Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Studies (NASP) PhD Program in Political Studies (POLS) – 32nd Cohort PhD Dissertation “At the Water’s Edge?”: Italian Political Parties and Military Operations Abroad Supervisor PhD Candidate Prof. Fabrizio Coticchia Valerio Vignoli Director of the Course Prof. Matteo Jessoula Academic Year: 2018/2019 Index Tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction Aim of the research…………………………………………………………………………... 1 The state of the art and contribution to the literature………………………………………… 3 Case selection: Italian parties and MOAs during the Second Republic……………………… 5 Data and methods…………………………………………………………………………….. 8 Structure of the thesis……………………………………………………………………….... 9 Chapter 1 – Political parties, foreign policy and Italy’s involvement in Military Operations Abroad Introduction………………………………………………………………………………....... 11 The domestic turn in International Relations………………………………………………… 12 Political Parties and foreign policy…………………………………………………………... 16 - Ideology and foreign policy………………………………………………………….. 17 - Coalition politics and foreign policy…………………………………………………. 20 - Parliament and war…………………………………………………………………… 23 Political parties and Military Operations Abroad in Italy during the Second Republic……… 26 - Italian political parties: from the First to the Second Republic………………………. 26 - Italian foreign policy in the Second Republic: between continuity and change……… 30 - Italy and Military Operations Abroad……………………………………………….... 33 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………… 41 Chapter 2 – Explaining party support for Military Operations Abroad: evidence from the quantitative analysis of parliamentary speeches Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………… 43 Hypotheses……………………………………………………………………………………. 45 Measuring party support for MOAs through Wordfish………………………………………. 51 Description of the dataset……………………………………………………………………... 58 Empirical findings…………………………………………………………………………….. 60 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………. 67 Chapter 3 – Explaining party support for military operations abroad: evidence from the analysis of roll-call votes Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………… 70 Mapping party positions on military operations through roll-call votes……………………... 72 The evolution of the role of parliament and law-making procedures on MOAs in Italy…….. 76 Hypotheses……………………………………………………………………………………. 79 Description of the dataset…………………………………………………………………….. 81 Empirical findings……………………………………………………………………………. 87 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………... 99 Chapter 4 – Junior coalition partners, Military Operations Abroad and government stability: the cases of Kosovo and Libya Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………… 102 Hypotheses……………………………………………………………………………………. 104 Case selection: military operations in Kosovo (1999) and Libya (2011) ……………………. 106 Data and methods……………………………………………………………………………... 109 Empirical findings…………………………………………………………………………….. 110 Discussion and conclusions………………………………………………………………….... 118 Conclusions Main findings…………………………………………………………………………………. 122 Implications for the debate on the party politics of foreign policy…………………………… 125 Implications for the debate on Italian politics and foreign policy……………………………. 128 Beyond the Second Republic: the future of the party politics of MOAs in Italy……………... 130 References……………………………………………………………………………………. 133 Appendix……………………………………………………………………………………… 163 Tables and Figures Chapter 1 Number of Italy’s MOAs divided by institutional framework (1994-2013) ………………… 34 Number of Italy’s MOAs divided by region (1994-2013) …………………………………... 35 Italy’s military expenditure in billions of dollars (1994-2013) ……………………………… 36 Italy’s military expenditure as share of GDP (1994-2013) ………………………………….. 36 Italy’s expenditure for MOAs in millions of Euros (1994-2013) …………………………… 38 Number of personnel deployed by Italy in MOAs (2004-2013) …………………………….. 38 Chapter 2 Party positions extracted from the debate on the mission Antica Babilonia, 15/4/2003 …….. 57 Description of the variables ………………………………………………………………….. 60 Linear regression models with clustered standard error for parties………………………….. 62 Predictive margins of position on the left-right axis…………………………………………. 63 Average marginal effects of position on the left-right axis (left) and distribution of the variable “Rile” (right)……………………………………………….., 64 Predictive margins for presence at the government …………………………………………. 65 Predictive margins for UN legitimation of the mission conditioned to position on the left-right axis ………………………………………………… 66 Average marginal effects (with 90% CIs) for UN legitimation of the mission conditioned to position on the left-right axis ………………. 66 Chapter 3 Percentage of votes occurred by country in the Development Vote Watch dataset …………. 75 Average agreement index on votes by country in the Deployment Vote Watch dataset ……. 75 Distribution of votes by legislative procedure ………………………………………………. 83 Distribution of votes by cabinet, divided by resolutions and decrees ……………………….. 84 Distribution of votes by colour of the coalition in government, divided by resolutions and decrees …………………………………………………………... 85 Description of the variables ………………………………………………………………….. 87 Percentage of supportive votes by party ordered on the left-right axis (1994-2013) ………... 89 Percentage of supportive votes by party ordered on the GAL/TAN scale (1994-2013) …….. 90 Probit models with clustered standard error …………………………………………………. 92 Predictive margins for position on the left-right axis ………………………………………... 93 Average marginal effects of position on the left-right axis (left) and distribution of the variable Rile (right) ………………………………………………….. 94 Predictive margins for position on the GAL/TAN scale …………………………………….. 95 Average marginal effects for position on the GAL/TAN scale (left) and frequency distribution of the variable Gal/Tan ………………………………………….. 95 Predictive margins for presence in government ……………………………………………... 96 Predictive margins for presence in government conditioned to their position on the left-right axis…………………………………………… 97 Predictive margins for votes through law decree ……………………………………………. 98 Predictive margins for law decree conditioned to the position on the left-right axis ………... 99 Chapter 4 Summary of the empirical findings ………………………………………………………….. 120 Acknowledgments There are a lot of people who made the completion of the PhD programme and this dissertation possible. I would like to start this long list of acknowledgments by thanking the Network of Advancement of Social and Political Studies (NASP), its linked institutions (the department of social and political pcience of the University of Milan and the department of political science of the University of Genoa in particular), and its staff. NASP provided me with a life-changing opportunity of professional and personal enrichment. During the three years of PhD programme in Political Studies, I gained an outstanding amount of skills and experiences that hopefully will enable me to pursue a successful career as a researcher in political science. Thanks to the all the people working at NASP, I very much enjoyed these three years as a PhD candidate. Professors and researchers at the Department of Social and Political Science in Milan have always been willing to give me valuable and helpful advices. Through care and kindness, the administrative staff made me feel like I was home during the long days spent in Via Pace 10. It also goes without saying that without the PhD scholarship paid to me by the University of Genoa, I would not have had the financial backing to serenely go through this PhD programme. Among all the people met at NASP during these three years, my PhD colleagues have been surely the most relevant ones. I refer to all 32nd cohort students and those who attended the programme in Political Studies especially. Conducting a three-year PhD programme is an essentially individual process. Because of them, I never felt lonely, nonetheless. I felt there were always other people who can understand my concerns. I hope they felt that I could understand theirs as well. I believe we shared a lot together. We shared the pressure of the first year, with the bulk of mandatory courses to attend and exams to pass. We shared the anxieties of the successive ones, as the deadline for the submission of thesis was getting closer and the obstacles to overcome looked tough to overcome. During lunch breaks, we also shared stimulating and sometimes heated conversations about the most disparate topics. With some of them, I even shared rooms and flats during conferences and summer schools. I wish with all my heart that the friendships I built during this PhD programme could last very long. From the primary school to this doctoral programme, I have been fortunate enough to find a number of brilliant teachers on the way. Achieving the highest educational degree, I take the chance to thank them all. In particular, I name three of them who more or less concretely enable me to be in the position where I currently am: Claudio Lolli, Piero Ignazi and Fabrizio Coticchia. Claudio Lolli, also known for his song-writing talent, has been my first Italian literature teacher at the high school. He inspired me and all my classmates to look at reality in a curious way and think beyond the box. Sadly, he passed away in August 2018, during my second year as a PhD student. My thoughts also go to him in this moment. Prof. Piero Ignazi has been a mentor to me during the time spent at the University of Bologna as a Bachelor and Master student.