Foreign policy re-nationalization and internationalism in the Italian debate

Abstract

The authors characterize current Italian thinking about the course of the country's foreign policy in terms of a division between tendencies towards re-nationalizing foreign policy and internationalism. Locating each of these broad positions in differing views of the stance taken by Italy in the European and wider international arenas since the Second World War, and of the challenges and opportunities opened up by the end of the Cold War, they illustrate the debate with reference to the views currently expressed by prominent members of the Italian international affairs community on, in particular, the course of European integration and the vexed question of Italy's relations with Croatia and Slovenia.