Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici

Descrizione del progetto

The project “Going global: An international history of Italy (1979-1996)” investigates Italy and globalization in the 1980s and 1990s. The impact of globalization on the Italian economy and society is one of the most debated topics. With different methodologies and conclusions, scholars have focused on the effects and consequences of globalization on Italy. While the methodologies and conclusions may vary, existing studies consider globalization as an exogenous process national policymakers and non-state actors have to respond. They overlook that globalization is a geopolitical construct, ushered in by technological innovations and decisions that policymakers - collectively through international organizations or individually - and non-state actors take and that can enhance or hinder the integration of the world economy. This project deals the much-debated theme of Italy and globalization but with a new perspective. It focuses on those international negotiations that increased the integration of the European and the international economy and contributed to the making of
globalization and to which Italy participated, notably the European Monetary System (1979), the Single European Act (1986), the Uruguay Round (1986-1994) and the Treaty of Maastricht (1992). With this focus, the project investigates the political, conceptual, and economic rationale underlying the Italian participation to the making of the new European and international regulatory frameworks. It explores how the Italian policymakers (the government and the Bank of Italy) and non-actors (political parties, trade unions and business sector) expected to adapt to the new context characterized by increased competition and a new economic policy paradigm, while the Italian economy had showed signs of economic difficulties and imbalances.
The project is interdisciplinary and pathbreaking. It provides the first international history of high policymaking blended with macroeconomic and economic policy history of Italy. This approach fully captures the complexity of the multifaceted process under review, seize the nexus between domestic policies and international developments and sheds lights on key decisions which still bear their consequence for the Italian economy and society. The project is grounded on Italian, EU, French, German, British, ECB, trade unions archival sources and macroeconomic indicators. It is performed by an interdisciplinary research team made of contemporary historians, historians of international relations, economic historians and economists. With its interdisciplinary methodology, the project represents a first attempt to unravel the Italian history in the period under review through the lens of a major transformation. The project aims to contribute to the debate on the economic decline of Italy and its difficulties to find a place in the global economy in order to increase the awareness of the general public about these difficulties.