The ‘Americanization’ of Italian foreign policy?

Abstract

This article examines the Italian foreign policy of the second Berlusconi government. The first section focuses on the episodes that critics have used to argue that, under the second Berlusconi government, there has occurred a process of ‘Americanization’ of Italian foreign policy, and provides an interpretation of their significance. The second section looks at these episodes against the historical background of Italian – American relations since the end of World War II and argues that, from this perspective, very little, if anything, has changed in Italian – American relations or Italian foreign policy in general.

Keywords:

• Americanization
• Italian foreign policy
• second Berlusconi government

Notes

I would like to thank Gianfranco Pasquino, Piero Ignazi, Luca Ratti, Elisabetta Tonizzi and Michael Wallack for their very kind and useful comments.

‘Europeanization’ is also used, albeit less frequently, to refer to ‘European sources of national politics‘, to indicate the process of construction of a European wide identity as well as a synonym for political and economic modernization of former Eastern Europe.

A Google search performed on 16 June 2004 yielded 82,900 hits for ‘Americanization’ and 21,000 for ‘Americanisation’. On the other hand, the term ‘Europeanization’ or ‘Europeanisation’ (notwithstanding the fact that they are increasingly used in academic studies of the EU and its member states) yielded only 33,600 hits. In Italian, the two terms had almost the same number of hits: ‘europeizzazione’ yielded 3,470, ‘americanizzazione’ 3,340.

The solution provided for the thirteen Palestinians to be divided among six different countries: Belgium, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. On the background of the negotiations see ‘Betlemme, l'ombra di Andreotti dietro la trattativa’ La Repubblica, 7 May 2002; ‘Betlemme: Berlusconi dice no anche a Powell’, Corriere della Sera, 8 May 2002; ‘Fini: “L'Europa si muova e l'Italia farà la sua parte”’, La Repubblica, 8 May 2002; the interview with Undersecretary Alfredo Mantica in La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, 9 May 2002; and ‘Il Cav. Europeista la spunta su Betlemme. Ora tocca all'Europa’, Il Foglio, 13 May 2002.

The discussion of the Iraqi war is based on Croci (2004).

In December 2002, for instance, after a meeting with US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy, Douglas Feith, Martino told the Parliamentary Defence Committees that in case of conflict Italy would be part of the coalition, albeit its contribution would be limited to what he called ‘external support’. Following the protests of the opposition, Berlusconi declared that any decision would be submitted for approval to Parliament. See, Corriere della Sera, 18, and 19 December 2002.

Berlusconi's intervention is at < http://www.esteri.it/attualita/2003/ita/interventi/index.htm > .

The most thorough presentation of the Italian position is in a speech given by Foreign Minister Franco Frattini to the French National Assembly on 26 February 2003, at < www.esteri.it > .

For more details on this policy, see Croci (2003).

For a restatement of this policy by the current Foreign Minister, see Frattini (2003). Two recent examples of the attempts to form such a directoire were: the so-called ‘Ghent mini-summit’ (19 October 2001) between France, Germany, and Great Britain held to discuss the war in Afghanistan and the so-called ‘chocolate meeting’ (France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany) held in Brussels on 29 April 2003 to discuss the idea of creating an autonomous European military command. Italy denounced both meetings in strong terms.

Forsyth (1999: 1), for instance, argues that this is due to historical reasons, namely ‘Italy's traditional reliance on a foreign sponsor; its long-standing dependence on the USA as a source of capital imports; the permeability of Italian domestic politics … and the tendency of ideological supporters of liberal democracy in Italy to seek external support to compensate for their domestic weakness’.

For some examples of such ‘reciprocal manipulation’ concerning the Trieste question, see Croci (1991a, b).

Interview in La Repubblica, 9 July 1998.

For a discussion of this tendency among historians, see Morgan (2004).

Greco and Matarazzo (2003: 125 – 6) seem to be the only critics of the Berlusconi government's foreign policy who make a distinction between ‘declarations’ and ‘actions’.