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Making sense of a changing world: foreign policy ideas and Italy’s national role conceptions after 9/11

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2017

Anna Caffarena Open the ORCID record for Anna Caffarena [Opens in a new window]  and
Giuseppe Gabusi
Anna Caffarena*
Affiliation:
Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
Giuseppe Gabusi
Affiliation:
Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
*
*E-mail: Anna.caffarena@unito.it
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Abstract

In a rapidly changing world, middle powers with no obvious role to play on the global stage have the difficult task to read the international environment in order to formulate and implement a coherent and possibly effective foreign policy. In order to do so, decision makers either reproduce old ideas or develop new ones. Considering the ideas put forward in their inaugural speeches by Prime Ministers and Foreign Affairs Ministers in office after 2001, we suggest that Italy’s institutional actors appear to be aware of the changes occurred in the international system after 1989, and in particular after 9/11. The national role conceptions sustaining Italy’s present foreign policy goals reflect such awareness, being quite different with respect to the picture offered by Holsti in his seminal work published in 1970. Ideas expressing foreign policy goals are also reasonably well grounded in ideas on how the world works or linked to operational ideas, yet the country’s foreign policy appears feebly focused, even though focus is explicitly very much sought for. Some explanations for such a lack of focus which makes Italy’s foreign policy design rather ineffective are offered.

Keywords

Italyforeign policymiddle powerideasnational role conceptionschange
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 47 , Special Issue 2: Special issue: Italian Foreign Policy: To Take Arms against a Sea of Troubles? , July 2017 , pp. 125 - 147
Copyright
© Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2017 

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