Berlusconi The Diplomat

This book analyses the foreign policy of Silvio Berlusconi, Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments. The authors examine the Italian position in the international arena and its foreign policy tradition, as well as Berlusconi’s general political stance, Berlusconi’s foreign policy strategies and the impact of those strategies in Italy. Given that Berlusconi is considered a populist leader, the volume considers his foreign policy as an instance of populist foreign policy – an understudied but increasingly relevant topic.

FINALIST at 2015 LONDON BOOK FAIR's THE WRITE STUFF prize. Can a non-fictional book be as interesting as a page-turner fictional plot?Can it be at the same time a tycoon's biography, a mafia tale, a gangster story, a political thriller, an essay on democracy, a dystopia, a sociological analysis of a nation, a scandalous sex story? If the subject-matter is Silvio Berlusconi's incredible story and Italy, the answer is yes. This book, in fact, is a unique portrait of Italy's godfather and also a detailed picture of Italian society, an attempt to allow the foreign reader to understand how it has been possible for an alleged mafia-linked business magnate and media tycoon, constantly in trouble with justice and drenched in vice, to become the most popular political leader, Prime Minister and the absolute master of the country for the last twenty years. Berlusconi is often considered the personification of corruption, of disrespect for the law, of the liaison between organized crime - politics, of immoral behaviour, typical features of that 'immoral majority' of the country. Still, there are many open questions that this book tries to answer: How come Berlusconi grabbed complete control of all Italian information and used it as a Weapon of Mass Deception that turned viewers into faithful voters? How was he able to pass laws ad-personam that made him almost untouchable by the Judicial Power and favoured his business and financial activities in an unfair game? Can we say that Berlusconi is the very symbol of a concentration of political, economic and media power in one single person never seen before, a fact that has created the greatest conflicts of interests in the Western World, or is he just another pawn in a bigger game? What is hidden under Italy's well-known surface beauty, artistry and creativity? Does Dante's underworld Inferno still exist today? Is the erosion of democracy in Berlusconi's period a trend of modern capitalism, as some 'dystopian' writers predicted?

Die Autorinnen und Autoren dieses Bandes haben eine Reihe von Reden von Spitzenpolitikern zur europäischen Integration aus einer großen Zeitspanne (1946-2020) analysiert, wobei sie jede Rede in ihren zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext gestellt und in den biographischen Hintergrund des Redners eingeordnet haben. Die vergleichende Analyse zeigt, dass es notwendig ist, wieder zu entdecken, dass das Ideal des europäischen Einigungswerks genauso spannend sein kann wie andere nationale geschichtliche Kontroversen. Angesichts eines grassierenden Euroskeptizismus kann eine historische Einordnung und Kontextualisierung der Rolle der Kommunikation der europäischen Integration ein nützliches Instrumentarium sein, um die Bedeutung der europäischen Einigung und ihrer Werte zu erklären und zu verstehen. Mit Beiträgen von Dr. Andrea Becherucci, Prof. Frédéric Bozo, Prof. Elena Calandri, Prof. Andrea Catanzaro, Prof. Sante Cruciani, Dr. Deborah Cuccia, Prof. Elena Dundovich, Prof. Laura Fasanaro, Dr. Eva Garau, Prof. Dr. Michael Gehler, Prof. Piero Graglia, Prof. Giorgio Grimaldi, Prof. Gilles Grin, Prof. Maria Eleonora Guasconi, Prof. Giuliana Laschi, Prof. Guido Levi, Prof. Antonio Moreno Juste, Prof. Mara Morini, Prof. Marinella Neri Gualdesi, Dr. Jean-Marie Palayret, Prof. Simone Paoli, Prof. Daniele Pasquinucci, Prof. Laura Piccardo, Prof. Francesco Pierini, Prof. Ilaria Poggiolini, Prof. Daniela Preda, Prof. Sabine Russ-Sattar, Prof. Carlos Sanz Diaz, Prof. Jan Van der Harst, Prof. Antonio Varsori und Laura Wolf.

Offering a fresh take on a crucial phase of European history, this book explores the years between the 1980s and 1990s when the European Union took shape. Whilst contributing to existing literature on the Maastricht Treaty and European integration at the end of the twentieth century, the book also brings those debates into the twenty-first century and makes connections with longer-term issues. The transformation of the European political climate in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008, and the watershed Brexit vote in 2016, has made it all the more urgent to reconsider the way scholars and opinion-makers have looked at European integration in the past. Drawing from recently released archival documents, the authors analyse European cooperation as part of the broader international history in which it unfolded, taking into account the changes in the Cold War order and the advance of a new phase of globalisation. Comparing and contrasting the debates, objectives and achievements of the 1980s and 1990s with the current political landscape of the European Union, this book proposes a novel interpretation of the choices that were made during the Maastricht years, and of their longer-term consequences.

This book sets out to explain the foreign policy of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (February 2014 to December 2016). It offers a unique analytical framework to make sense of Renzi’s foreign policy: the domestically-focused outsider. It argues that to untangle Renzi’s foreign policy one must first understand that his clear priority was enacting domestic economic and political reforms. Domestic focus means that Renzi made foreign policy decisions with a sensitivity to public opinion and party unity. The book also argues that Renzi’s status as an outsider in Italian politics—having previously served only as the mayor of Florence—provides critical insight into his foreign policy. Renzi was prone to skepticism of the establishment and dramatic, symbolic gestures rather than patient coalition building. The book applies this framework to the five most important foreign policy issues Renzi’s government faced: migration, finance and the EU, Russia, ISIL, and Libya. The book’s analysis of the cases benefits from over twenty elite interviews, including those with senior members of Renzi’s government.

It happens all the time: you're watching the Champion's League, pondering Robert Kilroy Silk's unnatural glow, reading the latest newspaper debate about EU bendy banana laws, and thinking: what's really going on in Europe? Does anyone actually know what they're talking about? And where are Riga and Vilnius anyway? You needn't worry any more. With this armchair guide you'll discover the strange and fascinating world that calls itself Europe - without ever having to leave your own home. There are insights into culture (how to join the Finns beating themselves with birch twigs in the sauna); the lowdown on the people that matter (porn stars turned politicians in Italy); fascinating facts and explanations of historical rifts (and you thought the relationship between Britain and France was bad). You'll find out how to talk like Berlusconi, unravel the workings of the EU and guide yourself from the Baltics to Belgium, Portugal to Poland. The Armchair Diplomat: Europe offers the basics of euro-education for very little pain. Perfect for slackers with a passion for travel.

Rhetoric and Governance under Trump: Proclamations from the Bullshit Pulpit analyzes the rhetoric of Donald Trump to argue that Trump’s deeply illiberal rhetoric, cruel policies, corruption, disruptive foreign policy, and disdain for the rule of law makes him a textbook populist. However, his embrace of mainstream conservative policies and the culture war narratives that come with them made him a rather conventional Republican. Being more plutocrat than populist, Trump had to bridge this fundamental contradiction by employing populist and polarizing rhetoric, alongside fabricated crises, to uphold the veneer of being an anti-status quo politician. Bernd Kaussler, Lars J. Kristiansen, and Jeffrey Delbert argue that, for Trump, bullshit, confrontational politics, and fear has emerged as a vital political strategy. Through an analysis of Trump’s first three years in office, the authors find that President Trump governed using a communication strategy that a) denied facts, relied heavily on bullshit, lies, and fabricated counter-narratives; b) attacked news outlets and the opposition to foster identity-based polarization in order to sideline critics and stir up factions for specific political ends; and c) dismissed legitimate criticism of policies and the conduct of the administration and the president himself as “fake news.” Kaussler, Kristiansen, and Delbert argue that the repeated use of this strategy, along with a mixture of public complacency and concerted efforts on the part of his own party, has allowed Trump to work toward normalizing these lies and cover-ups throughout his tenure, only further exacerbating the highly polarized and partisan political environment in the United States. Scholars of rhetoric, communication, political science, and media studies will find this book particularly useful.

"All human societies, from prehistory through to today, have been characterized by some degree of economic inequality. Arguably, complex societies would not have thrived if they had been unable to concentrate and redistribute resources effectively. We frequently talk about the top 5% or 1% today but, as Guido Alfani explains in this book, concerns about the rich and super-rich and their potential to influence contemporary politics and society are nothing new - just take the Medici family and Renaissance Tuscany as one example. The medieval theologian Nicole Oresme's fear of the super-rich individual acting "as God among men" resonates with much of what present-day economist Thomas Piketty cautioned against in his landmark Capital in the Twentieth Century. As Gods Among Men represents the first scholarly attempt to provide a general overview of role and significance of the rich and the super-rich in the long run of history. With a focus on the West, particularly Europe and North America, Alfani's research spans a thousand years of history. He draws from a wealth of comparative data, as well as insights gleaned from the latest research in economic history, sociology, and anthropology, to show how society's problematic relationship with the super-rich cannot be fully understood without a careful analysis of the ways in which they have built their enormous wealth, and how they have used that wealth to gain influence. Alfani highlights important aspects of their behavior, such as their attitudes toward saving and consumption, or their propensity to act as patrons of the arts and of the sciences or as benefactors of the weakest part of society, to build up a profile of the richest members of our society and to trace patterns throughout history, underlining elements of both continuity and change over the period"--