ABSTRACT
Foreign policy is a form of adaptation to the international environment but it is also conditioned by domestic politics as well as by the overall state of a country. If one considers the history of Italian foreign policy, one finds rich and diverse trajectories of thinking about international relations and foreign affairs, ideas about Italy’s place in the world, and visions of the European and international order. In the political and intellectual discourse around foreign policy of the last century, for instance, one can analytically identify at least three distinct outlooks, or traditions of thought, on Italian foreign policy: a conservative outlook, a democratic one, and a liberal one. In the determination to end the grip that ideological battles had on Italy, cut the umbilical cord that united it to its Cold War history and secure power, a number of governments since 2011 have projected Italy into the realm of post-ideology.
