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Introduction: Italy in the EU—pigmy or giant?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2016

Sergio Fabbrini  and
Simona Piattoni
Sergio Fabbrini
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Socologia e Ricerca Sociale, Università di Trento, via Verdi, 26, 38100 Trento
Simona Piattoni
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Socologia e Ricerca Sociale, Università di Trento, via Verdi, 26, 38100 Trento
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Summary

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This introductory article discusses the circumstances under which Italy manages to forge ‘national preferences’ and push them through the European policy-making process. Drawing from the analysis of several policy areas, it concludes that Italy plays a major policy-making role, particularly when it acts as mediator between large countries and small- and medium-sized ones, and when it argues its case according to policy- and EU-appropriate logics. While Italy may not have it ‘its way’ all the time (as no member-state does), it still manages to influence the EU policy-making process more frequently and more significantly than the literature has so far conceded.

Type
Introduction
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 9 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Italy in the EU: pigmy or giant? The role of Italian actors in EU policy-making , November 2004 , pp. 149 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

References

Notes

2. As Alberta Sbragia argues convincingly, in ‘Italy Pays for Europe: Political Leadership, Political Choice, and Institutional Adaptation’, in Cowles, Maria Green, Caporaso, James and Risse, Thomas (eds), Transforming Europe: Europeanization and Domestic Change , Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2001, pp. 79–96.Google Scholar

3. Fabbrini, Sergio (ed.), L'europeizzazione dell'Italia: l'impatto dell'Unione Europea sulle istituzioni e le politiche italiane , Laterza, Rome-Bari, 2003.Google Scholar

4. Kassim, Hussein, Menon, Anand, Guy Peters, B. and Wright, Vincent (eds), The National Coordination of EU Policy: The European Level , Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001; Kassim, Husseim, Guy Peters, B. and Wright, Vincent (eds), The National Coordination of EU Policy: The Domestic Level, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000; Mény, Yves, Muller, Pierre and Quermonne, Jean-Louis (eds), Adjusting to Europe: The Impact of the European Union on National institutions and Policies, Routledge, London, 1996; Hine, David and Kassim, Hussein (eds), Beyond the Market: The EU and National Social Policy, Routledge, London, 1998.Google Scholar

5. See the forthcoming issue of Journal of European Public Policy , edited by Radaelli, Claudio and Franchino, Fabio.Google Scholar

6. Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso, Europa forza gentile , II Mulino, Bologna, 2001, especially chapter 3.Google Scholar

7. For foreign policy, see Andreatta, Filippo, ‘L'Italia a un bivio: la politica estera di una media potenza dopo la fine del bipolarismo’, in Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso and Graubard, Stephen R. (eds), Il caso italiano 2 , Garzanti, Milan, 2001, pp. 103–27 (originally in Daedalus, 130, 2, 2001, pp. 45–66).Google Scholar

8. Hine, David, Governing Italy: The Politics of Bargained Pluralism , Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993; and Fabbrini, Sergio, Quale democrazia? L'Italia e gli altri, Laterza, Rome-Bari, 1998, 3rd edition.Google Scholar

9. Sartori, Giovanni, Parties and Party Systems , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976.Google Scholar

10. Fabbrini, Sergio, ‘Political Change Without Institutional Transformation: What Can We Learn from the Italian Crisis of the 1990s?’, International Political Science Review , 21, 2, 2000, pp. 173–96.Google Scholar

11. For an analysis of this period and for the distinction between crisis and transition, see Fabbrini, Sergio, Tra pressioni e veti: il cambiamento politico in Italia , Laterza, Rome-Bari, 2000.Google Scholar

12. According to data in Eurobarometer 60, published in February 2004, 60 per cent of Italians identify strongly with being Italian and European and 81 per cent are proud or very proud to be Europeans. These are the highest figures in the EU.Google Scholar

13. Sbragia, Alberta M.: ‘La democrazia post-nazionale: una sfida per la scienza politica’, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , 34, 1, 2004, pp. 43–68.Google Scholar

14. Fabbrini, Sergio, ‘A Single Western State Model? Differential Development and Constrained Convergence of Public Authority Organization in Europe and America’, Comparative Political Studies , 36, 6, 2003, pp. 653–78.Google Scholar

15. Christiansen, Thomas and Piattoni, Simona (eds), Informal Governance in the European Union , Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2004.Google Scholar

16. Sbragia, Alberta, ‘The European Union as Coxswain: Governance by Steering’, in Pierre, Jon (ed.), Debating Governance: Authority, Steering and Democracy , Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, pp. 219–40.Google Scholar

17. Donovan, Mark, ‘Il governo di centro-destra di Silvio Berlusconi’, in Sala, Vincent Della and Fabbrini, Sergio (eds), Politica in Italia, Edizione 2003 , Il Mulino, Bologna, 2004, pp. 101–23.Google Scholar