Science, technology and international relations: case studies in Italian foreign policy

Programma di finanziamento: PRIN 2017

Ente finanziatore: MUR

Responsabile scientifico: Federico Paolini

Ruolo UniMC: partner

Durata: 36 mesi

This research project is an innovative effort to investigate how the crucial interaction between science, technology and diplomacy has affected and shaped the evolution of Italian foreign policy. It will do so by exploring a number of closely interconnected case studies which posed unprecedented challenges for Italian policy makers, as each one of them was deeply significant both for its domestic repercussions and for Italy’s international standing. Technological and scientific innovation, as a matter of fact, have been playing an increasingly crucial role in shaping the cultural and economic modernization of the country as well as its capacity to remain a credible actor in the international scene.The project will look at the interplay between such fields as energy security, the environmental impact of energy choices, and the technological challenges of innovation in the aerospace and nuclear industry. Its key feature will be its focus on the critical interaction between technical experts and political decision makers . This is necessary to bypass the methodological dichotomy caused by those analytical approaches which tend to concentrate exclusively on either scientists and engineers on the one side, or diplomats and politicians on the other . The access to some hitherto unavailable archival sources, as well as a truly interdisciplinary approach of the research units, will allow the project to offer a most original perspective on the Italian history of the second half of the last century. Our capacity to move across disciplinary boundaries as a matter of fact, is guaranteed not only by the different background and expertise of the scholars involved but also by the experience acquired in the assessment of the impact of technological innovation on the Italian economy.Our starting point are the 1960s, when Italy faced the challenges of technological modernization with a remarkable degree of optimism, after a decade and a half of unprecedented economic growth and the success of the early stages of European integration. At the same time, the 1960s were the turning point in the post-world war II period for two main reasons. First, technological challenges began to be perceived as truly crucial for the future of a country; secondly, because of growing R&D costs, international cooperation appeared as the essential prerequisite for techno-scientific development no matter if in a leadership role, or through a simple partnership. A number of scientific innovations across different fields, as well as the disruption of the customary networks of energy supply and the growing awareness of the environmental impact of economic growth and energy consumption, created a new international and highly competitive context. States were forced to adapt and develop new national, or international, strategies to guarantee the survival of their scientific and technological capabilities, and their innovation. Our point of arrival are the early 1990s, when many of the technological innovations which emerged in the 1960s had run their course: some of the challenges they had posed had been successfully met, some other ones had not, while the international context was being profoundly transformed .The key research question that lies beyond our project is why Italy succeeded in meeting some of these challenges and failed in dealing with other ones. Exploring the interplay between scientists, experts and policy-makers by also looking in depth at some specific personalities, each of the research units will explore a specific dimension of such a crucial nexus The University of Padua unit, in particular, will investigate the importance of the aerospace industry by studying a variety of industrial projects which involved both a high degree of international coordination among different states and one of the most advanced and sophisticated technologies of the time. The University of Salento unit will explore the problem of energy security and the challenges posed by the variations of oil supplies throughout the 1970s. The Roma Tre unit will work more in detail on the evolution of the Italian nuclear sector, with a particular attention to the dual nature of its technology / both civilian and military. Finally, the University of Campania unit will study the importance of the growing environmental awareness in framing the context in which technological innovations had to be carried out.The credibility of the project comes from the basic fact that all the research units have a longstanding history of pioneering research in these fields. Indeed, each one of them has been carrying out cutting edge research both at a national and at an international level, as testified by the fact that the principal investigator has been the recipient of three Carnegie grants for his work on nuclear proliferation and that the leader of the University ofPadua unit is also Work package leader WP8 Space Diplomacy in “InsSCiDE”.