Low expectations: does Italy factor into American foreign policy calculations?

Abstract

The American attentive foreign policy elite's perceptions of Italy as a foreign policy actor appear inconsistent with Italy's global role. The paradox of Italy's global status as a middle-power and the absence of status within the American foreign policy community raises three questions: What role should we expect Italy to play in American foreign policy calculations given its structural position in the international system? What role does Italy play in aiding or hindering American foreign policy objectives within the transatlantic community? Is there a disjunction between the American elite's subjectively low expectations for Italy as a foreign policy actor and Italy's objective importance for the successful realisation of American foreign policy objectives?

Keywords:

• Italian-American relations
• foreign policy
• international financial crisis
• Afghanistan

Notes

Notes

1. Special thanks are owed to Michael Wallack and John L. Harper for insightful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. The usual disclaimer applies.

2. These surveys are available online at http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/past_pos.php, http://www.gmfus.org/trends/archive.html and http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/256topline.pdf

3. These indicators were developed in Sperling and Webber (2009).

4. See the final declaration of the International Afghanistan Conference held in Berlin on 31 March and 1 April 2004. http://www.ag-afghanistan.de/berlindeclaration.pdf

5. In the period spanning the two G-20 and G-7 meetings between November 2008 and June 2009, over 30 articles in the New York Times were devoted to Berlusconi's personal problems, particularly his alleged infidelities and improprieties with minors.

6. In late June 2009, the Berlusconi government introduced an ‘anti-crisis’ package that included a 12 month tax break on reinvested profits (The Economist, July 4, 2009, 47).