1st Edition

Italy's Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century A Contested Nature?

Edited By Ludovica Marchi, Richard Whitman, Geoffrey Edwards Copyright 2015
    264 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    264 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Italy’s foreign policy has often been dismissed as too idiosyncratic, inconsistent and lacking ambition.

    This book offers new insights into the position Italy has attained in the international community in the 21st century. It explores how the country has sought to take advantage of its passage from a bipolar to a multipolar system and assesses the ways in which it has engaged internationally, its new responsibilities, and the manner in which it conducts its policies in the pursuit of its interests, whether political or commercial. It argues that although Italy is engaged internationally, there is a gap between its actions and what it actually delivers, and as long as this gap continues Italy is likely to remain a partial and unreliable foreign policy actor. Divided into three parts, this book explores:

    • the context and processes which characterise Italy’s external action
    • its relations with crucial countries and regions such as the US, the EU, and the BRICs
    • its security and defence policies.

    This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Politics, Foreign Policy analysis and Italian studies.

    1. Introduction Ludovica Marchi Balossi-Restelli, Richard Whitman and Geoffrey Edwards  Part I –Context and processes  2. Italy in a wide framework Federico Eichberg  3. Processes of Italian foreign policy since 1989 – how black boxes can change Paul Furlong  4. The EU post-Lisbon milieu: a context available to Italy? Geoffrey Edwards  Part II – Italy in a new global order  5. All quiet on the western front: Italy and transatlantic relations Osvaldo Croci  6. Italy in Europe: Between the first and second republic Antonio Missiroli  7. Italy and the BRICs – The political economy of a complex relationship Andrea Billi, Andrea Goldstein, Luigi Manzetti and Francesca Spigarelli  Part III – Perspectives on security and defence policies  8. What is defence now for Italy? The armed forces Lucio Martino  9. Actors in defence decision-making in the light of contribution to European Defence Claudio Catalano  10. Finmeccanica: evolving the role of enterprise in Italian foreign policy Alberto DeBenedictis  11. Sant’Egidio’s diplomacy in crisis areas Roberto Morozzo Della Rocca  12. Italy and the challenge of mass migration: risks and opportunities Germano Dottori and Emanuela Paoletti  13. ‘Stable Unpredictability’? An assessment of the Italian-Libyan relations Nicola Chelotti and Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués  14. Values promotion and security management in Euro-Mediterranean relations: The case of Italy Fabrizio Tassinari and Ulla Holm  15. Conclusions Ludovica Marchi Balossi-Restelli, Richard Whitman and Geoffrey Edwards

    Biography

    Ludovica Marchi Balossi-Restelli (pen-name: Ludovica Marchi) is an International Relations political scientist, former Teaching Assistant at the University of Cambridge, UK and External Examiner on the International Relations and Global Politics programme at the American University in Rome.

    Richard G. Whitman is Director of the Global Europe Centre and Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, UK and Associate Fellow at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs).

    Geoffrey Edwards is Senior Fellow and Emeritus Reader in European Studies in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK.