This book deals with the role the Italian international banks played during the inter-war period as intermediaries between the main financial markets (London, New York, Paris) and the peripheral areas (Central and Eastern Europe, South America) and the same financial markets and Italy itself. The main objective of this book is to show that the development of large industrial sectors in Italy during the fascist period depended on the activity that the Italian banks carried out as intermediaries on the major financial markets. This activity was precisely about borrowing the financial means which Italy lacked. However, by doing this, some sort of dependence on these foreign financial structures was generated. This situation threatened to deteriorate up to the point of the coming short of the bases holding the Italian economy, which is exactly what happened in the 1930s. The book also aims at demonstrating that this kind of dependence was unavoidable and that even before the war there were in Italy favourable conditions for a high integration at European level, which can explain, at least partially, for the motivations behind Italy's constant support to the European integration during the post-II World War period.

This book collects various essays presented at the conference "Europeanisation and Democratisation: The Southern European Experience and the Perspective for the New Member States" held in Florence from 16 until 18 June 2005. The editor of this book selected some of the essays discussing the relation between Europeanisation and democratisation in new member states and neighbour countries. He also tried to emphasise the comparative approach and to analyse the interaction between Europeanisation and democratisation. This means the role of Europeanisation in the consolidation and orientation toward the EU model of democracy of newly admitted and neighbour countries. This comparison aims to draft a more coherent explanation for the basic puzzle of this book: why does the EU promote democracy? The starting hypothesis of the editor of this book is that EU pressures for democratisation aim at enlarging the European free market area and at providing stability and security inside and outside the EU borders. The promotion of democracy and the rule of law, as well as the adoption of the acquis communitaire and the respect for human rights, are all functional to EU's aims.The main hypothesis is that external influence does not provide a fuller explanatory model for domestic adaptation to European norms and practices in EU's neighbour countries. In other words, internal factors will shape the impact of EU action and will make it more or less influent. Besides, the editor of this book infers that institutional adaptation for non-member states could be the equivalent of the Europeanisation impact on member states. Thus, democratisation becomes part of the "external Europeanisation" (in its meaning ofinstitutional adaptation) and is dependent upon it.