There are little doubts that Italy has attempted to play a more assertive role in the international arena since the end of the Cold War. During the first forty years of its Republican history, conditioned by both the polarized international context and an antagonistic domestic political system, Italy delegated its main choices in international affairs to external actors, most notably NATO and the European Union. The transition from a bipolar to a unipolar/multipolar world order provided Italy with new opportunities to pursue its political and commercial interests more autonomously, as well as new responsibilities, to actively contribute to solving conflicts and addressing new global threats. At the same time, the collapse of the traditional parties (linked to the fall of the Berlin wall and the Clean Hands enquiries) and the changes of the electoral law (from a proportional representation into a quasi-majoritarian system) generated two heterogeneous coalitions which have regularly alternated in power, but do not always share the same views and approaches-with differences at times of form, and more often of substance. Against this background, Italy in the Post-Cold War Order: Adaptation, Bipartisanship, Visibility, edited by Maurizio Carbone, seeks to explain the evolution of Italy's international action over a twenty-year span (1989 2009). Three central questions are addressed. First, how does Italy adapt to transformations of the international system? Second, how does its ever-changing political system influence Italy's choices in foreign relations? Third, how do domestic structures constrain (or enable) Italy's place on the world stage? To answer these questions, this book consists of two broad parts. The first part sets the context and discusses issues 'horizontally, ' focusing on foreign policy, security and defense policy, development cooperation, and multilateral action. The second part, which takes a 'vertical' approach, discusses Italy's relations with key countries and regions of the world

Recent efforts by the United States and its allies to promote democracy, security, and stability in the Middle East owe much to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) - also known as the Barcelona Process - an important region-building plan in the Mediterranean region since 1995. The Convergence of Civilizations represents the output of an innovative and much needed collaborative project focused on the EMP. Editors Emanuel Adler, Beverly Crawford, Federica Bicchi, and Rafaella A. Del Sarto have set out to show that regional security and stability may be achieved through a cultural approach based on the concept of regional identity construction, and aim to take stock of the EMP in relation to this goal. The contributors to this collection focus on the obstacles Mediterranean region construction faces due to post 9/11 regional and global events, the difficulties of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, tensions between the EU and the US over Iraq, and the expected consequences of EU enlargement. They also seek to bring the EMP and region-making practices to the attention of American scholars in order to promote a more fertile academic exchange. Ultimately, the contributors demonstrate that the EMP and related region-making practices, while failing so far to promote the development of a Mediterranean regional identity and to achieve regional stability, suggest nonetheless a viable model for regional partnership and cooperation, and thus, for preventing a 'clash of civilizations' in the long haul. The Convergence of Civilizations will be an important tool for meeting the current global challenges being faced by nation-states as well as those in the future.