With Italy’s European Semester Presidency on the horizon and the recent appointment of the Partito Democratico’s leader Matteo Renzi as Head of Government, there could hardly be a better time to discuss the changing foreign policy of the changing Italian Left.
A one-day conference on ‘The Italian Left and Foreign Policy’, to be held in Cambridge (UK) on 9th June 2014, will bring together established academics and young scholars from different fields – ranging from History to International Relations, from Cultural Studies to Sociology, from Political Science to Economics – to discuss this theme in its historical developments, contemporary challenges, as well as societal and cultural aspects.
Among the topics on the agenda:
- The Italian Left between Americanism and Anti-americanism: historical and contemporary perspectives
- Internationalism and a national way: the Italian Left faces the world
- European priorities of the Italian Left: change or continuity?
- The Italian Left, foreign policy and the use of force
- Exit geopolitics? Strategic priorities in and beyond the three circles
- The Italian Left, civil society and foreign policy
- Proposals for a ‘progressive’ reform of the foreign policy machinery
- Foreign policy and the politics of the Italian Left: bridge over troubled waters?
- The Italian Left and Foreign Policy in a Comparative perspective: insights from European cases.
We welcome papers from a diverse range of disciplinary perspectives. To submit a paper proposal, please send a 300-word abstract to Dr Elisabetta Brighi (email: eb539@cam.ac.uk), by 31st March 2014 latest.
A selection of the best papers presented at the conference will be published as a special issue in one of the leading journals for the study of contemporary Italy.
The conference is organised in cooperation with the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), University of Cambridge, the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI) and the Cambridge Italian Research Network (CIRN).
We look forward to your contributions.
With best wishes,
Elisabetta Brighi, POLIS
Lilia Giugni, POLIS
Marta Musso, Faculty of History
