The International Context 2013–2018

Abstract

In contrast to previous Italian elections, the election of 2018 was one in which foreign policy-related issues were significant in the campaign and had a large impact on the outcome. In particular, while Italian citizens had in the past been mostly very supportive of the EU external constraint, these elections seemed to epitomise the end of the permissive consensus towards European integration on the part of Italian public opinion. However, although the international context had significant implications for the 2018 election, this chapter argues that there was nothing inevitable or ‘automatic’ about them. In fact, the effects of the Eurozone and the migration and refugee crises arose from an interaction between: the crises themselves; the asymmetries characterising EU responses to them; Italy’s structural features, particularly its large public debt and its weak banking system; and normative factors, such as citizens’ growing disillusionment with the country’s political institutions, and widespread fears of immigration.