I sistemi multipolari. Analisi storica e teorica.

This research undertakes to provide a typology of multipolar systems. Multipolarity plays a key role in IR theory, for it is strictly associated with the history of European politics since the seventeenth century to the end of World War Two. Despite wide investigation, one can doubt the matter has received a definitive treatment. Trouble is that current studies often consider multipolarity as a one-dimensional concept. They obviously reckon that multipolarism is substantially different from other systems and deserves attention, but generally fail to distinguish between different types of multipolar systems (the few exceptions are listed in chapter one). The history of international politics tells us a different story. Multipolar power systems may share some general characteristics, but they also show a wide array of difference, and understanding this difference requires a preliminary work of classification. That is the purpose of the present study. The work is organized as follows. In chapter one, we provide a cursory review of the literature on multipolarity, with particular reference to the work of Duncan Snidal and Joseph Grieco. Then we propose a four-cell typology of multipolar systems to be tested via historical analysis. The first type, hegemony, is best represented by European international system to the time of Napoleonic France, and is discussed in chapter two. Type number two is the traditional concert of Europe, which history is detailed in chapter three. Type number three is the reversal of alliances, which closest example, the diplomatic revolution of 1756, is discussed in chapter four. Finally, chapter five is devoted to the chain-gang system, and the European politics from Bismarck’s late years to World War One represents a good illustration of how it works. In chapter six we proceed to draw a first evaluation of the main results achieved in the previous chapters, in order to see if, and to what extent, our typology serves the purpose of explaining the nature of multipolar systems.

Giochi diplomatici. Sport e politica estera nell'Italia del secondo dopoguerra (1943-1953)

Questa tesi di dottorato, partendo dall’assunto teorico secondo cui lo sport, pur essendo un fenomeno periferico e non decisivo del sistema politico internazionale, debba considerarsi, in virtù della sua elevata visibilità, sia come un componente delle relazioni internazionali sia come uno strumento di politica estera, si pone l’obiettivo di investigare, con un approccio di tipo storico-politico, l’attività internazionale dello sport italiano nel decennio che va dal 1943 al 1953. Nello specifico viene dedicata una particolare attenzione agli attori e alle istituzioni della “politica estera sportiva”, al rientro dello sport italiano nel consesso internazionale e alla sua forza legittimante di attrazione culturale. Vengono approfonditi altresì alcuni casi relativi a «crisi politiche» che influirono sullo sport e a «crisi sportive» che influenzarono la politica. La ricerca viene portata avanti con lo scopo primario di far emergere, da un lato se e quanto coscientemente lo sport sia stato usato come strumento di politica estera da parte dei governi e della diplomazia dell’Italia repubblicana, dall’altro quanto e con quale intensità lo sviluppo dell’attività internazionale dello sport italiano abbia avuto significative ripercussioni sull’andamento e dai rapporti di forza della politica internazionale.

The changing politics of preference formation in international trade negotiations: the European Union in the Doha Round

This research seeks to provide an explanation for variations of “politics” of preference formation in international trade negotiations. Building on the ‘policy determines politics’ argument, I hypothesize the existence of a causal relationship between issue-characteristics and their variations with politics dynamics and their variations. More specifically, this study seeks to integrate into a single analytical framework two dimensions along which variations in the “politics of preference formation” can be organized: configurations of power relationships among the relevant actors in the structures within which they interact as well as the logic and the motivations of the actors involved in the policy making process. To do so, I first construct a four-cell typology of ‘politics of preference formation’ and, then, I proceed by specifying that the type of state-society configurations as well as the type of actors’ motivations in the “politics of preference formation” depend, respectively, on the degree to which a policy issue is perceived as politically salient and on the extent to which the distributional implications of such an issue can be calculated by the relevant stakeholders in the policy making process. The empirical yardstick against which the validity of the theoretical argument proposed is tested is drawn from evidence concerning the European Union’s negotiating strategy in four negotiating areas in the context of the so-called WTO’s Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations: agriculture, competition, environment and technical assistance and capacity building.