Patterns of isolationism: a quantitative assessment of Italy’s defence and foreign policy from government alternation to ‘grand coalitions’

Abstract

This article examines how Italy’s projection abroad has changed in terms of its capabilities. Budgetary allocations to the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs are examined to understand whether and how spending on these policy areas has varied as an effect of the economic crisis. The number of troops deployed in military operations and the mandate under which they operate are analysed to verify whether the use of military force has changed, quantitatively and qualitatively, in the last few years. Although this article is centred on the recent ‘grand coalition’ governments, namely those of Enrico Letta and Matteo Renzi, trend analysis is used to determine patterns of change or continuity in Italian foreign policy (IFP) over time and across executives.

Keywords:

• defence
• foreign policy
• coalition governments
• change
• continuity
• isolationism

Notes

1. Estimates for the Letta and Renzi governments are based on the 3-year budget prepared by Giampaolo Di Paola, Mario Monti’s Minister of Defence, in April 2013.

2. As we will see below, such a skewed distribution of resources among sectors led Giampaolo di Paola (Mario Monti’s Minister of Defence) to advocate a reorganisation of the Italian defence sector in the medium to long term (law 244/2012 entered into force on 31 January 2013).

3. Minilateralism is ‘the form of collective action of small groups of states that accept compliance with worldwide multilateral principles, but that either on a single occasion or recurrently decide to act independently of worldwide organizations’ (Attinà 2010, 21).

4. At the end of 2013, the total military personnel amounted to 177,300 men distributed in the following way: Army 58%; Navy 18%; Air Force 24%. Civilian staff is still one-third higher than the expected milestone (N = 30,558).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Francesco Olmastroni

Francesco Olmastroni is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena, and field and data manager for the Laboratory for Political and Social Analysis (LAPS), the Survey Research Centre of the University of Siena. His recent publications include: Framing War: Public Opinion and Decision-Making in Comparative Perspective, New York and Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2014; ‘Public Opinion’ (with P. Isernia), in K.E. Jørgensen, E. Drieksens, A. K. Aarstad, K. Laatikainen and B. Tonra (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of European Foreign Policy, SAGE (forthcoming); ‘Images of the immigrant: European public opinion and immigration’ (with P. Isernia), in M. Ceccorulli and N. Labanca (eds.), The EU, Migration and the Politics of Administrative Detention, Abingdon, Oxon and New York, Routledge, 2014.