The Libyan-Italian post-colonial relationship under Qadhafi from 1969 to the present
My Fellowship from the British School at Rome and the Society for Libyan Studies lasted two academic years, from 2011 to 2013. I followed two parallel tracks: historical research on Libyan-Italian relationships in the early years of Qadhafi's regime; and analysis of contemporary transitions towards democracy in Libya and northern Africa. The Fellowship came at a very fortunate and exciting historical juncture, when the events commonly known as the ‘Arab spring’ were developing, Qadhafi's regime was collapsing, and he himself was killed just days after the beginning of my work.
On the historical track, my initial aim was to investigate the development of the post-colonial relationship between Italy and Libya in the early years of Qadhafi's regime through the private papers of former Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Aldo Moro. I was granted access to them in early November 2011 and immediately started my research in the Archivio Nazionale di Stato in the EUR neighbourhood in Rome. An article resulting from this, ‘The Libyan Italian relationship between 1969 and 1976’, will be published in the 2013 volume of Libyan Studies.
The historical research included publication of four other pieces of work that were undertaken during my Fellowship: first, a chapter about Qadhafi and terrorism, which was published in International History of Terrorism in early 2013; second, a chapter in Italian about ‘Libya, from independence to the Jamahiriya’, which was included in a volume edited by Karim Mezran and Arturo Varvelli, Libia. Fine o rinascita di una nazione? (Rome, 2012); third, a journal article about ‘The Reagan administration and the origins of the war on terror: a case study of Lebanon and Libya’, published in New Middle Eastern Studies in 2012; and fourth, a paper on ‘Allies at war: the transatlantic divergence over Qadhafi between 1981 and 1986’, which was presented at the 2012 annual conference of the Transatlantic Studies Association in Cork (which I plan to transform into a journal article for Transatlantic Studies).
The second track, on contemporary events, was as productive as the first one. Throughout the winter of 2011 and the spring of 2012 I worked on the organization of a workshop on ‘Libya: what happened and what's next?’, held at the British School at Rome on 25 May 2012. About 50 diplomats, academics and policy experts attended a very lively discussion. Several papers have been presented and published that discuss contemporary international relations: ‘Libya 1986–2011: a testing ground for the evolution of US foreign policy’, published in February 2012 in the Papiers d'actualité/ Current Affairs in Perspective series by the Fondation Pierre du Bois; a paper on ‘The war on terror and its cold war burdens’, presented at the British International Studies Association's annual conference in Edinburgh in June 2012; a paper on the Obama administration and the transitions in northern Africa presented at Senate House (London) in February 2013 during the conference ‘Democracy Promotion: Hegemony, Resistance and the Shifting Discourses of Democracy in International Relations’.
In addition, during the second year of the Fellowship I worked on the international conference on ‘Constitutionalism and the Arab Uprisings’, jointly organized with the Centre for Global Constitutionalism of the University of St Andrews, and held at the British Academy on 2–3 May 2013. This project will be brought to fulfilment with an edited volume to be published with Cambridge University Press.
Finally, my period at the BSR was crucial for my academic education. The BSR library provided me with the right environment for completing my book, The Origins of the US War on Terror (London, 2012), and it was a crucial step in broadening my research capabilities to include also the study of current events. Moreover, living and studying together with scholars from all disciplines helped me to develop a multidisciplinary approach.
