Diplomats, politicians and foreign policy in post-war Italy

Abstract

The role of diplomacy in post-war Italian foreign policy increased as Italian politics polarized around two mass parties, the Christian Democrats and the Communists, taking their cues respectively from Washington (and the Vatican) and from Moscow. A domestic “diplomatic conspiracy” can be evoked, bent upon preserving and promoting essential foreign policy tenets, with respect to national politicians who, both in government and opposition, reacted to external events rather mechanically, indifferently, half-way between pragmatic expediency and lofty idealism. Unable to express strong national convictions and uncomfort with having to take sides, Italy displayed an inclination for multilateral forums. While holding firm to its international moorings, it indulged in occasional drifts, always dispensing with the need to declare its own vital interests. Even though endowed with broad (at times contradictory) instructions, Italian diplomacy performed quite effectively and credibly in the European Communities, in NATO and towards the ‘third world’, achieving a visibility somewhat higher than the country’s actual influence would have allowed. After the Cold War, the very structure of party politics disintegrated and foreign policy was relegated anew to the background, just when world events accelerated dramatically. Nowadays, Italy finds itself back to square one, and this time without the same type of a safety net from NATO or the EU. Hard choices present themselves to a country suddenly bereft of the clear international coordinates that have kept it going so far. Nevertheless, foreign policy has finally become largely bipartisan. The 919 career diplomats were entrusted with more creative and proactive political tasks than the current ‘economic diplomacy’ that they are presently asked to devote themselves to (supported financially by only 0.23% of the national budget, 0.11% of the GNP). The Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Massolo, maintains that «with the appropriate mix of realism and long tem vision», Italian diplomacy should «pursue a stable inclusion of our country in the new equations that are consolidating at the global level»; warning however that «in order to be in Europe, we must be well-structured nationally».