Revisiting Italian mediterranean policy in the 1950s: Internal or externally-driven? The interplay of external pressures and domestic constraints

Abstract

This article aims to explore Italy's "Neo-Atlanticist" foreign policy (FP) strand in the mid-1950s to highlight the complex interplay of external and internal political dynamics. It corresponded to the third circle of Rome's FP loadstars – the Mediterranean and Arab world – with Rome intending to conduct an autonomous policy that was often seen as clashing with its Atlanticist commitments. Italian foreign policy was tightly constrained by its integration in Euro-Atlantic alliances, but it was also able to cut for itself a margin of independent maneuver in pursuit of a more autonomous policy in the Mediterranean.