Approached and Effectiveness of Italian Foreign Policy: the cases of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo

2. Literatur e r eview
2.1.1 Literatur e r eview on for eign policy and for eign policy analysis: what is it? How can it
be analysed and measur ed?
A country’s foreign policy can be considered as a set of principles, actions, strategies and
objectives adopted when dealing with other states and international organisations during
international events. Foreign policy of a country is not chosen by a single actor, but should be
seen as a process that involves numerous stakeholders and actors such as politicians,
diplomats, advisors, public opinion, military officials (Tayfur, 1994). Traditionally foreign
policy actions aim to defend the country’s interests on the international stage and promote its
values among the international community. Since the end of World War II, states have started
developing fora in order to promote systematic international cooperation and go beyond the
traditional realpolitik-driven foreign policy. Therefore, it is appropriate to analyse a country’s
foreign policy not as isolated, but as part of the alliances the country is part of. It is
reasonably correct to state that ‘states remain attached to their national interest and pursue
foreign policy cooperation either as a way of maximising their power or as a process of
bargaining which generates common denominator outcomes’ (Bickerton, 2010, p. 217).
Considering foreign policy decisions as the result of the interaction of a wide variety of
entities, scholars introduced the concept of ultimate decision unit as defined by Hermann and
Hermann (1989, p. 363), namely an entity with ‘1) the ability to commit or withhold the
resources of the government in foreign affairs’ and 2) the power or authority to make a
decision that cannot be readily reversed without significant costs. They identify 3 types of
decision units:
- Predominant leader, i.e. a single individual;
- Single group, i.e. a set of individuals who are all members of the same group;
- Multiple autonomous actors, i.e. individuals and groups that form coalitions in order
to satisfy the above mentioned requirements as no one has the ability to decide by
itself.
Given the fact that the second category is mainly applicable to the case of the Soviet Union
and the ruling Communist Party with its Politburo or to modern China and considering the
Italian parliamentary system, this study will further analyse the first and third category of
9
ultimate decision units, by introducing the main causal condition X
1
, Political Fragmentation,
and X
2
, Personality of the Leader (see section 3.1.1 and 3.1.2).
In terms of FPA, the multifaceted nature of the real-world has to be considered (Auerswald,
2004, p. 632), as a country’s foreign policy is influenced by both domestic and international
factors. FPA is a field of study that aims to explain the decisions and actions of states in their
interactions with other states and it encompasses a wide range of theoretical and
methodological approaches (Hudson & V ore, 1995, p.209). Four, relatively sparse,
approaches to foreign policy analysis are: collective action, balance of threat neorealism,
public opinion and government institutional structures (Auerswald, 2004, p. 632). Collective
action is based on the premise that collective goods exist in international relations - peace and
stability are an example - and that states create coalitions in order to reach them, but the
extent to which a state contributes to the alliance depends on a number of factors, the most
important of which is the group size. The pioneer of the balance of threat approach is Walt
(1987) who based his theory on the assumption that alliances are created as a balancing
mechanism and that the greater the threat faced by a state, the more likely it is to enter in an
alliance. Public opinion approach to foreign policy analysis is a bottom-up approach, as it
posits that in democracies government decisions represent the people’s will. Lastly, the
government institutional structures approach considers that the state’s institutional set-up
heavily influences foreign policy and shows that presidential, semi-presidential and
parliamentary regimes tend to act differently (Auerswald, 2004).
Given that foreign policy is difficult to measure, its success can be defined in terms of
favourable and desired outcomes for the state’s national interest (Baldwin, 2000, p. 171).
Success of foreign policy is often estimated on the only basis of reaching the predetermined
(long term) goal, but since success is a multidimensional concept, the effectiveness of foreign
policy making has to consider multiple aspects: goal attainment, costs to the user and to the
target, stakes for the user and for the target (Baldwin, 2000; Pape 1997). Foreign policy can
be considered as effective when it allows the state to pursue its strategic national interest and
it improves the country’s international reputation.
10
2.1.2 Literatur e r eview on Italian for eign policy during the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
in Kosovo (Y)
This paragraph only consists of a very brief summary, as the discussion around the Italian
stance during the two conflicts will be taken up below in sections 5 and 6.
Italian foreign policy has always been seen as ambiguous, unreliable, oscillating between
respect for alliances and Third Worldist, anti-American temptations (D’Alema, 1999, p. 8).
Historically, the presence of the Catholic Church and a very strong Communist Party have
played a key role in influencing Italian foreign policy. Although firmly embedded in the
Western context, the legacy of the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) certainly played a role in
Italy's desire to try to establish a relationship of trust and cooperation with as many states as
possible (Pregliasco, 2023).
As regards the current state of the debate on Italian foreign policy during the two conflicts,
existing literature agrees that during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina Italy was de facto
completely excluded from the management of the conflict (Bellucci & Evans, 1997;
Bucarelli, 2004; Cartocci, 2015; Bellucci & Isernia, 2009; Schwegmann, 2000) due to the
domestic economic, political and social crisis which caused a very low profile foreign policy
and very little effectiveness.
By 1998, when the war in Kosovo started, Italy’s domestic and international political
situation completely changed and Italy managed to implement a more active foreign policy
that resulted in a convinced participation in the Operation Allied Force (OAF), both from the
military and logistic point of view (Croci, 1999). With the participation in OAF, Italy
abandoned the traditional low-profile foreign policy it had adopted up to that point in favour
of a greater activism, including military activism, dictated by a greater responsibility felt by
the ruling class (Longo & Rossi, 2019, p. 45) that can still be seen in today’s commitment in
KFOR. The literature identifies a number of domestic and international factors that
contributed to the shift in Italian foreign policy. First of all it was dictated by the personal
preferences of then Prime Minister D’Alema, who was a former communist and needed to
defend his credibility before the USA and the other Atlantic and European partners (Croci,
1999, p. 43). On the international level, D’Alema saw the need for Italy to start playing the
role of an effective multilateralist/responsible state (Longo & Rossi, 2019, p. 61) as he was
convinced of the fact that ‘effective multilateralism entails state responsibility’ (Caffarena &
11
Gabusi, 2017, p. 129). When it became clear that NATO was committed to implementing a
military intervention, scholars agree on the fact that if Italy did not take part in the operations,
it would have been excluded again from the fora where decisions were made and its influence
in the region would have been threatened again. Moreover, in the ‘90s there was a change in
collective security practices, with the development of the concept of minilateralism, i.e. the
alliance between actors who adhere to universal principles but sometimes decide to act on the
basis of restricted membership because of the failure of classic multilateral solutions and
without UN authorisation (Longo & Rossi, 2019, p. 60; Attinà, 2010, p. 21).
2.2 Resear ch gap
The academic relevance of the topic stems from a gap that can be identified in existing
literature. Much has been done previously in terms of foreign policy analysis of Italy in the
Balkans during the 90’s, but a comparative analysis of Italian foreign policy and international
stance during these two conflicts is missing. Existing literature rather focuses on analysing
Italian foreign policy in the Balkans as a whole during the ‘90s, without providing an
in-depth analysis of the reasons that caused the change of attitude in two very similar
conflicts, both erupting in the broader context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, both caused
by ethnic divisions, in the same region and just 5 years apart. In fact, another component that
further strengthens the academic relevance of the topic is the puzzling change of approach,
attitude and effectiveness that Italy had in conducting its foreign policy during two similar
conflicts. The literature recognises that a change in the Italian foreign policy occurred, but it
fails to identify the process that caused the above-mentioned change. Therefore, in my
opinion, the main research gap is the absence of a cause-and-effect link among all the
possible factors that led to certain foreign policy decisions. Therefore, using the methodology
that will be presented in section 4.2, I will try to fill this gap and find a causal mechanism that
is able to explain the ineffectiveness of Italian foreign policy and its international isolation
during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the greater activism played during the
1998-1999 conflict in Kosovo.
12
3. Conceptual framework
3.1 Causal conditions and definition of concepts
By defining foreign policy and effectiveness as it has been done in the previous section, I
seek to establish a link between three causal conditions (political fragmentation, personality
of the leader and international context) and an intervening variable (public opinion). This can
ultimately lead to understanding and stimulating the discussion about the interaction of
domestic and international factors and their influence on foreign policy.
3.1.1 Political fragmentation (X
1
)
The reason why I chose political fragmentation as my main causal condition is my belief that
it is the starting cause of Italian foreign policy and international reputation problems, and its
negative effects can be mitigated by the other factors (personality of the leader and
international context above all) at a later stage (see the integrated model in section 4.2).
Given that Italy is a parliamentary democracy characterised by a multi-party political system,
the ultimate decision unit consists of multiple autonomous actors, i.e. the political parties,
meaning that there are ‘separate entities with independent authority structures, none of which
can commit the resources of the regime without the agreement of all or some of the others’
(Hermann & Hermann, 1989, p. 368). Even though literature identifies numerous possible
ways of influencing (foreign) policy decisions, the most relevant one considering Italian
institutional set-up and the traditional multi-party composition of parliamentary majorities
and of the ruling coalition is the threat of terminating the government coalition itself
(Hermann & Hermann, 1989, p. 368). This has been a widespread instrument since the Italian
Republic was born in 1946, as shown by the fact that 68 governments have come to power in
77 years (Cortese, 2020) highlighting the extreme political instability, caused by the political
fragmentation, that has characterised Italy throughout its entire republican history.
In this regard, since I will start my analysis by trying to find a causal mechanism that links
political fragmentation (X
1
) to the outcome (Y), it is necessary to define the concept of
political fragmentation. To this end, I recall the theory of the Italian political scientist Sartori
(1976) as presented by Grilli di Cortona et al. (2016). For the purposes of my research, the
concept of political fragmentation is equated with the concept, coined by Sartori (1976), of
13
extreme multiparty system and defined as a situation in which there is a competitive party
system in which there are 5 or more parties that are systemically relevant. Sartori (1976;
Grilli di Cortona et al., 2016) identifies two criteria for understanding when a party assumes
systemic relevance: it must have coalition potential and/or ‘blackmail’ potential. Coalition
potential refers to the importance - which can vary depending on their number of seats - that
certain parties hold in forming government coalitions. In contrast, ‘blackmail’ potential
indicates the ability of parties, often located at the extremes of the political spectrum, to
condition the strategies of other parties, driving moderates away from the centre and
imparting a centrifugal thrust to the competition. Therefore, according to this definition, the
Italian political system in 1992-1995 and 1998-1999 can be seen as an example of an extreme
multiparty system, since there were numerous parties with coalition potential and parties,
even within the government coalition, with ‘blackmail’ potential that could politically
threaten major parties. I believe that the Sartorian theory on party systems provides a good
theoretical framework for my analysis as it represent the culminating point of the discussion
regarding the attempt to categorise party systems, to which important political scientists such
as Duverger (1953), Easton (1953), Almond (1960), Lijphart (1968) gave their contribution.
Subsequent studies did not generate a substantial new theory but limited themselves to further
analyse the Sartorian categories (Grilli di Cortona et al., 2016).
3.1.2 Personality of the leader (X
2
)
As stated in the previous sections, given the institutional and political set-up of Italy at that
time, the leader - in this case the Prime Minister, who is the leader of the government
coalition - cannot be analysed as an ultimate decision unit. However, it is still worth
analysing the role that the Italian Prime Ministers had during the two conflicts, with regard to
their ability to make their foreign policy preferences prevail on the ones of the opposition and
the ones of the other parties of their coalition. In fact, ‘the role of personality in foreign
policy encompasses cognitive processes, background, personal characteristics, motives, and
beliefs, and assumes that decision making is the result of individual human agency’, since,
‘ultimately, it is individuals who make decisions, not states’ (Smith, 2012, p. 1). Given the
fact that every leader has their own personality, foreign policy analysis should reckon it and
take it into account (Kowert & Hermann, 1997, p. 631). It is undeniable that personal
14