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Unheard Voices: International Relations Theory and Italian Defence Policy

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Fear and Uncertainty in Europe

Part of the book series: Global Issues ((GLOISS))

Abstract

The evolution of Italian defence policy in the post-Cold War era has received scarce attention in the literature. Accordingly, also the debate about how International Relations (IR) theories explain (or interpret) the transformation of Italian defence has been extremely limited. Paradoxically, despite a significant transformation of Italian armed forces after 1989, defence issues are still “excluded” from the current debate. While few analyses have tested concurrent hypotheses derived from IR paradigms on Italian missions or on specific security events, a detailed inquiry on the overall theoretical debate and Italian defence policy is still lacking. This paper aims at filling this gap, providing an exhaustive review of the existing approaches that emerged in the literature on post-Cold War Italian defence and assessing their explanatory powers through selected cases (several types of military missions abroad, significant reforms, etc.). The paper illustrates also the main theoretical and methodological problems of the current debate (e.g., the underestimated role of Foreign Policy Analysis), highlighting the elements that deserve further attention.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to a widespread literature, the transformation of the Italian party system occurred at the beginning of the 1990s caused the birth of a “Second Republic”.

  2. 2.

    Renzi, General Debate at the 69th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations , September 2014.

  3. 3.

    Author’s interview, Undersecretary of the Italian government, Rome, July 17, 2017.

  4. 4.

    Matteo Renzi, Chamber of Deputies, September 16, 2014.

  5. 5.

    Matteo Renzi, Chamber of Deputies, September 16, 2014.

  6. 6.

    Author’s interview, Undersecretary of the Italian government, Rome, January 29, 2016.

  7. 7.

    Renzi, General Debate at the 69th Session of the General Assembly.

  8. 8.

    Author’s interview, MP Democratic Party, Commission Foreign Affairs, Florence, February 15, 2016.

  9. 9.

    Author’s interview, MP Democratic Party, Commission of Foreign Affairs, Rome, January 28, 2016.

  10. 10.

    Matteo Renzi, Chamber of Deputies, September 16, 2014.

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    Author’s interview, Undersecretary of the Italian government, Rome, July 17, 2017.

  13. 13.

    The 74% of the sample was against the decision to send arms in Iraq, see Ixè poll, August 25, 2014.

  14. 14.

    A SEL (Sinistra, Ecologia, Libertà), MP quoted in Trocino (2014).

  15. 15.

    Renzi, General Debate at the 69th Session of the General Assembly.

  16. 16.

    Author’s interview, Undersecretary of the Italian government, telephone interview, June 26, 2017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Fabrizio Coticchia

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  1. Fabrizio Coticchia
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Correspondence to Fabrizio Coticchia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Roberto Belloni

  2. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Vincent Della Sala

  3. Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Paul Viotti

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Coticchia, F. (2019). Unheard Voices: International Relations Theory and Italian Defence Policy. In: Belloni, R., Della Sala, V., Viotti, P. (eds) Fear and Uncertainty in Europe . Global Issues. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91965-2_7

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