Introduction: Italy in the international arena: between the EU and the US?

The role of Italy in the international arena has received increasing attention in academic and public debates. This recent interest is a consequence of the new opportunities for middle powers arising from the end of the cold war, but it also results from the radical transformations in its domestic political system. During the first 40 years of its Republican history, Italy kept a low profile in foreign policy. The presence of the strongest communist party in Western Europe, the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), obliged the ruling party, Democrazia Cristiana (DC), and its allies to ‘insulate’ Italy from the external environment. The twin pillars of its foreign policy—Atlanticism and Europeanism—were rarely questioned. Atlanticism implied a passive and uncritical relationship with the USA, whereas Europeanism entailed a strong as well as a rhetorical commitment to the construction of the European Union (EU). The imperfect bipartisan foreign policy that emerged in the 1970s when the PCI—which however was excluded from any governmental coalition—accepted the ‘Western option’ did not significantly affect the Atlanticism–Europeanism equilibrium, though it produced some independent action in the Mediterranean. Since the end of the cold war, Italy has becomemore active in the international arena, not least by participating in a number of military and humanitarian missions, in some cases even with a leading role (e.g. Somalia, Albania, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon). At the domestic level, the early 1990s were characterized by the alleged end of the First Republic, its corrupt party system and the introduction of a quasi-majoritarian electoral law. Two heterogonous coalitions have alternated in power since: centre-right between 1994 and 1995; centre-left between 1996 and 2001; centre-right between 2001 and 2006; centre-left since 2006. While this is an issue of contention in the literature—and all the papers in this volume deal with it—the two coalitions seem to hold different views on the role of Italy in the international arena, particularly on the balance between Atlanticism and Europeanism. The centre-right coalition promotes a more pragmatic approach, based on a special bilateral relationship with the USA. The centre-left coalition supports a multilateral approach, which is reflected in a renewed commitment to the EU and its role on the world stage. As a result of these differences, continuity and discontinuity becomes a central issue in the public debates, but at times affects the relationship with other countries. This special issue of Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans sheds light on how much the ‘policy pendulum’ has swung between Atlanticism and Europeanism since the early 1990s and the extent to which that movement is affected by the particular coalition in power. Elisabetta Brighi argues that two