Blog Posts - Fabrizio Coticchia

Italian Foreign Policy: Still the Days Seem the Same?

8/30/2021

Glad to be part of this amazing volume: "Foreign Policy Change in Europe Since 1991", edited by Jeroen K. Joly and Tim Haesebrouck. My chapter (co-authored with Valerio Vignoli and titled "Italian Foreign Policy: Still the Days Seem the Same?") assesses Italian FP evolution since the end of the Cold War, investigating drivers (and inhibitors) of change in defense policy, aid, bilateral and multilateral relations.

Parlamenti e controllo dell'uso della forza

7/4/2021

Sono contento di aver partecipato al volume curato dal Prof. Panebianco "Democrazia e sicurezza. Società occidentali e violenza collettiva". Ho scritto un capitolo su "Parlamenti e controllo dell'uso della forza", esaminando lo stato dell'arte della (crescente) letteratura sul tema e focalizzandomi sui casi (molto diversi) di Italia e Germania.

Un centro di gravità permanente? La difesa italiana e il Mediterraneo allargato

4/21/2021

Ho scritto una breve analisi sul tema del "Mediterraneo Allargato" e l'evoluzione della politica di difesa italiana. Il pezzo è stato pubblicato da Formiche. Qui il link.

"Managing incoherence. Social democratic parties and transnational issues in Europe"

12/17/2020

My latest paper (with Marco Di Giulio and Enrico Calossi) focuses on political parties and transnational issues. The paper (here the link, gated) "Managing incoherence. Social democratic parties and transnational issues in Europe" has been published on European Politics and Society. Here below the abstract:
Do political parties keep their promises? The coherence between parties’ ideology and policy output have always attracted scholarly interest. Moreover, the importance of political parties’ accountability has dramatically increased also because of the rise of populist parties. This paper aims at contributing to the current debate by investigating different phases: the electoral manifestoes, the framing on issues in parliament, the votes, and the ways through which the manifestoes for the following elections change. What are the patterns parties can adopt to address a possible dissonance between electoral platforms, votes, and frames? Are there recurrent patterns of party behaviour between manifestoes, rhetoric, and policy outputs? To answer these research questions, the manuscript builds on a cross-country and cross-time (2007–2017) empirical analysis of three West European social democratic parties and their attitudes towards transnational issues, such as migration, terrorism, military operations and the financial crisis. The paper, which is based on content analysis of debates and manifestoes, identifies several patterns parties can follow for managing these crises. This paves the way for further variable-testing research.

"The fog of words: Assessing the problematic relationship between strategic narratives, (master) frames and ideology"

10/31/2020

I'm really happy that my latest paper on strategic narratives has just been published on "Media, War & Conflicts". Here (gated) you'll find the manuscript. The paper (co-authored with A. Catanzaro) is titled: "The fog of words: Assessing the problematic relationship between strategic narratives, (master) frames and ideology". Here below the abstract:
A growing body of the International Relations (IR) literature has started to pay attention to the concept of ‘strategic narratives’, stressing the role played by storylines in affecting public attitudes. However, the analytical differences between concepts like strategic narratives, master narratives, frames, framing and master frames have been rarely investigated through a comprehensive approach. Very different definitions and perspectives have been adopted in the IR scholarly debate and beyond, while few studies have identified how ideologies underlie frames and narratives. This article aims at filling this gap and makes two claims. First, the process of plot formation, their strategic dimension and the levels at which narratives operate are the special features that distinguish strategic narratives from all other concepts. Second, only by unpacking – from an interdisciplinary perspective – the complex relation between ideology and narratives can we understand the proper conceptual boundaries in the narrative literature. In sum, there are four levels of discourse to be considered: frame, strategic narrative, master narrative and ideology.