This book describes and analyzes the impact of “Europeanization” on the domestic politics of Italy by looking at examples drawn from agricultural, cohesion and employment policies. Graziano's book is one volume in a series analyzing empirically the influence of Europeanization on the nation state in Europe. He does so through a comparative case study on the adaptation of the Italian political system in its bureaucratic ability to respond and adapt to Brussels' communitarian entreaties that have evolved since the inception of the treaty of Rome in 1957. The author examines in great detail the impact of EU decisions on the politics and policy making of Italian governments for over half a century.
He does so first by looking at the theoretical literature as a framework for analysis and then delving into the specific case studies, namely the evolution of the common agricultural policy, the financial instruments linked to regional development, and later Brussels' investments in employment and training.
What stands out in terms of both modelling and empirical analysis is the uneven capacity of successive Italian governments to contribute actively to the formulation of common communitarian policies. While Italy participated in all aspects of decision making, its ability to influence agendas and to set trends has been historically rather weak. Only in the last two decades, have various Italian governments been able to contribute to policy formulation in Brussels, and to see domestic interest groups and bureaucratic structures adapt to the funding and entreaties emanating from Brussels. However, it is also interesting to notice, as Graziano does, that in the last two decades, the rise of non-traditional parties in Italy, such as the Lega Nord, have demonstrated that there is some negative reaction toward the European Union. In fact, a poll showed that in Italy and even in the rest of Europe, support for Europeanization and stronger political power in communitarian intuitions has been in relative decline.
In the Italian case, one salient aspect of the relationship between Rome and Brussels is the relative lack of interest of the electorate at large regarding Europeanization, communitarian policies and European elections. On the positive side, there is some evidence that the governments in Rome were, in time, able to get the Italian bureaucratic structure to adapt more efficiently to Brussels' entreaties. What stands out until recently, is the relative inefficiency of the Italian political structure to use European funds for specific domestic development. In the case of regional policies, Graziano hints at some of the failures of Italy's own plans for closing the gap between northern and southern Italy in terms of income and structural modernization.
Another feature that stands out is the relative inability of Italy, and by extension some other southern Mediterranean countries, to close the economic gap between northern and southern Europe, a gap that continues to persist. While it is true that Italy went through a long period of economic modernization following the catastrophe of World War II, she is still behind the rest of Europe in terms of employment and other welfare standards.
Graziano's work stands out because it is an area of analysis that is not amenable to insights without an outstanding grasp of the Byzantine bureaucratic structure and decision making of the Italian republic. While it is true that there have been prime ministers and individual ministers in the Italian government who were competent and led Italy successfully through various economic and political crises, what strikes an outside observer is the stagnation of the Italian economic system in the last decade. From this last standpoint, the creation of a European central bank and a common currency seems to have not been a success in terms of resolving some of the issues that those three case studies which Graziano focuses on, namely agricultural, cohesion and employment policies were supposed to resolve. Perhaps the common agricultural policy could be considered a success in terms of its evolution and its contribution to the rationalization of agriculture in Western Europe. As Europe evolves, it will be interesting to see to what extent the Italian state and its structures will adapt to Europeanization, especially in resolving the challenges in the international system that are now categorized under the term globalization. It will also be interesting to see how a possible free trade agreement between the United States and the European Union may challenge some important aspects of the European economy, principally agriculture.
The current political instability in the Arab world and the continuous economic stagnation of Italy have found the Italian political elites avoiding some tough decisions by claiming that the solution has to be found only via Brussels, thus exempting themselves from their inability to modernize a political system in dire need of responding to the challenges that face Italy in the twenty-first century. What stands out in Graziano's book in the final analysis is how the Italian political elites followed Europe and were led by it rather than directing actively the policies emanating from Brussels, leaving this task to Germany, France, and the Eurocrats in Brussels.
