After the Cold
War, the country was involved in military missions aboard largely for its
strategic ties with the United States and its hegemonic role. Armed con-
flicts reappeared in various forms in international relations: to defend
sovereignty (Gulf War), to protect human rights (Kosovo), in reaction
to international terrorist attacks (Afghanistan), as preventive protection
(Iraq), as declared responsibility to protect populations (Libya). The

principles laid down by UN law and partly related to the international
law, as well as by many national constitutions including the Italian one,
were affected by real transformations (De Vergottini 2004). When Italy
was implicated in situations involving the use of armed forces abroad, the
very idea of “war” was exorcised preferring to talk about peacekeeping
missions and not applying, at least in an initial phase, the military code.
The political criteria of foreign policy in the decisions to wage war were
never clarified beyond the vague reference to promote “peace” according
to the changing international law. There are no doubts that Italy accepted
the political and strategic policies that allowed the use of force in terms
defined by the Atlantic alliance, or at least those defined directly from the
United States. However, along this course, the US presidential directives
appeared sometimes questionable creating doubts about how to reconsi-
der the relationship between “peace” and “war” in international relations.
In taking its decisions, the Italian governments had to consider the
close ties with the EU. But it is precisely this relationship that has never
been defined. National priorities in the face of difficult decisions about
alliance-making or national interests were never clarified according to
European membership. For example, when Berlusconi supported the
Iraqi war in 2003, the Italian president Azelio Ciampi imposed a new
decision-making process with the following procedure: (1) government
resolution, (2) considerations by the Supreme Council of Defense (an
institutional body presided by the head of the state) and (3) parliamentary
approval. The goal of the Italian president was to avoid the intervention in
Iraq strongly opposed by France and Germany (Peluffo 2007, Ch. 13). In
the Libyan case, head of state Giorgio Napolitano operated otherwise,
putting the Supreme Council at the beginning of the decision-making
process, this time in order to push a reluctant Berlusconi to intervene in
Africa together with France and Great Britain. It is difficult to rationally
explain Italian choices and, above all, the institutional tangle that char-
acterized the political process.
The international and domestic structures are much more transitory,
interconnected and coextensive than in the past. But contradictions that
have occurred in the international–domestic interplay originated in the
twofold attitude towards Europe. The European vincolo esterno, although
in continuity with the past, gained greater significance impacting directly
on the constitutional system of Italy. The end result was an intricate
conjunction: the margin to play the card of the ancient myth, whilst being
a middle power, shrank in Europe exactly while international events were

generating more opportunities and also needs to play a new international
role.
Immigration policy also worked according to the changed nature of the
vincolo esterno. Italian entry into the Schengen area was not only a decision
in favour of free movements of people within Europe. It was primarily an
act of foreign policy that Italy accepted in the new condition of EU border
country. Already in the 1980s, Italy felt marginalized in Europe not only
because of restrictions to public spending but also as consequence of
French and German pressures on border controls. After the republican
turn of the 1990s, the European anchorage pushed Italy well beyond the
acceptance of an external model or, even worse, from the believed idea
that national interests would be better served within the European frame-
work. In this particular condition, Italy’s foreign policy punctuated
towards the EU in all the decisive moments of the European institution-
building. But Italy found it difficult to assume a clear European attitude
and, as a consequence, a well-defined international role.
5.3 A MIDDLE POWER IN SEARCH OF ITSELF

It would be wrong to think that the first republican phase was a period of
stability. In international politics, the idea of sovereignty leads some scholars
to believe that foreign policy decisions and actions can derive from perfect
interactions between policymakers’ role conceptions about domestic needs
and demands, on the one hand, and critical events or trends in the external
environment, on the other. But the extension of rational assumptions on
human behaviour to FPA is fallacious. According to the seminal study of
Karl J. Holsti (1970), the “national role conception” often appears in vague
form, and the policies deriving from it, if any, do not seem clear.
Nonetheless, in the aftermath of Second World War a clear alliance of social
forces emerged in Italy, even though, according to Di Nolfo (1979, p. 107),
“minor conservative parties, heirs of the bourgeois and Renaissance tradi-
tion, established themselves in power by dominating innovative drives albeit
energetically present in the Christian Democracy and in reformist parties”.
This delicate balance between political forces fuelled foreign policy contro-
versies, in particular about the Mediterranean policy. But all things consid-
ered, Italy in the first republican phase was able to be recognized as a “middle
power” well placed in the European/Atlantic setting.
In the second republican phase, Italy’s international profile increased

with new responsibilities in providing global security through peace-
keeping operations. But external constraints made it difficult the for-
mation of a new blocco storico. On the one hand, Berlusconi did not
have the strength to break with the policy of international adaptation,
following an economic myth and a personalist diplomacy rather limited
and very weak in political assumptions. On the other, the alliance
between former Christian Democrats and post-Communists discovered
in Europe a common ground, but without being able to become a
hegemonic force. In the first case, Berlusconi’s failure was certified by
the fact that between 2011 and 2012, he finally approved economic
and social measures with rules of constitutional character directly
defined in Brussels. In the second case, it should be noted that policies
about public spending and borders controls, historically opposed by the
PCI, were adopted by the centre-left governments without a shared
idea of Italy’s role conception in Europe. Italian difficulties in imple-
menting the European vincolo esterno created conditions for instability
and, as consequence, also the rise of unclear political criteria in the
decisions to participate in international peacekeeping.
According to Eduard Jordaan (2003), traditional middle powers were
“stabilizers” and “legitimiser” of the world order, because of their
limited military capacity and given their privileged position in the global
economy. On the contrary, new emerging middle powers that arose
after the Cold would assume a semi-peripheral status, acting as “refor-
mist” states both in economic disputes and in their immediate regions.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Italy sought and found a
certain role as a European middle power. But despite fluctuations
and the continuous process of adaptation, on the one hand, and despite
the fundamental ambiguity in referring to states’ role conception, on the
other, historical features of post-war Italy were after all clear. During
the bipolar system, Italy adopted an activist style in that its interferes
in international issues were beyond immediate concern. Despite some
possible disagreements with the United States or other major European
states, Italy acted in policy domains without directly threatening the
vital interests of the Western system. What can be said of the post-Cold
War? While we cannot explore Jordaan’s distinction in much more
detail, it is quite clear that the Italian case presents some problems in
identifying Italy as a middle power compared to the new emerging
powers.
The issue of Italy as a new middle power in the post-bipolar system is

very much contested (Giacomello and Verbeek 2011). After all, the con-
cept of middle power is controversial per se to the extent that some
scholars even call it a “myth” rather than an analytical category
(Chapnick 2000). States able to influence certain areas and functions in
international affairs can be considered middle powers (or at least we can
accept this definition). But difficulties emerge when certain roles are
considered as those of the middle powers, or when their ranks are related
to certain capabilities. In the case of functions (in terms of what they do),
middle powers are those who are able to identify niche areas in global
governance, for example acting as mediators (although this traditional
definition is rather tautological). In the case of roles and ranks (in terms
of who they are or believe to be), qualities such as organizational predis-
position to overcome stasis, coalition-building capacity, or the ability to
serve as a regional model, etc. are more difficult to define and remain
irredeemably vague and ephemeral.
But it is precisely this vagueness and the mythological character of
the concept of middle power that makes it a useful tool to understand
Italy. By recognizing the political nature of foreign policy, we can give
space to political myths also in terms of middle power’s status. From
our analytical perspective, the idea of middle power is not one that
should be grasped rationally (or conceived according to capabilities or
even perceptions). Foreign policy is in fact a crucial issue for political
arguments and choices, especially for democratic states. As underlined
by Theodore J. Lowi (1967, p. 323), “there is conflict in foreign policy
politics”. According to Christopher Hill (2003), the “politics of foreign
policy” is always the product of a society, a polity, interpreting its
situation in international relations. Foreign policy decision-making has
always been centred on the critical problems of war and peace, inde-
pendence or international adaptation. In the Italian case, these pro-
blems have always been framed by defining modern concerns of
domestic development and national identity. In the current post-bipo-
lar world, many issues from financing public debt to debating immi-
gration policy involve relations with other states and societies,
particularly inside the EU. This is particular true for Italy, a country
that has always relied on government debt since its political unity, and
that, in 1997, formally became an EU border country.
Italy’s foreign policy was and probably still is not extraneous to what
Robert W. Cox (1989) referred to “middlepowermanship”, namely a
supporting role in maintaining the hegemonic order of the Western

system. By becoming more proactive in the post-bipolar system, Italy
interpreted its traditional role of multilateral actor as accepting new poli-
tical and strategic policies defined by the hegemon, namely the United
States. But what Cox defined “middle-power functionalism” in the
Western system never completed Italy’s role conception. The Italian gov-
ernments have always tried to obtain an international rank in terms of
material capabilities (military and economic) as the result of the interna-
tional anchoring and as the necessary condition to act with a sufficient
degree of autonomy. Exactly in this attempt, or in the gap between role
and rank, the myth of the greatness of the past provided arguments for
national role conception. After the Cold War, and especially after the
changed nature of the vincolo esterno, Italy found it difficult to resort to
new myths and, consequently, to redefine itself as a middle power.
Quoting once again Cox, that of the middle power is a role in search of
an actor. That is to say that understanding today’s Italy means to under-
stand a middle power in search of itself.
Once the experience of the Monti government ended in February
2013, Italy witnessed the emergence of political forces with an openly
Eurosceptic orientation. The outcome of the Italian transition remains
open to many results. What would happen as consequence of an Italian
uscita (exit) from the EU? Is retreating from EU external constraints a
guarantee of increasing power? For centuries, Italy has been considered as
a country upon which you could not count. Otto von Bismarck inter-
preted the Italian participation in the Triple Alliance as just an instrument
to prevent the French initiative. The US Secretary of State Dean Acheson
believed that Italy should be admitted in the Atlantic alliance not for its
military capabilities but only for the strategic position of the country.
During the Cold War, the image of Italy significantly changed. Today’s
Italy can be seen as a political agent in international relations which gives
an active contribution to the stabilization of a large Mediterranean arch,
including the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans. Italy is accoun-
table for military coalitions aimed at preventing/managing international
crises. As regards to the EU, Italy is a founding member and has a high
number of seats in the European Parliament. It is expected to act coher-
ently and to foster the empowering of the EU. Speaking in economic
terms, Italy is included among the most industrialized world economies.
Despite a number of structural weaknesses, Italy is active in the G8 and
in the G20.
In the contemporary post-bipolar world, the United States faces a huge

challenge in interpreting its hegemonic role. At the same time, the poten-
tially emerging powers are reluctant or unable to fill the existing vacuum
of power. In such a situation, to be or not to be a middle power does
matter. This is the reason why the question about Italy’s middelpower-
manship is still relevant: if Italy has a peculiar behaviour in its foreign
policy’s action, then the factors shaping this peculiarity are relevant. The
main assumption of this book is that Italy is a functioning democracy, fully
integrated in the Western framework and in the European system. This is
an explicit rejection of all those interpretations which portray Italy as a
diverging country in the European landscape. But the fact that Italy is not
a diverging country does not imply that Italy is not a peculiar country.
Each European country is a unicum in terms of party system, institutional
balance of power and values and inspiring actions on the international
scene. This unity without uniformity is a distinctive feature of the EU. But
after the republican turn of the 1990s, the European anchorage pushed
Italy well beyond the acceptance of an external model. In this particular
condition, Italy found it difficult to assume a clear European attitude and,
as consequence, a well-defined international role.
As already said, the margin to play the card of the ancient myth,
according to the rank of middle power, shrank in Europe exactly while
international events were generating more opportunities and also needs to
play a new international role. Italy has undergone remarkable transforma-
tions over the last decades. The first transformation concerned the political
system that from 1994 moved towards a bipolar party system, when two
coalitions (centre-left and centre-right) confronted each other on the
electoral battleground. This is not, however, the only change that has
occurred. The political system has also seen a division between forces that
believe in the need for international/European inclusion and forces sup-
porting the idea that Italy and the Italians are self-sufficient. The failure in
the much dreamed bipartisan foreign policy is strictly connected with this
division. Berlusconi has been the main interpreter of foreign policy vision
which rejects the idea of a minority condition of Italy on the European
scene. We cannot dismiss that new political forces will try to revive this
legacy. The international system is changing radically. While the United
States cannot address all the threats that Italy (and Europe) are facing, the
capacity of the EU to develop policies perfectly fitting in the Italian goals
can be questioned. The problem in the coherence between the EU and the
Italian government on public spending and immigration policy has
become of paramount importance. The differences between European

member states have been highlighted by economic problems and political
divergences.
The near-miss critical juncture of 1992 is a key turning point, both in
terms of intellectual interpretation and of concrete policymaking. The
problem is related to the choice between the adherence to a Maastricht-
centred process of European integration and the pursuit of a more
independent standing on the international and Mediterranean scenes.
History tells us that when Italy breaks the chains with Europe, it risks
becoming the victim of its own myths and ambitions. The pursuit of an
autonomous way can be easily confused with an autarchic dream that can
rapidly be transformed into a nightmare. At the same time, the adapta-
tion to the international system cannot be anymore imposed by a gov-
erning minority, and Italy’s international position or the potentiality to
act as a middle power should be better understood when not supported
by the electoral body.
CHAPTER 6
Conclusion
Abstract Italy in International Relations affirms that Italy is different but

not divergent from other Western European democracies in terms of its
attitude and behaviour on the international scene. The swinging nature of
Italian foreign policy is not the result of an irrational attitude of the
Italians, but rather confirms the particular significance that alliances have
for the country. Not only do they have to guarantee the security and
integration of the country within the international community but also
have to contribute to its civil and political development.
Keywords Convergence/divergence in the EU EU adjustment Post-

Maastricht Italian transition
The international system experiences changes in its trajectory as a result of

shifts in the geopolitical, economic and cultural settings, as well as in its
inspiring values and principles. When these changes take place, the actors
within the system are to a certain extent free to define their position and
action. This means that when a major event occurs in the international
system, states react and may define new foreign policy options. This
sequence can be fruitfully applied to the history of Western Europe:
from the early modern age, the main global events or benchmark dates,
be they 1500, 1648, 1860, 1942, 1989, tended to impact on the single
states in a similar way. When applied to the Italian case, this analytical

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6_6
framework has proven to be very productive. The study of Italian foreign

policy is still affected by structural limits and prejudices, both on its
historical and current role. Italy is described as an unstable and even
capricious country, for which alliances are interchangeable at any time.
The swinging nature of Italian foreign policy has been justified through
the coexistence of large ambitions and structural weaknesses: a country
with a large appetite but very poor teeth, to quote an expression of Otto
von Bismarck. Even after the end of the Cold War, research paradigms
have not changed. The final result is that Italy is still seen as different if not
diverging from other Western European countries.
Most of the scholarly accounts on Italian foreign policy address only a
specific age or period: the Risorgimento, the so-called liberal age, Fascism
or the republican age. The discussion of the structural factors which shape
Italian foreign policy in the long term remains underdeveloped. The
analysis of three main turning points of Italian history – 1861, 1943 and
1992 – confirms that the inspiring force of Italian foreign policy is the
principle of adjustment to the international system. The main ambition of
modern Italy from the nineteenth century on is to be recognized and
admitted into the concert of European powers. This was the spirit of the
Risorgimento and this was the politics carried out by the main makers of
the national unification.
It is typical of mid-size powers to adjust to the international system, and
Italy makes no exception. For Italy, however, the process of adjustment
has a specific relevance. In general, the making of alliances satisfies the
primary security need of the country. In the Italian perspective, alliances
also provide a model for domestic development. This function is a con-
sequence of the belated unification of the country. The two selected dates
of 1861 and 1943 explain this argument: the first one is explanatory of the
Italian inclusion in the European concert; the second occurred when a
governing minority decided to anchor the country to the Western system.
During the Cold War, Italy prospered under the umbrella of the US-led
world and was actively engaged in the process of European integration.
The inclusion in the Western defensive system partially hindered the
Italian ambitions to act as an independent international player, especially
in the Mediterranean. The myth of Italy as a bridge between the East and
the West (or even between the North and the South) was not always
transformed into concrete actions. Italy wanted to have its borders pro-
tected while maintaining the right to cross those borders whenever
wanted. Despite all these contradictions, during the Cold War, Italy
CONCLUSION 103
benefited from the participation in the Atlantic and European systems,

which guaranteed the protection from external threats, the safeguard of
liberal-democratic values, and civil and economic growth. A rewarding
participation in European and international life was the fil rouge con-
necting the unified Italy of 1861 and the democratic Italy until the end
of the Cold War. The interruption in this process, in particular the
nefarious alliance with Germany in 1939, can be seen as a historical
mistake. When this happened, Italy became the victim of its own myths
and dreams.
We have selected three dates, 1861, 1943 and also 1992, which
match with the main benchmark dates of the European understanding
of the international system. The in-depth analysis of these turnings
points, considered as national critical junctures, has led us to identify
two structural features of Italian foreign policy, which can be summar-
ized as follow.
The presence of mythological burden. Italy accomplished its unification in
the second half of the nineteenth century. The community imagined in the
Risorgimento reconnected the ongoing process of state-building with the
ancient and most brilliant period in the history of the country, moving
back to the Renaissance and the Middle Ages until the Roman Empire.
The emergence of a strong mythological background hindered the trans-
formation of Italy into a pure adaptive country. Yet, myths did not
stimulate voracious ambitions in foreign policy. On the contrary, they
have usually fostered the cooperation with the other nations of Europe
preventing autarchic drifts. However, when the international system
seemed unfit to serve as a model for Italy, then the mythological burden
operates as an intellectual opium, persuading national élites that Italy can
do its job alone.
An adaptive orientation towards the international system. Given the
belated nature of the state and the structural problems affecting the
country, Italian élites have traditionally seen alliances not only as instru-
ments to secure the country but also as ways to import best practices and
models for development. For Italy, the problem has always been to find
the best alliance, which could also stimulate a catch-up process with the
most advanced nations of Europe and the Western world. In every alli-
ance-change, there is a certain degree of tactical selfishness, and Italy is no
exception in this perception. At the same time, it has to be observed that
Italy has changed its alliances not only for security-related concerns or
because the existing alliance was not satisfactory for the national
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.
GLOSSARY
Blocco storico A notion introduced by Antonio Gramsci that refers to

the process through which a social class or an alliance of social
classes becomes a historical force. More generally, it implies that
the analysis of national social formations as a process that includes
the articulation and combination of political strategies, transforma-
tive projects, ideologies and forms of organizing consensus and
hegemony.
Compromesso storico The attempt of the two main parties to find a
compromise in the 1970s and to establish e-governmental coali-
tion. The project was promoted by the Communist Enrico
Berlinguer and obtained the support of the Christian Democratic
Aldo Moro. They believed that a political agreement could con-
tribute to stabilize Italy in a time of violent social turmoil and
terrorism.
Mare nostrum Latin expression meaning our sea used by the Romans to
indicate the Mediterranean Sea. After a wide use of this terminology
was made by the Fascist regime, the expression was removed from the
public discourse. In recent years it is circulating once again. In 2013,
the Italian government launched a year-long operation titled Mare
nostrum to address the migrant crisis.
Miracolo economico The period of strong and sustained economic
growth which occurred in Italy after the Second World War. This
trend was consolidated in the early 1950s and lasted until the mid-

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6
108 GLOSSARY
1960s, when the economic downturn was accompanied by a rising

social tension. The economic boom generated significant social changes
in the country and fostered the internal migrations.
Neo-atlantismo A political doctrine which gathered momentum in the
1950s. This doctrine postulates that the obligations and constraints
resulting from the participation in the Atlantic alliance had to be
balanced by an independent initiative towards specific countries and
areas, in particular in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, establish-
ing economic and political partnerships.
Paese mancato Originating from the title of a book by the historian
Guido Crainz on the social turmoil in the 1970s, the expression indi-
cates the difficulty of Italian citizenship and the negative relevance in
the national culture of the lack of interest in the collective values, of the
pure individual affirmation and the defiance of the rules and the norms.
Resistenza Groups, institutions and individuals that contributed to the
liberation of Italy from the German occupation and the Fascist regime.
The movement consolidated after the armistice until the end of Nazi-
Fascist occupation (September 1943–April 1945) and operated in par-
allel with the Anglo-American forces and the Italian armed forces.
Risorgimento The process of cultural and political revival, which took
place in the nineteenth century and led to the unification in 1861.
According to some scholars, the Risorgimento continued after the
proclamation of the Italian state and ended after the First World War,
when almost all of the geographic areas inhabited by Italian-speaking
populations were incorporated into the national territory.
Seconda Repubblica The history of the Italian republic may be divided
into two periods. From 1948 to 1993 is commonly referred to as the
First Republic, whereas the political system that emerged after the Cold
War is referred to as the Second Republic. Christian Democrats and the
Socialists collapsed after a judicial investigation into corruption (Mani
pulite), while the Communists had to rethink their identity.
Vincolo esterno/Vincolo europeo This term is largely used in the contem-
porary political debate to explain the external influence that the
European agreements and institutions had on the reform process start-
ing from the Maastricht Treaty. One of the theses is that the external
pressures guarantee in general the implementation of reforms, which
the Italian political system could not have accomplished independently.
Vittoria mutilata In the aftermath of the First World War, a political
campaign was organized to challenge the decisions of the Versailles
GLOSSARY 109
peace conference. Following the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, irreden-

tists and nationalists organized the military occupation of Fiume in
1919–20. The rhetoric of mutilated victory was lately incorporated by
the Fascist propaganda.
Sacro egoismo After the outbreak of the First World War, Italians were
divided into two groups: those who wanted neutrality and those who
demanded the intervention against Germany and Austria. The opinion
of the prime minister Antonio Salandra was to wait and see how things
developed before making a final decision. He summarized this view in
the formula sacro egoismo.
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INDEX
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

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6
122 INDEX
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
U Vincolo esterno, 39, 41, 44, 55, 58,

Unification, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 75, 78, 79, 80, 85, 87, 90, 91, 94,
29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37–42, 95, 96, 98, 108
76, 79, 80, 90, 102, 103, Vittoria mutilata (Mutilated
105, 108 Victory), 44, 108
United Nations (UN), 26, 54
W
V West, 49, 57, 62, 102
Vienna, Congress of, 13, 14, 22, 35, 36 Westphalia, 13, 15

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Italy in International Relations

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ISBN 978-3-319-55061-9 ISBN 978-3-319-55062-6 (eBook)

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

2 Italy in International Relations: European Benchmark

3 March 1861. The Challenging Myth of the Post-Imperial

4 September 1943. Democratic Transition and International

5 February 1992. Italy in a Post-Bipolar World 75

Abstract Italy is always presented as a contradictory actor in terms of

Keywords Historical and political studies Italian international vision

© The Author(s) 2017 1

of Italian foreign policy in its historical development. Historical and

benchmarks dates. In the following three chapters – each devoted to a

Italy in International Relations: European

Abstract The chapter analyses the benchmark dates of European his-

Keywords Critical junctures Benchmark dates International system

© The Author(s) 2017 7

impact on traditional diplomatic history, which relied in an extensive

In this book, we give relevance to the use of critical junctures to

The function of benchmarks as an indicator of involvement helps us to

to the degree of involvement of the polity considered within the

• establishing a common understanding of the international system

2.1 THE EUROPEAN UNDERSTANDING OF THE INTERNATIONAL

on a global scale because it is the only reality which rejected despotism.

global transformation of the international system with the making of

momentum in 11 September 2001, will lead to a new radical change in

2.2 A DIVERGING COUNTRY? ITALY THROUGH EUROPEAN

peninsula. If the modern age saw the incubation of a mythological dimen-

(1883–1952) elaborated on this point presenting the Risorgimento as a

popular movement and a dynastic initiative, but in general terms the

domestic social and political life. As conﬁrmed by a strong research record,

elaborated a more nuanced approach and are more hesitant in deﬁning

March 1861. The Challenging Myth of the

Abstract This chapter considers the process of Italian uniﬁcation and

Keywords Nation Risorgimento Uniﬁcation Fascism Imperial myth

When analysing Italian foreign policy, a controversial question arises over

© The Author(s) 2017 29

process of reform. Piero Gobetti, the young director of the Rivoluzione

evolution in the domestic situation in the country. By the end of the

3.1 THE (RE)BIRTH OF ITALY IN A CHANGING EUROPE

ancient Rome, was also favoured by the emergence of a new literary

three peculiarities of the past history of the country. It represents not

On 17 March 1861, all the Italian provinces were incorporated within

Romantic myths, which had inspired the cultural Risorgimento, were

defeated by an African population. The writer and historian Harold

were in competition for cultural supremacy as both had the ambition to be

schizophrenic oscillation of an uncertain country. It was (and probably still

relations supports this argument: despite the competition between the

3.3 THE MYTH BETRAYED: THE COLLAPSE OF ITALIAN

year, as well as the opposition to the Italian intervention against

mention the commitment of philosopher Giovanni Gentile, former min-

September 1943. Democratic Transition

Keywords Democratic transition Middle power Cold War European

With its problematic capitulation in September 1943, Italy became an

© The Author(s) 2017 49

As well as 1861, 1943 can be considered as a critical juncture in the

4.1 THE TRAGEDY OF CAPITULATION AS A CRITICAL

During that period, in a mounting condition of civil war, Italy

agreement that concluded the military occupation was signed in Paris

the reversal of a realistic conception of foreign policy, which is based on the