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 Università per Stranieri di Perugia Perugia, Italy

Federico Niglia Department of Political Science Libera Università Internazionale Rome, Italy

ISBN 978-3-319-55061-9 DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6

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

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938583 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclu sively licen sed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, speci cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on micro lms or in any other physical way, and trans mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a speci c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional af liations. Cover image: Pattern adapted from an Indian cotton print produced in the 19th century Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To our patient families

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank Sarah Roughley of Palgrave Macmillan for her commitment to transform this project into reality. A special thanks to Leonardo Morlino, who supported this book since the very early stage.

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CONTENTS

1 Introduction

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2 Italy in International Relations: European Benchmark Dates and National Critical Junctures

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

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4 September 1943. Democratic Transition and International Adjustment

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5 February 1992. Italy in a Post-Bipolar World

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6 Conclusion

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Glossary

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Bibliography

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Index

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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 understand 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 dominated by globalist approaches both in history and current political analysis. This trend re ects 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 internationalism to transnationalism. Given the high degree of global interconnectivity 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 E. Diodato, F. Niglia, Italy in International Relations, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6_1

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E. DIODATO AND F. NIGLIA

remain the primary and of cially recognized players in the game of international 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 of cially 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 con rm that the EU member states have different scales of priorities and interests. The EU is the only European entity with suf cient 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 con rms that Italy is crucial for the promotion of the federalist project. Today ’s outlook reaf rms the importance of Italy for the political and economic growth of the Union, asarea. wellAtasthefor thetime, management of the with crisis other in the Mediterranean same Italy ’s relationship EU members and towards some policies adopted by the Union is controversial. 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 intergovernmental one. In the current turmoil, it would also be dif cult to trace the line of the ideal European foreign policy so as to test the coherence of

INTRODUCTION

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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, dif culties emerge in the classi cation 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 comprehensive approach and this re ects 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 con rmation in the real strengths of the country. Such stereotyped interpretations are clearly summarize d 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 objectives. Similar to other founding members of the EC/EU, Italyand 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

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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, rst 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 rst approach comes from the history of international relations. As de ned 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 supercially 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 metapolitical 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 conpolitical rms thegroups principle, politique namely that individuals and/or are dtheabord agents in the de nition 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 phenomena 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

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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 understand their causes. From this theoretical perspective, we decided to work on selected moments or turning points, which have been crucial for both the international history and the domestic history of Italy: 1861, the year in which the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed during the making of modern international 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 reuni cation 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 junctures 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 agencyofand choice to when play a decisive causal role (Capoccia 2015). In times uncertainty, 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 de nition 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 institutional 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

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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 rst (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 adjustment 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 nd the reasons why, in our opinion, 1992 wa s a turning point during which momentum was lost since institutional change was not achieved. This allows us to offer an interpretation 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 contribute 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 history 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 features 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 traditional approach, focused on single events and/or individuals, which underestimated and the role this played by structures and institutions.long-term Regardingprocesses international politics, criticism had an


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impact on traditional diplomatic history, which relied in an extensive way on the formal aspect of the interstate relations and on the diplomatic 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 methodological approach: French historians Pierre Renouvin and JeanBaptiste 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 economic integration and the scienti c 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 reaf rmed 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 in uenced by factors other than political ones, and the cultural –structuralist approach, which saw the historical change as the result of long-term processes underestimating the initiative of individuals and groups, has been overcome by scholars for many decades. In achieving this synergy, political scientists theorists of the international relations have given a relevant help: theyand incorporated long tradition of (IR) 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 de ned a critical juncture in history as “a period of signi cant 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 . . .

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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 signi cant 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 community 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 xing 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 signi cance. 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 speci c historical event. If we believe a selected canhas summarize a speci event/process, thenthat the signi cancebenchmark that this date for a speci c countryc (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.

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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 signi cant 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 ful l these three requirements and should be considered equivalent to a critical juncture. However, there are two signi cant differences: (1) The rst 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 geographi cal 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 rst 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 patterns 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 operational codes of our national actors ” (Singer 1961, p. 81). States may differ widely in what they consider to be the national interest, but the international system is a wider level of analysis which requires speci c observations on theory its ownofpatterns development. not mean that the critical of junctures cannotHowever, be adaptedthis to does IR. During moments of social and political uidity, the decisions and choices of the key international actors are freer and may in uence new organizing principles 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 occasionally, 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


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to the degree of involvement of the polity considered within the international system. That implies that the process of comparing critical 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 problem 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 identi es 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 speci c country, Italy, with regard to its main national critical junctures. This will be a test for two main research arguments: •

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establishing a common understanding of the international system among Western European countries. A common understanding does a shared approach politics and even not less mean a common foreign policy.toAinternational 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 longterm history shows that they share a common attitude towards the international system which is the result of ve 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 speci c peculiarities.

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2.1


T HE EUROPEAN UNDERSTANDING OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM: A PROPOSED SET OF BENCHMARK DATES

The idea that the countries of Western Europe share a common understanding of the international system has to be clari ed. 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, democracy, equality, justice, rule of law, solidarity, regulated capitalism, ecological 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 of cially recognize the existence of these deeper roots. Throughout the centuries, European countries have developed a common sense of identity, a common idea of the balance of power between independent polities and a nal ambition to guarantee the peace on the continent. Thanks to this set of principles, which are rooted in the religious, social, political and economic history of the continent, Europeans have developed an identity or self-perception which makes them different and references identi abletointhe both territorial and sociopolitical the ancient Greeks and to Imperial terms. Rome,Leaving one canapart date this process back to the Renaissance. Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405 – 1464), a humanist later crowned as Pius II, was one of the rst who identi ed Europe as a cultural reference. He differentiated Europe from the neighbouring territories and kingdoms. This process of self-identi cation became important after the geographic discoveries of the fteenth 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


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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 selfidenti cation of Europe. We observe two changes in the European understanding 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 con ned 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 identi ed 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-simpli ed 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 Hitler. Westphalia can also be seen as the cornerstone of theNapoleon project ofto 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 enlightenment 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 signi cantly (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

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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 con rmed 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 liberaldemocratic 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 signi cant 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 uni cation. Research on European politics published before the First World War saw 1870 as a signi cant 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 humanitarian values, and that of Otto von Bismarck, who perverted the idea of nation to serve militarist Butinthis interpretation, fomented by the Bielefeld School, has ambitions. been rejected 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 transformative 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 signi cance: nationalism, socialism and


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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 rede ned the international system adding a supernational dimension. Following Woodrow Wilson ’s 14 points, the League of Nations was indeed the rst main development in the Westphalian system with the creation of an international organization with an independent legal basis. Year 1919 is also crucial because it was the rst 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 (Dallek 1995). crisis The experts who analysed the European situation politics explained the European 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 nancial 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 administration 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 international system. In this year, the three allied powers decided to periodically meet at an international high-level conference, with not only the aim of

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setting the rules for the conduct of the war but also to discuss the post-war global order. The rst 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, con rmed 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 downgrading 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 rst 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 con rmed in the following years. Thus, we can consider 1943 as the beginning of a traslatio nally imperii from the British empire to the American one, which was 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 signi cance. Realists, in particular, attached an important signi cance 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 changes have recently shaped the world system. Lookingthe at global this date from awhich political perspective, one cannot deny its weak global signi cance 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 probably 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


17

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 reuni cation, traditionally seen as the most disruptive alteration of the continental balance of power. The challenge of the German reunication 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 development 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 theinterlude regional and global level (Larivé 2014, pp. 51 68; Orbie 2009). The 1989 –1991 remains decisive for major processes of macro-historical transformation: the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunication of Germany; the fall of the Soviet Union and the agreements on the EU (the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated in 1991). From our perspective, 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 de nition of the EU as an “empire” is ambitious and controversial (Behr 2007), one can state that the EU emerged as an institutional 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

18


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 de ned 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, especially the Mediterranean ones, argue for a more dynamic Europe, which is also expected to promote a signi cant and shared growth. The political events culminated with the Brexit vote show that the traditional phenomenon 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 the “big on European members, whoseofweight allows them to reopen theand negotiations the rules of the process 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 D IVERGING 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


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power in the late fteenth 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 dramatic 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 uni cation 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 historian 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 15 th century the foundations of glory are searched among the ruins of another world. They [the humanists] create a ctitious religiosity, that will never be able to activate the deep spirit of the nation when the ”

time ght will come (Chabod 1993, p. 48). Inof thethe Pandora ’s box of unmetabolized traditions and myths, the most relevant one was that of Rome. It survived for ve 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 concurred 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 rst 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 uni cation of the

20


peninsula. If the modern age saw the incubation of a mythological dimension, 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 supposed peculiarity: the presence of the Pope. To what extent the temporal power of the Church delayed the process of state-building is a controversial 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 uni cation. 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 uni cation in comparison with the monarchies which accomplished their transformation into modern states after 1648. The missed trains of uni cation de nitely transformed Italy into a passive subject of European politics and two and half centuries were needed tomid-1550s, guarantee the with a stable and partitioned durable settlement. From the thepeninsula country was systematically 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 nally settled only in 1748 by the Peace of Aachen, which de ned the rst 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 participated in the large wave of political reforms promoted by the so-called enlightened monarchs. The phenomenon of enlightened absolutism,


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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 super cial 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 resistanc e. The French historian Pierre Chaunu wrote on this point: “chi può valutare il peso, nella Toscana del XV III 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 fteenth century had on the Tuscany of the eighteenth 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 con rmed 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 rst 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(Broers ground2005). provedThe to be less fertile of to the external in uences expected penetration revolutionary ideals than did not reach the deepest soul of the country not only because of the counteraction 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 in uenced 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

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(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 interpretation 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 nal 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 con rm 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 nd 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 af rmation of liberty in Europe. According to him, the main defendant in Europe was not Italy, but Germany, which with the Reform begun a longterm estrangement from the positive of Europe. Ofprocess course,of the judgement on Germany can bespirit 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 rst 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 nal phase, the population is involved in the process and plays a crucial role in the set-up of the nation-state. In Italy, the intellectual 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 nally the uni cation was accomplished. Italy had its peculiar history based on the coexistence of a


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popular movement and a dynastic initiative, but in general terms the Italian case perfectly ts 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 uni cation. 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 uni cation was accomplished together and in line with the European spirit. Despite being the of cial date of national uni cation, 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 nance 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 cosmopolitan 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 uni ed Italy as an unaccomplished country. Emilio Visconti Venosta, diplomat and foreign minister for the rst time between 1863 and 1864, claimed that the Italians should be “indipendenti sempre, isolati mai” (always independent, never isolated). Indeed, Italy was an isolated country, whose independence was at risk in the years following the kingdom ’s proclamation. This is probably the reason why the debate on post-uni cation 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

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(Petrignani 1987). Only after the capture of Rome did the alliance ’s problem 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 revolut ions 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 differ ent 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 generating a core –periphery world market was conjoined with the emergence of the “rational state” (ivi, p. 628). In a sort of retrospective “case tting”, we can conclude that the Italian élite choose the centralized and rational French model for national social and political development. This choice immediately in uenced 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 adjustment to the international system and the forces which were shaping the


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domestic social and political life. As con rmed by a strong research record, Versailles satis ed most of the Italian requests: Trento, Trieste, the achievement of a leading position in the Adriatic Sea. Only a few requests were not satis ed, 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 ght 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, BritainWar and France. he could ignore the unwillingness of theGreat First World allies toBut support the not 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 independence and made the choice to join the German alliance, which was fostering 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 continuity in Italian history also because they looked at Fascism as the main turning point in Italian history. Studies over the last 30 years have

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elaborated a more nuanced approach and are more hesitant in de ning 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 in uenced 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 de ned the institutional system since 1848). In April 1948, the rst general elections took place. The political system of the rst republic was de ned 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 government joined the United Nations as a co-belligerent in their ght 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 wouldinternational be better served adjusting domestic political system to theItaly emerging system. In thisthe 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 socalled 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 dif cult national moments: corruption scandals that led to the fall of the party system which had


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ruled for the previous 40 years; terrorist attacks against magistrates carried out by the Ma a; 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 lled 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 in uenced 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 development. This proposal went against the belief that Italy should be an adaptive 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 juncture, 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 the1943 European systemisunder The main difference between and 1992 in theconstruction. 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 uni

cation and

discusses the nexus between domestic and international factors in the Italian foreign policymaking process. The foreign policy of uni ed Italy is de ned 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 uni cation and the fall of Fascism. The chapter also provides an insight on the strategy of the alliance of uni ed Italy, highlighting 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 transferring best policies and practices into the country. Keywords Nation  Risorgimento  Uni cation  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 uni cation took place. From the beginning of the twentieth century and during Mussolini’s regime, questions were asked about the effectiveness of the uni cation concluded in 1861. A mainstream interpretation emerged whichprocess considered Fascism the result of an unaccomplished


29

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process of reform. Piero Gobetti, the young director of the Rivoluzione ned as a liberale, suggested that the Italian Risorgimento could be de “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 degenerative 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 un nished due to the First World War and the following Fascist dictatorship. They supported 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 Croce, whoheart portrayed as Croce a moralwanted diseaseto which struckBenedetto the civil and political of theFascism country. 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 tting 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

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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 con icts. 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 in uenced 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 con rmation of the Italian eccentricity, while underestimating the deep existing connection between Italian history and the entire history of Europe. In our opinion, Italycentral is different rather than eccentric. It as performs differently from other Western European countries well as from countries from Mediterranean Europe. The idea of paese mancato is correct, but only to identify some sources of the “Italian conundrum ” during the Risorgimento and, consequently, in 1861. By focusing 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 peculiar ity and attach to it a scienti c status, this chapter will provide a historical excursus on the speci c circumstances which led to the Italian uni cation.

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3.1

T HE (RE)BIRTH OF ITALY IN A CHANGING EUROPE

The thesis of an Italian peculiarity in Europe has been ercely rejected by generations of Italian intellectuals, starting from Croce whose reading of Fascism as a moral disease went well beyond the speci c 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 uni ed 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 peculiarities of the Italian situation were highlighted by historians and the intellectuals. The rst and most important peculiarity is the presence of the Pope, which has long been considered the main hindrance to uni cation. 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 uni cation similar to the one promoted by other European royal families. As a result of coexisting factors, in particular the parochialism animating the leaders of the Italian states, the Italian territories remained divided while other European monarchies were rapidly moving towards uni cation. 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 uni cation, ultimately becoming the main enemy of the process. The second peculiarity rises from the importance given to the glorious past of the country, speci cally the heritage of ancient Rome. Starting from what the historian Charles H. Haskins ( 1972) identi ed as the rst 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


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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 inspiratio n 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 uni cation. After stating that the uni cation of a country has to be considered as a summum bonum, Machiavelli advocated in favour of a country liberated from the external in uences 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 rst 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 an instrument mark the speci c cultural identity of the Italian nation ascompared withtothe 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 in uence. Dramatist Vittorio Al eri had already illustrated this idea in Misogallo (1799), arguing that the hostility against the French revolution served as an arti cial 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 con rmed 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

34


was Ugo Foscolo, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century embodied the prototype of the national poet deeply in uenced 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 ourish. 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 ght 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 historical myths, mixed with surviving Christian beliefs, contributed to the ght 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 people with opposing visions of the values which should inspire Italian politics. But for them, the glorious past of Rome and the classical myths were an instrument to mark both the Italian identity from the Austrian domination as well as from the cultural invasion of the French revolution. These powerful myths strongly contributed to the process of nationbuilding. After thefor accomplishment of uni and, cation, they continued be an inspiring factor the Italian leadership as we shall see, whiletothey 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 frustr ation for many of them. But it was also the con rmation of the geostrategic importance of the peninsula for the major European countries. The entire history of modern Europe con rms that the control of Italy was crucial in the hegemonic ght between the leading powers of the time: initially between France and Spain and from the eighteenth century between Austria and France.


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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 unication 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 uni cation. After the Congress of Vienna of 1815, which con rmed the division of the peninsula into different states incorporated in two spheres of in uences, 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 uni cation, which he believed should be a confederate form under the presidency of the Pope, could only be possible after the Austrian empire shifte d 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 uni cation from the of the Crimean War (1856), with the attempts to address the end Italian question at the Paris conference and laterrst 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 uni cation 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 considering the geostrategic importance of the country, the Italian governments 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

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three peculiarities of the past history of the country. It represents not only the partial ful lling of a mythological thinking but also a conrmation of the fact that the achievement of the national programme was subordinated to the existence of a functioning and effective diplomatic plan. Moreover, the year 1861 also led to the of cial 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

U NIFIED ITALY: THE L EGACY OF THE P AST AND THE R OLE 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 uni cations (Greece, Belgium and Romania), the Italian state-building was unanimously 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 signi cant number of the European states and was at risk of whose retaliation by a also coalition led by Differentlyover to Germany, uni cation con rmed its Austria. military supremacy France, Italy had poor military capacity, whose limits were further emphasized by the integration between different regions. The main source of concern after the uni cation 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 ambassadors had to overcome the hostility of Austria and the German states still under the in uence 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 dif cult condition was also exacerbated by the sudden and unexpected death of Cavour in June 1861.


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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 endangering the achievements of 1861 by following the revolutionary myths of an ancient grandeur. However, uni ed Italy also incorporated the main peculiarities which characterized national movements before the uni cation. 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 uni ed state. As a result, reference to the myth of Rome was crucial in order to promote the transformation of Italy into an effective and uni ed 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 community that the Italian uni cation 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 xed 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 of Italy on the international scene. The became belief that Italians hadambitions to be incorporated within the national borders theall 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 rst ve decades of uni cation. The will to conclude national uni cation 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 re ection of the rise of imperialism at the European level. However, those imperial ambitions 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 rst case of a European power

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defeated by an African population. The writer and historian Harold Nicholson noted that Italian policymakers based their power on diplomacy, 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 uni cation. Italy did not have suf cient military power to undertake military action for its irredentist project and, consequently, alliances were the only instrument 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 pro ted from the Prussian dynamism and started their military campaigns during the Austrian –Prussian and French–Prussian con icts. The stabilization of European politics, which followed the German uni cation in 1871, deprived the Italian diplomacy of this tool, since it became practically impossible to pro t 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 idea was inspiring factor the policy of alliances( 1997), carried the out national by Italy from uni thecation to the FirstofWorld 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


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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 in uenced by the values and practices of its Latin sister. After uni cation, the Italian élite choose the centralized and rational model of France for national and political development. But from the 1870s onward, German in uence grew in many elds (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) in uenced 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 af rm 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-uni cation governments thought that the interaction with the two leading countries of liberal democracy could have contributed to the establishment of a stronger and more ef cient constitutional 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 in uenced by this legacy of the Risorgimento. Apart from their political vision, they also the idea the external in ofuence could have bene cial effects forshared the political andthat economic growth 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, rst 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 satis ed 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 implementation of the political and bureaucratic structures, for economic modernization 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

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schizophrenic oscillation of an uncertain country. It was (and probably still is) the result of a shared sensation that Italy, given its belat ed 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 in uenced 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 uni cation and the formal inclusion of Italy in the European concert of powers, the Mediterranean remained a strong attraction 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 speci c regions and countries. Italy also lacked political, military and economic power to act as a pivotal player in the area. As a consequence, the history of Italian colonialism enumerates more failures that successes. In 1881, the Treaty of Bardo recognized the French protectorate 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 The role played by theprojection. Mediterranean and more extensively by the non-European world is controversial. In the rst 50 years after the uni cation, 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 ve 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


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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 nally 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 uni cation in case of a defeat by the Austrian-Germans. In the rst 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 contributing 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

T HE 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 rmly remained on posturing, the anti-revisionist of the European barricade. his muscular militaristside proclamations and the actions Despite of the regime (such as the raid against Corfu), Mussolini ’s actions on the international 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 ambitions. In 1924, when the disputed municipality of Fiume was also included within the Italian borders, the territorial mission of Risorgimento was accomplished. The territorial uni cation 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

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power. For all these reasons, there were few incentives for Mussolini to modify the existing order. But despite Mussolini ’s intentions, the evolution 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 foreign 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 con rm 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 rst 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 uni cation was accomplished. Old myths, in particular the imperial one, proved to still be useful (Arthurs 2012). Imperial ambitions 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 of thethe State and theidea, Vatican in 1929, Mussolini stood the potential imperial which consisted bothunderin the vindication of Adua and, at the same time, in the increase of the Italian in uence 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 con dent in overcoming the traditional hostility of both the French and British towards Italian imperialism. He believed that the Italian commitment to erecting a rewall 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


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year, as well as the opposition to the Italian intervention against Ethiopia, con rmed his miscalculation. The result was an Italian “green light ” to the German annexati on of Austria and the establis hment 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, miscalculated German power and probably overestimated the exibility of the Anglo-French. As a result, Italy ended up in system of alliance which was contrary to the Duce ’s srcinal 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 cooperation with Hitler ’s Germany rstly implied the end of the traditional antirevisionism 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 establishment of an Italian domination and took advantage of the Italian military weakness to replace their partners in control strategic region. Moreover, the subordination of Italian military goalsoftoa those of Germany jeopardized the military performance of the country. Starting from mid1941, the Italian forces had to operate in different battle elds 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 rst 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

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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 antinational 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 contribut ing to the de nition 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 rst Italian leader who of cially refused to refer to a foreign model and asserted the srcinal 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 nally claimed that Fascism was not for export. By doing so, he of cially 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 in uence again over the domestic of Italy. Philip Morgan ( 2007), for instance, speaks in favour dimension 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 international position for the country. Particularly, he insisted on the necessity to bene t 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 opportunities to implement this “new course of Adriatic policy ” (Cattaruzza 2014, p. 183). Ethiopia ’s subjection to Italian rule, between 1935 and


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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 “EuroAfrican 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 publication in Trieste with Bottai ’s support and the scienti c direction of two geographers, Giorgio Roletto and Ernesto Massi. Having had the opportunity 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 subjugation of the rst to the second, we can argue here that the establishment of an alliance with Germany was not accompanied by a recognition of the role thatnation. Germany for theMussolini civil and political growth of the Italian Oncould the play contrary, 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 late1930s and early 1940s, and many initiatives were implemented to contrast the German hegemonic attempt. The most signi cant 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

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mention the commitment of philosopher Giovanni Gentile, former minister 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 con rm that Italian elites did not believe in the fruitfulness 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 international arena, rather than by the ones taken at the domestic level, and the positive peculiarities of the past were transformed into negatively impacting 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 de nes the Italian armistice with the AngloAmericans of 3 September 1943 as the “death of the fatherland ” (Galli Della Loggia 1996). On 8 September, whenInthe armistice the entire Italian state-system collapsed. just a few was days,proclaimed, 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 international 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 similarity to that of nation-building in the nineteenth century. The rebirth of Italy was accomplished between 1943 (the decision to ght with the Anglo-Americans to liberate the country from the German occupation)


47

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 syste m, promoting the values of liberal democracy. In the same years, myths started again to in uence and inspire the national and international politics of the country. The aspiration to restore the grandeur of Italy contributed to the de nition 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 discusses 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. Democratic Sea transition  Middle power  Cold War  European Keywords Union  Mediterranean

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 re ected 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 subsequent military occupation in 1943 had made it clear to theand Italian elite how much international


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relations could penetrate the political system, imposing their own logic. But subsequent events showed that by adopting a solid strategy of international adaptation and re-legitimization, Italy could preserve its independence. 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 promote 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 re ection 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 capitulation. In our opinion, a broad interpretation of the notion of blocco storico well illustrates the rise of a republican and democratic élite primarily interested in modernizing Italy while preserving its peculiarities. Over time, a hegemonic social bloc was ableato handle changes involving different elements and creating larger unity. As we and shalldif see,culties 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 interrupted only with the end of the Cold War, when a republican turn occurred in Italy. The mode of political adaptation – that we de ne as international adjustment – does not result from rational calculation but srcinates “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 . . .

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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 de ned as organizations, formal rules, public policies and political regimes. In the context of foreign policy, however, critical junctur es can be cast as moments in which uncertainty 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 de nition 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 uncertainty, 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 dependency. This happened thanks to a series of successive events related to the contextual restructuring of the international system: economic recovery and, secondly, the advent of the Coldrstly, War. the US-led

4.1

T HE TRAGEDY OF CAPITULATION JUNCTURE

AS A

CRITICAL

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 ghting in a war and accept defeat, the instrument of Italian capitulation was in fact an armistice between Italy and the Allies. On 13 October 1943, Italy obtained a cobelligerent status declaring war on Germany. It presupposed Italian help against the Germans and

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in turn receives help from the Allies. However, the announcement of the armistice on 8 September marked a decisive turning point in Italy ’s internal 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 consequences of this decision on the Mediterranean front. After entering the war in December 1941, the United States was in favour of an anti-fascist movement 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 unconditional surrender principle was nally 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 rule Italy inthe theentry case of The Brenner Passthe was not plans closedtoto prevent ofcapitulation. Hitler’s divisions. Probably, 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 consequence 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 dif cult part of its participation in Second World War.


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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 nale. 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, combined 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 postwar transition. In March 1944, the Soviet recognition of Badoglio’s royal government had already pushed the PCI to participate in government. 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 rst step for international adaptation and re-legitimization of Italy was the approval of the treaty of peace. This international

54


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 “excommunicate 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 cobelligerent 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 cobelligerent status during the negotiations. On 10 February 1947, the foreign minister Sforza decided to sign the bland diktat but deferring the rati cation to the decision of the Assemblea the Constitutional Onofthe Costituente following 24(established July, Sforzawith presented the agreementreferendum). to the members the Assembly and, after having de ned the text as an “unjust act ” (AC 1947, p. 6164), declared that revisions should be obtained but only through paci c means. He also recalled the danger of international isolation, 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 international 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


55

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 international system. In Sforza’s viewpoint, the peace treaty was the nal 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 parliamentary debate and the reasons why the Socialists and the Communists nally did not approve the peace treaty. Croce was the rst to take the oor 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 noti cation 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“even those of the African continent ently, other nero states lived, (Continente )” already (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 freedoms. These clauses re ected 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 instituted by the winners to judge politicians and of cers 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

56


nally 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 nally 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 re ected the post-war climate of international solidarity, ended de nitively 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 reconstruction was hampered by a lack of monetary reservesthe and,Bank above bywas a negative balance of payment. In these circumstances, of all, Italy called upon to play an important role in the necessity to restore nancial 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 implement the post-war monetary system of Bretton Woods. This international anchorage would have allowed Italy to adopt stability-oriented policies, aimed at ghting in ation and reducing de cit. 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,


57

from which the Socialists and the Communists were ousted and “to large extent replaced by liberal-minded technocrats, the most important of whom was central bank Governor Luigi Einaudi as the new Minister of the Budget and Deputy Prime Minister ” (ivi, p. 79). In the beginning, the Socialists and Communists alike had shared the idea that the peace treaty was not a sentence of capitulation, but rather the way to become an adaptive power. But on 31 July 1947, when the Assembly nally rati ed 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 nancial 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 reaf rm 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 conference, which launched the Marshall Plan, was the real “ rst 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 de nitive 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 in uenced by the incumbent logic of the Cold War. But theItnew pattern of post-war Italian reshaping foreign policy not born overnight. was the outcome of a thorough of thewas domestic political system from 1944 to 1947, as well as of a “dif cult 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

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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 dif culties 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 nally discarded the grandiose ambitions of the past, that had partly embraced the new values of democracy, but that also intended to defend itsrelationship economic interests. In this complex mixture, thethe search a preferential with Washington, srcinating during lastfor 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 nancial recover. By approving the peace treaty and placing the country in the Western camp, the government adopted a solid strategy of international 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 Westernoriented foreign policy adopted to promote economic interests gradually


59

began to take shape and, within the space a few years, it was de nitively strengthened thanks to the process of the European integration. In this way, the international system de nitively became the anchor to modernize the country ’s economy and consolidate its democracy, overcoming the contradiction produced by the unconditional surrender.

4.2

D EMOCRATIC ITALY: A EUROPEAN MIDDLE POWER

The process of European integration strongly in uenced 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 government 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 gures 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 strengthened 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 thatthe Europe was ato bulwark againstand the liberal Soviet democracy. threat and the way to consolidate transition a free market 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 rst 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

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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 nally 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 dif culties. On the international front, dif culties 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 nally 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 rst occurred in 1963, when Socialists returned to government with the further rst cabinet Aldo Moro.the Since 1956, the Socialists progressively moved awayoffrom their srcinal position of anti-Atlanticism and Euroscepticism. This move nally led them to the “acceptance of NATO as a ‘purely defensive’ organization and as a pillar of the international order, as Nenni de ned 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 rst cabinet of Mariano Rumor. The second turning point occurred in the mid-1970s, when the Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer in a famous interview with Il Corriere della Sera in June 1976 declared that the Communists accepted “the Western pillars of Italian foreign policy ” (ivi, p. 96), that is to say NATO and the European community (EC). According to these two turning points, three phases can be outlined:

SEPTEMBER 1943. DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION . . . •

•

•

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During the rst phase (from the general election of 1948 to the rst 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 governments secular liberals and later the Socialists, was a tactical reaction to the centrifugal drives which would otherwise determine a progressive polarization of the political spectru m. In this way, the coalition 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 rm competi“imperfect two-party system” (Galli 1996), namely a tion between DC-dominated cabinets and PCI. DCs maintained their crucial function in the managing of the political system. But the speci c institutional setting of Italy, with a strong Parliament compared to short governments, prevented the total isolation of the Communists. The opportunities to exercise in uence created conditions 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 failedwhen as a consequence of theterrorism, economicinstitutional and social crisis of the 1970s, Italy experienced crisis, poor economic performance, and was not able to renew its Western choice.

According to this periodization, two general elements emerge: rst, 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

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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 nancial policy. Looking rst 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 justi ed 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 signi cant presence of its representatives. It is dif cult 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 re ect a real proactive role. For example, in order to overcome strenuous British objections, 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 integration, 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). considering defence and foreign policy, it is necessary to separate theWhen 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 fth Atlantic Council in New York. In a con dential report to


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the Secretary General of foreign ministry Vittorio Zoppi, Sforza wrote “all have declared themselv es 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 dif culties 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 undermined Italy’s political in uence 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 in uenced 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 important expression of interstate solidarity in Europe. themost European policy of reducing structural dispaCohesionisisthe rities between countries and regions, while promoting equal opportunities for all individuals. More speci cally, the immigration policy and the socalled 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 nancial 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

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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 ows 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 nancial policy. After the negotiations 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, regional aspects nally introduced in the the EC. Although forofa supranational long time, thesolidarity fund had were only modest resources, it facilitated the process of the ideological transformation 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 nancial 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 dif culties and, for the rst time, since the Second


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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 international 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 dif culties. 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 speci c 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 paci st position maintaining a proEuropean and a pro-Western attitude. The turning point of the mid1970s 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 disappeared in the mid-1970s with the progressive convergence of PCI

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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 paci st position. In conclusion, Italy participated in the process of European integration aspiring to become a European middle power, but facing dif culties throughout the three phases: on the one side, federal ideals of the European political integration and the need to modernize national economy and society strengthened each other and in the same suitable direction; on the other side, Italy progressively accepted increasing constraints on monetary and scal 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 marginalization of the Communist party, that Italy was not able to nd a common path to renovate its Western and European choices.

4.3

I TALY 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 plurality resulted in an increasingly complex decision-making process that revealed the explanations growing importance ofpolicy domestic politicsinvolving in foreign But internal of foreign decisions, thepolicy. 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 economic policies and surrender sovereign prerogatives into the European framework. They rationally pursued, as well as other European governments, 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


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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 signi cantly 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 preeminence of national security concerns and, in particular, the Italian attitude towards national defence was one of prudence. Since the beginning, this calculation in uenced 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 between the these different options took place inside the country butcontrast directly involved understanding of the international and its potential transformation throughout the Cold War. Therefore, dialectics between these two schools are relevant to best evaluate 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 ministe r, Sforza, promulgate d 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

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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 nally 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 rst vote on Libya, Italy was de nitively forced to relinquish its colonies by a new resolution of the General Assembly. This second pronouncement rmly 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 recognition 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 exItalian 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 a group and of young DCsministers, which included forthcoming prime of ministers foreign amongsome 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 of ce from 1948 to 1954, maintained a middle position between the two different perspectives (ivi, pp. 8 –9). On the other, the replacement of Sforza de nitely 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


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the second school. On 11 September 1951, during the trade show Fiera del Levante in Bari, and in the presence of an Egyptian delegat ion, 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 opportunity to help in solving the dif culties 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 rst time, De Gasperi of cially 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 nished in 1953, the politics of neutrality and equidistance within a wider the recognition of Chinadeveloped without US approval and spectrum, the policy including 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 anked by an autonomous commitment 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 signi cant acceleration 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

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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 implement universal principles of cooperation beyond the bipolar logic. But domestic manoeuvres towards the left did not fully explain Gronchi’s neoatlantismo. 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 socalled 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, 355). was close moderate liberals and member ofp. the rightPella wing of not the only DC very but he wastoalso 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-atlantismoof 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 signi cant break with the past. Despite the debate between schools, or even heated controversy fuelled by the press, it cannot be identi ed with the politics of opening to the Socialists. Neither was it a way to obtaining the support of the


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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 outcome was unrealistic in as much as it was covered by a paci st rhetoric. Not by chance, exactly in the Mediterranean, it became manifest “in a paradigmatic way the international identity ’s crisis of republican Italy ” (ivi, p. 352). Italian failure in Mediterranean foreign policy became clear during the economic and social crisis of the 1970s. To this regard, it is worth noting the asco of the project for the establishment of a conference on security and cooperation in the Mediterranean presented to NATO in –

1972 by foreign minister theofperiod 1968decision 1988, according to Valter Coralluzzo, theMoro. public During attention the Italian 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 pro le, 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 encouraged 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 nally 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.

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Only after the marginalization of the Communists and the re-emergence 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 rst 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 ows 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. policy minister conducted byforeign Craxi and Giulioin Andreotti, whoThe wasMediterranean several times prime and minister 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,


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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 re ected dif culties and anxieties of the Italians over problems of national security and economic backwardness. The inability to nd 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 institutional 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. Foreign policy analysis  Bipartisanship  Neo-nationalism  Keywords 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 rst position confers relevance to international constraints, since external forces are shaped by security problems which remain essentially the same regardless of domestic regimes and historical change. The latter relevanceof tocivil national preferences, since democracies allow the confers incorporation society into the


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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 domestic 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 international primacy of realist views nor the domestic primacy of liberal views can fully catch the dialectic interplay between domestic politics and international politics and its in uence on outcomes. This understanding is very relevant in the case of Italy when choosing the critical juncture of 1992. In 1943, the domestic –international interplay was crucially mediated by discourses on national preferences and, in particular, by the evolution of a speci c 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 reuni cation and European enlargement after the fall of the Soviet Union con rm 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 nearmiss critical juncture.

FEBRUARY 1992. ITALY IN A POST-BIPOLAR WORLD

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Considering this kind of juncture requires a better de nition 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 punctuated 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 de nition proposed by Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner ( 2005, p. 5), “punctuations in policy outcomes re ect [ . . . ] 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 framework 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 of change inrule bothwith discourses and institutions. Sentient agent mayproduct infuse institutional contextualized meanings, constructed understandings, responses to critical moments, or come up with ideas that lead to a more fragmented reinterpretation of an institution. The punctuated 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 history 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 de nitively move beyond the divide between international relations and domestic

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policy: rst 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 contradictions 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 particularly 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 rst 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 bene ting 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

T HE 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,


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major transformations occurred when Italy faced huge dif culties in adapting 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 dif culties in the Middle East were con rmed again in the Balkans, where the Italian government was compelled to recognize the onset of Yugoslavia’s disintegration after having considered this country as the pivot of its foreign policy in post-Soviet Europe. In the same period, the reuni cation of Germany was viewed with concern by the Italian élite and, in this new European context, negotiations for the EU in 1991 assumed a special relevance. The Italian government bargained for an economic agreement, namely the European Monetary Union (EMU), without the full awareness of its technical consequences. 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 independently (Carli 1993, p. 432). ’

While haveitconsidered Italy s foreign policy as aWar particular case study for scholars a long time, was only with the end of the Cold 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 con icting 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 pro le marked by a greater activism

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in foreign policy. Nonetheless, “neo-nationalism” and “internationalism” emerged very soon as opposite perspectives in the public debate (Aliboni and Greco 1996). These con icting 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 pro le are undoubtedly important. However, the way in which successive governments responded to the changing international environment uctuated markedly. To this regard, the three main issues that should be taken into account are: (1) Which type of transformation occurred when a signi cant process of democratic transition took place in Italy? (2) Has the conduct of Italy’s foreign policy re ected dif culties in adapting to the new international environment? (3) Do these dif culties and, therefore, the absence of a long-term bipartisan path purely re ect 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 dif culties in adapting to the new international environment. In December 1990, 2 months after the reuni cation of Germany, the European Council was held in Rome. This summit opened the two intergovernmental conferences whose work culminated in the Maastricht Treaty. During 1991, the ’

Gulf War andfrom the onset of Yugoslavia s disintegration distracted Italian government the European negotiations. At the same time,the 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 ministers, 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


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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 lling the political vacuum. The electoral success of the separatist movement Lega Nord (Northern League) in the general elections of April 1992, and the terroristic attacks ordered by the Sicilian Ma a 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 rati cation 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 worldwide 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 dif culties and needed to show both at the European and international level that it was able to assume global commitment in a post-bipolar world. The rise of Italy’s foreign policy pro le and its assertive role in participating in military missions aboard were perceived to compensate for economic problems and domestic dif culties. 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 signi cant since 1945. The States. overall The size of the Italian contingent wasmilitary secondoperation only to that of the United mission represented the rst attempt of the UN to develop robust peacekeeping 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 battle eld was rather isolated. While the Italian government tried to show that it was reliable in assuming global commitments, the US government 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

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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 centreright/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 signi cant. 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 internationalization 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 rst 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 af rm 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 berlusconismo in the 1990s, providing a mixture of conservatism and liberalism (Orsina 2014). ForeignNonetheless, policy was considered less important domestic economic reforms. the domestic perspectivethan 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 gures of Europeanism, Martino ned in “made no secret of his skepticism about some basic terms de 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 ve different cabinets and the general elections of 1996. The rst 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


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included for the rst time in history the ex-Communist party. Seen together, the 1994 and 1996 results suggested that Italy had nally overcome its historical dif culties in achieving alternation in government between centre-right and centre-left (Newell and Bull 1996). Thanks to the rst Prodi government, notwithstanding uncertainties about the country’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 fth 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 investigations ontax several charges to money-laundering, links with the Ma a and evasion. Onrelating 26 April, The Economist concluded: “Mr Berlusconi is not t 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

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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 heterogeneous, combining parties with different opinions on ethical values, economic issues and foreign policy. The government decided to provide the main contribution to an UN intervention in Lebanon (after the IsraeliHezbollah war), emphasizing discontinuity with the Berlusconi cabinet. But the coalition of centre-left imploded in January 2008 as a consequence 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 nancial crisis put the fourth Berlusconi government in dif culty. Italy ’s response to the international nancial 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 nancial 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 rati cation 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 intensied, the international nancial crisis invested theproverbial Eurozone. Berlusconi continued to alternate in his directly statements between 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 de ned 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 dif culties 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


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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 former 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 academics and grand commis , including an ambassador as foreign minister and a naval of cer 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 statement, 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 de cit. In Monti’s public discourse, the Europeanvincolo esterno was presented as an opportunity to push reforms forward, not as an external tie imposed on an indebted country. The most relevant decision made by Monti was the scal 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 nding a new entente with France. However, failed in2013, convincing Great Britain toantijoin the Eurozone (Greco he and nally Colombo p. 14). Meanwhile, European sentiment increased in Italy with a surprisingly 61% believing that the economic integration of Europe had weakened the national economy (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 ( ve-star movement) of the comedian 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.

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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 nonetheless produced major changes. The rst consisted of cognitive adjustment. 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 signi cant part of the electorate 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 nancial crisis increased the pessimistic feelings. The neo-nationalism of Berlusconi ’s centre-right framed these two problems and devised different solutions: in the rst 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 nally 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 dif culties 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 But in accordance with the Repubblica changing circumstances, Italy faced bursts of.activity and dif culties 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 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 opposite 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 atmosphere generated by the war on terror and, later, by the international


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nancial 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 ef cient adjustment to international demands. The protracted process of adjustment con rmed dif culties in nding a bipartisan path in foreign policy, as required by an ef cient alternation in government. Dif culties 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

T HE CHANGED NATURE

OF THE VINCOLO ESTERNO

Why did a new blocco storico not emerge in Italy? Why did the country face dif culties 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 rst 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 Panebianco ( 1997, pp. for democracies) example, considered Italy as world. a peculiar case (if compared to 227 other251), Western and Italian foreign policy as primarily dependent on three domestic factors: (1) the consensual democracy of the rst republican period, (2) the leverage of the main political parties (DC, PCI, PSI) and (3) the paci st 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 –international interplay, Panebianco referred to the concept of a “penetrative system” introduced by James Rosenau. According to Rosenau ( 1969), events and informational ows 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

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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 in uenced 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 peculiarities. 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 postbipolar system. Not only two independent variables, the consensual democracy and the leverage of political parties, varied signi cantly 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 purpose, 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 therefore signi cantly improved by understanding domestic with respect to international compromises. In the Italian case,bargaining agreeing with Isernia, the foreign policy process was a by-product of negotiations in which national decision makers were able to manage domestic fragmentation 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 (in uenced by external forces), a more dualist interaction between inside and outside was nevertheless possible. Besides, this interpretation con rms that, traditionally, Italy ’s alliance-making not only satis ed international needs in terms of security or recognition but also the transmission of models and best practices for the modernization of the country. However, this interpretation adds very little in explaining complexities


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and peculiarities within the foreign policy process and its transformation after the Cold War. We believe that only a dialectical interpretation of the international– domestic interplay can clarify Italian difference and explain national peculiarities. 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 paci st bias of the Italian people (always in uenced 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 variables, 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 turbulent than in the past. Our analytical perspective can be understood using the metaphor of the “punctuated equilibrium”. According to PET, we can visualize a policymaking system (Italy) where it is more or less able to adjust to the changing circumstances it faces, in the sense of ef cient adjustment to environmental demands. a pattern of adaptation to a complex, multifaceted environment, in As which multiple informational input ows 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 rst consists of cognitive adjustment: political actors recognize 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 de nitions in post-Cold War Italy has been

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strongly related to the in uence 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 frameworks 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 nancial 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 uni cation, 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 economic modernization and the liberal democracy. In both periods, myths in uenced and inspired the national and international politics of the country to restore in some way the grandeur of ancient Italy. The international an instrument contributesterno) operated ing to theanchorage de nition( vincolo of the political, social andaseconomic patterns of the Italian development. Discourses on foreign policy and national preferences were inputs of a decision-making process in which distribution of output changes were generated, at the same time, within both the domestic and the international structure. Mussolini was the only Italian leader who of cially refused to refer to a foreign model. Fascism was conceived as an Italian model valid for Italy. But the country destiny was nally determined by decisions taken on the international arena, namely by the Nazi regime. As already clari ed 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 de nitively ceased to be the supply chain of models for the domestic


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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 equilibrium. With regard to the international system, some scholars even doubt that it is moving towards a new geopolitical balance. This dif culty 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 20 08 nancial crisis, although appearing to be relatively con ned to certain issues or regions of the world, may in retrospect end up as part of a broader con guration of the world political system. But the international disorder is certi ed by the inability of scholars to de ne 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 ows srcinating outside are linked to phenomena inside the country. The current Italian conundrum concerns the condition of un nished 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 produced see, most arelevant is the changed nature of the vincolo that has condition in which only esterno partially foreign policy decision-making punctuated towards a stable and de nitive direction. Italian dif culties in consolidating competitive democracy have been strongly in uenced 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 rst Prodi government, Italy succeeded in joining the Euro group and also implementing the Schengen agreements. Between 2011 and 2012, Italy nally adopted economic and social measures directly de ned in Brussels reinforcing strict economic conditions with rules of a constitutional character. This long-term process, with speci c “time frames” (1991– 1992, 1996 –1998, 2011 –2012), can appear straightforward. But a signi cant part of the electorate supported political forces that emphasized

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the opportunity to pursue national interests without the European commitment and, in the end, Italy failed in nding a bipartisan path in foreign policy as required by an ef cient 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 decisionmaking, 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 substantial contribution to the rst UN ’s second-generation peacekeeping in Somalia. In the same year, Italy was excluded from the planning of peacekeeping 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 nancial crisis. Facing the resulting in ux 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 con rmed 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. this undoubted convergence be questioned. Afterand 9/11, USHowever, troops invaded Afghanistan in an effortcan to dismantle Al-Qaeda remove the illegitimate Taliban government. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq framing this military invasion within the enduring effort to ght 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 in uenced by the Vatican. The main opposition 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


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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 uidity 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 paci st 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 rst 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 nally adopted a more positive attitude towards Europe). However, these changes did not mean that decision makers were able to nd a nal convergence on foreign policy thanks to outside incentives. It is very dif cult to nd 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 causing a regime change compromised importantpower bipartisan initiative of the newthat republican phase, the thatmost 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 dif culty was the cont radiction 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 conicts 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

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(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 clari ed 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 de ned by the Atlantic alliance, or at least those de ned directly from the United States. However, along this course, the US presidential directives appeared sometimes questionable creating doubts about how to reconsider 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 de ned. National priorities in the face of dif cult decisions about alliance-making or national interests were never clari ed 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 state France and Germany (Peluffo 2007, Ch. 13). In the Libyan case, head of 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 dif cult to rationally explain Italian choices and, above all, the institutional tangle that characterized 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 srcinated in the twofold attitude towards Europe. The European vincolo esterno, although in continuity with the past, gained greater signi cance 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


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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 interest s would be better served within the European framework. In this particular condition, Italy’s foreign policy punctuated towards the EU in all the decisive moments of the European institutionbuilding. But Italy found it dif cult to assume a clear European attitude and, as a consequence, a well-de ned international role.

5.3

AM

IDDLE POWER IN

SEARCH OF ITSELF

It would be wrong to think that the rst 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 on the the other. one hand, critical events or trends in the external environment, But and 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 tradition, 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 controversies, in particular about the Mediterranean policy. But all things considered, Italy in the rst republican phase was able to be recognized as a “middle power” well placed in the European/Atlantic setting.

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In the second republican phase, Italy ’s international pro le increased with new responsibilities in providing global security through peacekeeping operations. But external constraints made it dif cult the formation 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 rst case, Berlusconi ’s failure was certi ed by the fact that between 2011 and 2012, he nally approved economic and social measures with rules of constitutional character directly de ned 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 dif culties in implementing 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 “reformist ” states both in economic disputes and in their immediate regions. In the aftermath the Secondmiddle World War, ItalyBut sought and found a certain role as aof European power. despite uctuations 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.


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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 concept 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 in uence certain areas and functions in international affairs can be considered middle powers (or at least we can accept this de nition). But dif culties 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 de nition is rather tautological). In the case of roles and ranks (in terms of who they are or believe to be), qualities such as organizational predisposition to overcome stasis, coalition-building capacity, or the ability to serve as a regional model, etc. are more dif cult to de ne 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 con ict in foreign policy ”

politics to product Christopher ( 2003), the “politics of foreign policy ” .isAccording always the of aHill 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, independence or international adaptation. In the Italian case, these problems have always been framed by de ning modern concerns of domestic development and national identity. In the current post-bipolar world, many issues from nancing public debt to debating immigration 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

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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 political and strategic policies de ned by the hegemon, namely the United States. But what Cox de ned “middle-power functionalism” in the Western system never completed Italy’s role conception. The Italian governments have always tried to obtain an international rank in terms of material capabilities (military and economic) as the result of the international anchoring and as the necessary condition to act with a suf cient 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 dif cult to resort to new myths and, consequently, to rede ne 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 understand 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 interpreted the Italian participation in the Triple Alliance as just an instrument to prevent theItaly French initiative. The US of State Dean believed that should be admitted inSecretary the Atlantic alliance notAcheson for its military capabilities but only for the strategic position of the country. During the Cold War, the image of Italy signi cantly 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 accountable 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 coherently 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.


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In the contemporary post-bipolar world, the United States faces a huge challenge in interpreting its hegemonic role. At the same time, the potentially emerging powers are reluctant or unable to ll 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 middelpowermanship 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 dif cult to assume a clear European attitude and, as consequence, a well-de ned 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 transf ormations over the last decades. The rst transformation concerned the political system that from 1994 moved towards a bipolar party system, when two coalitions (centre-left and confronted other electoral battleground. Thiscentre-right) is not, however, the only each change thaton hasthe occurred. The political system has also seen a division between forces that believe in the need for international/European inclusion and forces supporting the idea that Italy and the Italians are self-suf cient. 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 tting 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

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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 Maastrichtcentred 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 adaptation to the international system cannot be anymore imposed by a governing 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 af rms 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 con rms the particular signi cance 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  PostMaastricht 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 de ne their position and action. This means that when a major event occurs in the international system, states react and may de ne 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 theyin1500, 1648, 1860, 1942, 1989, to impact on the single states a similar way. When applied to tended the Italian case, this analytical


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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 justi ed 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 nal 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 speci c 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 – con rms 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 uni cation. 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 speci c relevance. In general, the making of alliances satis es the primary security need of the country. In the Italian perspective, alliances also provide a model foruni domestic This is a consequence of the belated cationdevelopment. of the country. Thefunction two selected dates of 1861 and 1943 explain this argument: the rst 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 protected while maintaining the right to cross those borders whenever wanted. Despite all these contradictions, during the Cold War, Italy

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bene ted 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 l rouge connecting the uni ed 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 summarized as follow. The presence of mythological burden. Italy accomplished its uni cation 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 transformation 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 t to serve as a opium, model for Italy, then the mythological burden operatesun as an intellectual 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 instruments to secure the country but also as ways to import best practices and models for development. For Italy, the problem has always been to nd the best alliance, which could also stimulate a catch-up process with the most advanced nations of Europe and the Western world. In every alliance-change, there is a certain degree of tactical sel shness, 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

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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 con rms that the country is integrated in the international system and that it has synchronous 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 dif culties 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 successive 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 nancial 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 landscape. Italy has its own peculiarities in terms of self-perceptions and understanding of international problems but does not show any signi cant divergence. This is a strong argument in favour of the proactive that in Italy is expected to play of in Europe morepolicy specirole cally, theplays EU.and The basic features Italian and, foreign con rm 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

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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 reuni cation has also stimulated a debate on its nature in the European power hierarchy (Kundnani 2015). The de nition of middle power seems to be intrinsically not suf cient 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 de nition 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- tting analytical category of middle power, scholars are often attracted by Sonderweg’s interpretations. These interpretations tend to explain some foreign policies, from the German one in the past to the Italian one today, as being divergent from a ctive 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 each foreign policy with a structural divergence, sincethe thepeculiarities differences of 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 signi cant 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 bene t 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, transformative projects, ideologies and forms of organizing consensus and hegemony. Compromesso storico The attempt of the two main parties to nd a compromise in the 1970s and to establish e-governmental coalition. The project was promoted by the Communist Enrico Berlinguer and obtained the support of the Christian Democratic Aldo They believed a political agreement could and contributeMoro. to stabilize Italy in that a time of violent social turmoil 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-

© The Author(s) 2017 E. Diodato, F. Niglia, Italy in International Relations, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55062-6

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GLOSSARY

1960s, when the economic downturn was accompanied by a rising social tension. The economic boom generated signi cant 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 speci c countries and areas, in particular in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, establishing 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 indicates the dif culty of Italian citizenship and the negative relevance in the national culture of the lack of interest in the collective values, of the pure individual af rmation and the de ance 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 NaziFascist occupation (September 1943–April 1945) and operated in parallel 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 uni cation 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 in uence that the European agreements and institutions had on the reform process starting 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

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peace conference. Following the poet Gabriele D ’Annunzio, irredentists 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 nal decision. He summarized this view in the formula sacro egoismo.

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INDEX

A Adjustment, 6, 7, 17, 18, 24, 25, 27, 29, 50, 53, 57, 66, 67, 73 Adriatic Sea, 25, 44

D De Gasperi, Alcide, 26, 56 Democratic transition, 49, 55, 80 Divergence, 2, 11, 18, 84, 93, 100, 104, 105

B Benchmark date, 5, 7, 9 –13, 15 –18, 101, 103 Berlusconi, Silvio, 82 Bipartisanship, 79 –80, 83, 92 Blocco storico, 50, 51, 57, 76, 86, 87, 96, 107

C Cavour, Camillo, 35, 36, 39 Civilization, 45, 55, 59, 69 Cold War, 5, 26, 31, 49 –51, 57, 58, 60, 61, 66, 67, 70 –73, 76, 78, 79–82, 86, 87, 88, 89, 62, 93, 96, 98, 102, 103, 108 Colonialism, 40, 45, 68, 69 Constitution (of the Italian Republic), 84, 94 Critical juncture, 5, 6, 7 –11, 18, 23–27, 35, 41, 51, 76–78, 87, 100, 103, 105 Croce, Benedetto, 22, 30, 54

E Empire, 13, 16, 17, 19, 25, 34, 35, 37, 40, 45, 103 European Community,2, 11, 49, 60, 64 European Union, 2, 12, 49, 59, 75, 76, 104 Euro-skepticism, 60

F Fascism, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 43, 44–46, 49, 52, 53, 55, 56, 78, 90, 102 First (Italian) Republic, 26, 87, 95 Foreign Policy Analysis, 1, 4, 75, 105

G Governing minority, 26, 27, 100, 102 Grandezza, 6


121

122

INDEX

I Imperialism, 37, 42 Imperial myth, 37 Inorientamento (Easternization), 35 Integration, 2, 8, 12, 13, 18, 36, 53, –

N Narrative, 11, 90 Nation, 14 –16, 19, 22, 34, 38, 39, 44, 45, 46, 52, 103 Nationalism, 14, 24, 43, 59, 71 –

59 63, 66, 77, 79, 80, 85, 100, 101, 102 Internationalism, 1, 15, 55, 80, 83, 86 International system, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10–15, 24, 26, 29, 50, 51, 55, 58, 59, 61, 62, 89, 91, 99, 100 –105 (Italian) Fascism, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 43–46, 52, 53, 55, 56, 78, 90, 102

Neo-atlantismo, 69 71, 108 Neo-nationalism, 80, 86 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 17, 58, 60, 62, 63, 66, 71, 90

L League of Nation, 15, 45

Punctuated Equilibria Theory, 77

M Maastricht, 2, 5, 6, 17, 18, 27, 75, 76, 78–83, 86, 91, 92, 100, 101, 108 Machiavelli, Nicolò, 32 –33 Mare nostrum, 45, 91, 107 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 30 Mediterranean Sea, 13, 50, 62, 63 Middle power, 48, 58, 59, 66, 67, 78, 79, 95 –100, 104, 105 Military interventions, 79, 84, 87 Missed country, see Paese mancato Modernization, 12, 15, 19, 21, 24, 39, 41, 73, 88, 90 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, 94, 96 –100, 102, 103

P Paese mancato, 31, 108 Perception, 11, 12, 97, 103, 104 Political agent, 5, 10, 78, 98

R Reformation, 22 Renaissance, 12, 22, 32, 95, 103 Resistenza, 53 –54, 57, 108 Risorgimento, 21 –23, 30, 31, 34, 37, 39, 41, 42, 46, 77, 102, 103, 108 Rivoluzione liberale, 30 (Roman) Church, 20

S Sacro egoismo, 50, 109 Second (Italian) Republic, 27, 96, 108 Statuto Albertino, 26

T Triple Alliance, 24, 38, 39, 98

INDEX

U Uni cation, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37–42, 76, 79, 80, 90, 102, 103, 105, 108

Vincolo esterno, 39, 41, 44, 55, 58, 75, 78, 79, 80, 85, 87, 90, 91, 94, 95, 96, 98, 108 Vittoria mutilata (Mutilated Victory), 44, 108

United Nations (UN), 26, 54 V Vienna, Congress of, 13, 14, 22, 35, 36

123

W West, 49, 57, 62, 102 Westphalia, 13, 15

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

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