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This article examines Washington's cold war diplomacy in Italy as a case study of policy making. Italy caused concerns to US leaders throughout the cold war because of its strong and dynamic communist party (PCI). Worries became even more acute in the 1970s after the PCI spelled out its 'historic compromise' strategy whose objective was to propel the communists into cabinet positions within a broad coalition government. How did the White House, Foggy Bottom, the Rome embassy, the CIA and Congress view such a development and who got the final word? How strong were domestic factors? This paper tries to analyze the differences in opinions and their influence in policy making. Keywords American foreign policy * Italy * Cold War * 1970s * Eurocommunism * PCI * Historic compromise * Ford administration * Henry Kissinger * Carter administration * Zbigniew Brzezinski * CIA * State Department * Congress * Policymaking NATO, When one refers to American diplomacy, one actually refers to a very complex reality. Sometimes, it was difficult to figure out what Washington wanted for there were differences in positions [...]

Using the fine arts exhibition of the Venice Biennale as a case study, this article considers the role of the Italian national government's cultural policy in pursuing its key domestic and foreign concerns between 1948 and 1958. These were, respectively, suppressing communism at home, and promoting Western European unification and Italy's role within it. By scrutinising their involvement at the Biennale, it aims to show the importance placed not only by the Italian Christian Democrats but also by their European counterparts on constructing the idea of a culturally integrated Western Europe as a vital complement to analogous economic and political initiatives. A travers les expositions des Beaux-Arts de la Biennale de Venise, cet article s'interesse a la place tenue par la politique culturelle dans la poursuite des objectifs domestiques et internationaux des gouvernements italiens entre 1948 et 1958. A l'interieur, il s'agissait d'eradiquer le comnmnisme en Italie. Vers l'exterieur, de travailler a l'unification de l'Europe Occidentale et a l'integration de l'Italie dans ce nouvel ensemble. En etudiant la Biennale, on peut percevoir l'importance que les chretiens democrates italiens et leurs homologues europeens attachaient a l'idee d'une Europe Occidentale culturellement homogene, complement indispensable aux initiatives politiques et economiques. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die Rolle der Kulturpolitik der italienischen Regierung in der Verfolgung ihrer wichtigsten innen- und aussenpolitischen Ziele zwischen 1948 und 1958. Die Biennale-Kunstausstellung in Venedig dient hierbei als Fallstudie. Die Ziele der Regierung waren die Unterdruckung des Kommunismus im Inland und die Forderung der westeuropaischen Integration sowie der italienischen Rolle in diesem Prozess. Die Untersuchung der Beteiligung der italienischen Christdemokraten an der Biennale zielt darauf ab, die Bedeutung aufzuzeigen, die nicht nur sie, sondern auch ihre Schwesterparteien in Europa der Idee eines kulturell integrierten Europas als unverzichtbare Erganzung zu den gleichzeitigen wirtschaftlichen und politischen Initiativen beimassen.

Italian-Turkish relations in the inter-war years oscillated between antagonism and friendship. In 1935, Turkish Foreign Minister Tevfik Ru tu Aras described the evaluation of Italian-Turkish relations in stages of `warmth', [...]

Former Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini once said that Italy never had financial or military resources commensurate with its foreign policy ambitions, and that its efforts to maintain friendship with all [...]

This paper develops a particular technique for extracting market expectations from asset prices. We use the term structure of interest rates to estimate the probability the market attaches to the event that a country, Italy, joins the European Monetary Union at a given date. The case of Italy is interesting because in the survey regularly conducted by Reuters, the probability that Italy joins EMU in 1999 has fluctuated, in the first months of 1997, between 0.07 and 0.15, while, during the same period, the measures computed by financial houses - which are based on the term structure of interest rates - ranged between 0.5 and 0.8. The paper proposes a new method for computing these probabilities, and shows that the discrepancies between survey and market-based measures are not the result of market inefficiencies, but depend on an incorrect use of the term structure to compute probabilities. The technique proposed in the paper can also be used to distinguish between convergence of probabilities and convergence of fundamentals, that is to find out whether an observed reduction in interest rate spreads signals a higher probability of joining EMU at a given date, or simply reflects improved fundamentals. It could also be applied, more generally, to extract from assets prices, information on imminent changes in an exchange rate regime.

Many Italian colonial rulers in Eritrea felt they were entitled to the services of a 'madamismo,' or indigenous 'comfort wife.' Colonial imagery created by this late-19th and early-20th-century image cast the Italian male as either master of the budoir and the battlefield or the sexual pawn of a native enchantress.

This article examines the relationship between Anthony Eden, British minister for League of Nations' affairs (1935) and foreign secretary (1935-8), and Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime within the context of Italian foreign policy in the later 1930s. It outlines the precise aims and objectives of Mussolini's expansionist policies over the period 1935-8, assesses the accuracy of Eden's interpretation of them and, in turn, discusses official Italian diplomatic perceptions of Eden. It specifically challenges Renzo De Felice's view that for Mussolini, the Italian conquest of Ethiopia (1935-6) marked the limit of Fascist expansionism. Furthermore, it contests his theory that the dictator did not pursue an Italo-German alliance that would drive an Italian imperialist war against Britain and France in the Mediterranean and Red Sea. Anthony Eden had been fully aware of such an intention, and had been targeted by the regime as Italy's 'public enemy number one', precisely because he fully comprehended what lay at the heart of Mussolini's brand of Fascism.

In Italy, the role of the State and the procedures and techniques adopted by government and the civil service are coming under close scrutiny, and major changes are being introduced. The fall of the Iron Curtain, coupled with the globalization of the economy and information, is extending opportunities for medium range powers with long cultural and commercial traditions, like Italy, while demanding renewed structures and know-how in order to successfully meet the new challenges and seize the new opportunities. The Foreign Ministry is therefore set for internal reorganization, empowering posts in Rome and abroad by freeing them of many of their administrative burdens, so that they can act and react more effectively in this new environment.

In his latest book, the Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, Bernard Lewis has rekindled the debate over the Arabs' relations with the Axis powers during [...]

The failure of British and French decision-makers to take a decisive action on a Mediterranean war strategy in 1937-39 resulted in the appeasement of Italy. Britain opposed an early Mediterranean offensive because of ambiguous Italian policy which in turn prevented France from pursuing its plan to attack Italy. The French Navy's well-planned war strategy against Italy is explored.

There are various reasons why foreign policy has played and still continues to play such an important and in some cases dominant part in Italian democracy. It is bound up […]

Italy has failed to use the quincentenary to explore the history and current lives of native North and South Americans. North American Indians, in particular, have long evoked interest among Italians, but official events have focused almost exclusively on Italian exploration and explorers. Protesters against this situation, while small in number, have been vocal and gained some media attention.

INTRODUCTION AN INTENSE DEBATE AMONG ANALYSTS of international relations revolves around the question of the relative role of domestic politics and international incentives in the formation of a country's foreign [...]

INTRODUCTION IN THE 1990s ITALY CONTRIBUTED DECISIVELY to the advent of a single European currency, even as its debt and budget deficits rose to unprecedented and potentially disastrous levels. The [...]

ITALY, THE BEL PAESE THE WAY THAT CITIZENS of different countries see each other is almost inevitably affected by cultural stereotypes. Although they certainly contain some truth, these icons often [...]

Given Italy's reputation for fiscal profligacy, the zeal with which Italians strove to meet the strict budgetary and other criteria to qualify for full participation in European Monetary Union might be in need of explanation. On a wider front, Italy has displayed an enthusiasm for European integration which has been largely free of the reservations occasionally shown by member-states of comparable size and importance. This paper considers explanations which have been advanced for Italians' pro-European attitude, such as Catholic universalism and Roman imperial traditions, but rejects them as insufficient, in order to argue that the modern experience of the nation-state in Italy has failed to produce a strong sense of allegiance to a national identity, encouraging Italians to look to the European level of supranational institutions. Furthermore, it is argued that this lack of strong national allegiance in Italy is not simply a negative characteristic, but has allowed for the preservation of traditions of localism, federalism and social partnership in Italy which are potentially valuable contributions to a future configuration of the European Union.