Women in the Mediterranean: Still Discriminated Against?

While in the EU’s Mediterranean countries inequality is mostly linked to the social sphere, and in particular refers to labour market dynamics, in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) area the situation is more complicated as the social and private spheres overlap and cultural and religious factors have a great impact on women’s autonomy and opportunities beyond the family perimeter. The different challenges women are facing on the two sides of the Mediterranean have sometimes led to incomprehension and misperceptions. Western-supported policies devoted to closing the gap between men and women in the Southern Mediterranean area have overlooked those countries’ peculiarities, simply exporting models tailored for EU’s member states. The EU’s attempts to strengthen relations with the Mediterranean countries on a multilevel basis have not rescued women from marginalization. Nevertheless, during the 2011 awakening, women played an important role in activating civil society and they are still to play a role in the modernization of their countries

Italian diplomacy and the Ukrainian crisis: the challenges (and cost) of continuity

This article seeks to analyse the Italian diplomatic response to the Ukrainian crisis. To this end, the article relies on role theory to understand how Italy’s diplomatic posture during the war was influenced by the expectations deriving from its EU and NATO membership, but also by the different role conceptions emerging in the public debate. Though Italy under its Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, not only responded to but effectively led European strategy towards Ukraine during the crisis – including supporting Ukraine’s membership bid – on the internal front the country was polarized, unwilling to push for further punishment of Russia in view of its economic reverberations, but also questioning military involvement in the war in Ukraine. After a failed attempt to reconcile external expectations and domestic preferences, centred around Italy’s sponsorship of a ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine, the tension between the two sets of influences intensified to the point of precipitating the end of the Draghi government in July 2022, with Italy’s response to the Ukrainian crisis invoked as one of the main causes of the government’s fall. Although the right-wing alliance of political parties that won the ensuing general elections campaigned on a populist and nationalist, ‘Italy first’, platform, the country’s posture towards the war in Ukraine has not really changed – under its current Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, Italy has continued to align with the multilateral expectations set by the EU and the US. The differences in foreign policy outlook within the current governing coalition, however, are not insignificant, and public opinion continues to be divided. This suggests that the tension underlying Italy’s foreign policy in the Ukraine crisis has not been resolved – in fact, it could still potentially undermine the country’s diplomatic posture, as well as the government’s own stability, in the months to come

Making the Best Out of a Crisis: Russia’s Health Diplomacy during COVID-19

The article considers how Russia has reacted to the pandemic, especially in terms of foreign policy. Although internally the management of the pandemic has led to a further limitation of citizens’ freedoms, externally it has been exploited to improve the country’s image and strengthen its leverage through tactical activism and political generosity. Russia’s strategy has been articulated in two phases: first, immediate aid to countries in need in order to channel the idea of a benevolent state, directly or indirectly discrediting other countries or organisations; second, the geopolitical use of vaccines. The article stresses the relationship between science and foreign policy and analyses Russia’s health diplomacy strategy, underscoring its opportunities and challenges through the analysis of two case studies (Italy and Belarus). From a methodological perspective, the article mainly refers to foreign policy analysis (FPA), using concepts such as soft power, health diplomacy, and geopolitics

Travelling from West to East: Think Tank Model Adaptation to Central and Eastern Europe

Think tanks are usually understood as institutions claiming autonomy whose main aim is to influence policy making based on the social analysis they produce. The most apparent blind spot in extant think tank research is its predominant focus on the English-speaking world. We argue that by focusing on think tanks in non- Western contexts, we can better understand think tanks. When studying the diffusion of the organizational form of think tanks to new contexts, it is not enough to maintain the “sender” perspective (the formulation of the institutional characteristics of think tanks in the contexts in which they first emerged). We need to complement or even modify that perspective by also taking into account the “receiver” perspective. In other words, internationally circulated ideas and institutional patterns are always interpreted and translated in local “receiving” contexts, which coproduce, reformulate, and readjust the blueprint. Our focus in this Section is therefore on the translation and local adaptation of the think tank institution in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, a region that has undergone deep changes in a relatively short period

La presidenza russa del G20

Analisi degli obiettivi e delle prospettive della presidenza russa del G2

Quali Scenari per la crisi in Ucraina?

Il paper scritto per la Camera dei Deputati - Servizio Studi Dipartimento Affari Esteri analizza le conseguenze per l'Italia e l'Europa della Crisi in Ucraina e fornici alcune indicazioni policy-oriente

First-order thermodynamics of scalar-tensor gravity

The first-order thermodynamics of scalar-tensor theory is a novel approach that exploits the intriguing relationship between gravity and thermodynamics to better understand the space of gravity theories. It is based on using Eckart's first-order irreversible thermodynamics on the effective imperfect fluid describing scalar-tensor gravity and characterises General Relativity as an equilibrium state, and scalar-tensor theories as non-equilibrium states, naturally describing the approach to equilibrium. Applications of this framework to cosmology, extensions to different classes of modified theories, and the formulation of two complementary descriptions based on the notions of temperature and chemical potential all contribute to a new and unifying picture of the landscape of gravity theories.Comment: 20 pages. The results contained in this paper have been partially presented at WASCOM 202

Introduction: Travelling from West to East: Think Tank Model Adaptation to Central and Eastern Europe: Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe

This article is part of the special section "Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe" guest-edited by Katarzyna Jezierska and Serena Giusti. This is an introduction to the Special Section on Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe. Apart from this introduction, the Section includes four articles, which explore the nature and conditions of think tanks operating in Belarus, Ukraine, Czech Republic, and Poland. Think tanks are usually understood as institutions claiming autonomy whose main aim is to influence policy making based on the social analysis they produce. The most apparent blind spot in extant think tank research is its predominant focus on the English-speaking world. We argue that by focusing on think tanks in non-Western contexts, we can better understand think tanks. When studying the diffusion of the organizational form of think tanks to new contexts, it is not enough to maintain the "sender" perspective (the formulation of the institutional characteristics of think tanks in the contexts in which they first emerged). We need to complement or even modify that perspective by also taking into account the "receiver" perspective. In other words, internationally circulated ideas and institutional patterns are always interpreted and translated in local "receiving" contexts, which coproduce, reformulate, and readjust the blueprint. Our focus in this Section is therefore on the translation and local adaptation of the think tank institution in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, a region that has undergone deep changes in a relatively short period

Facing War: Rethinking Europe's Security and Defence

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has sent shockwaves across Europe and the world. While the current war is a geopolitical turning point, it remains unclear whether it will trigger a quantum leap forward for European defence policies and for the role of the European Union as a security provider. This Report investigates whether we can expect a further convergence of European strategic cultures, and on collaboration among Europeans to generate the required military capabilities and integrate their forces. Most importantly, it finds that the timely implementation of the EU’s Strategic Compass will be a decisive test to establish whether Europeans are rising to the challenge of taking more responsibility for their security and defence.Publishe

Disruptions in the ENP Cycle: EU Gender Policies in Tunisia from a ‘Decentring Perspective’

The article explores how policy actions generated by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) are enacted in partner countries as the result of cooperation between their governments and EU headquarters and between local actors and EU delegations (EUDs). By borrowing insights from the literature on EU democracy support and on external perceptions of the EU, the article considers the implementation of EU gender policies in Tunisia through the analytical lens of the ‘policy cycle model’. It adopts a ‘decentring perspective’ privileging local actors’ needs, expectations and viewpoints, which reveals that major disruptions in the implementation of EU gender policies derive more from the organization’s bureaucratic rigidity than from the way policy is conceived. The EU does not properly address these disruptions, because of a mix of procedural constraints and political prioritization, which affect the functioning of the ENP cycle. This risks undermining desired outputs at the local level and questions the so-called EU ‘local turn’ that accelerated especially after 2011. The article concludes that the ‘policy cycle model’ can be a useful analytical tool to examine other ENP policies, especially if combined with a ‘decentring perspective’