Italy's Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century The New Assertiveness of an Aspiring Middle Power

by Verbeek, Bertjan; Giacomello, Giampiero

• ISBN13: 9780739148686
• ISBN10: 0739148680
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-12-09
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

ItalyÆs Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century: The New Assertiveness of an Aspiring Middle Power, edited by Giampiero Giacomello and Bertjan Verbeek, shows how changes in ItalyÆs international and domestic environment since the early 1990s have affected ItalyÆs foreign policy and raised its aspiration to become, and be treated as, a middle power. The contributors theoretically engage with both rationalist and constructivist accounts of middle-power. The contributors theoretical engage with both rationalist and constructivist accounts of middle-power behavior. They reveal that the end of the Cold War, the advent of globalization, and the rise in institutionalized regional cooperation have increased ItalyÆs freedom to maneuver. At the same time, however, these changes have decreased ItalyÆs policy freedom as a result of delegation of policy competencies to the European Union and the need for cooperation in a globalized world.

Author Biography

Giampiero Giacomello is assistant professor of international relations at the University of Bologna, Italy. Bertian Verbeek is professor of international relations at Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Netherlands.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. ix
List of Tables	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction: Studying Italian Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century	p. 1
Changes in Italy's Domestic and International Environment	p. 11
"It's the Perception, Stupid!": The Hard Life of Italy as a Middle Power	p. 13
Intra-Alliance Politics: Italian-American Relations 1946-2010	p. 29
In Search of the North Star: Italy's Post-Cold War European Policy	p. 55
Italy's Foreign Policy Bureaucracy: An Overlooked Factor?	p. 71
Con Stile: Personality and Leadership Styles in Italy's Foreign Policy	p. 93
Italy's Foreign Policy in an Era of New Security	p. 113
Atomic Ambivalence: Italy's Evolving Attitude toward Nuclear Weapons	p. 115
All Together Now!: Military Operations Abroad as "Bipartisan" Instrument of Italian Foreign Policy	p. 135
Italy at War: Explaining the Italian Contribution to the Kosovo War (1999)	p. 155
Securing Italy's Energy Supply and Private Oil Companies	p. 175
The Role of Italy's Strategic Industries in Its Foreign Policy	p. 197
Conclusion: Punching Above Its Weight?	p. 215
Index	p. 227
Contributors	p. 231
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