Italy nd the Middle East. Geopolitics, Dialogue and Power during the Cold War, edited by Luciano Monzali and Paolo Soave

Italy played a vital role in the Cold War dynamics that shaped the Middle East in the latter part of the 20th century. It was a junior partner in the strategic plans of NATO and warmly appreciated by some Arab countries for its regional approach. But Italian foreign policy towards the Middle East balanced between promoting dialogue, stability and cooperation on one hand, and colluding with global superpower manoeuvres to exploit existing tensions and achieve local influence on the other. Italy and the Middle East brings together a range of experts on Italian international relations to analyse, for the first time in English, the country\u2019s Cold War relationship with the Middle East. Chapters covering a wide range of defining twentieth century events \u2013 from the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Lebanese Civil War, to the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan \u2013 demonstrate the nuances of Italian foreign policy in dealing with the complexity of Middle Eastern relations. The collection demonstrates the interaction of local and global issues in shaping Italy\u2019s international relations with the Middle East, making it essential reading to students of the Cold War, regional interactions, and the international relations of Italy and the Middle East

The Political Economy of Structural Adjustment in Tunisia and Algeria

This analysis of the economic reform programmes launched in Tunisia and Algeria from the late 1980s seeks to account for their divergent outcomes, namely that the Tunisian exercise has met with a large measure of success, whereas Algerian efforts have not, Attention is focused on international factors, economic institutions and domestic political dynamics. Briefly stated, four factors appear to have had a major influence on the relative success of economic reform: (1) the nature of ties to international financial markets; (2) the timing and sequence of economic reforms; (3) the nature of the state reform coalition; and (4) the nature of organized political opposition