Italy's foreign policy has often been dismissed as too idiosyncratic, inconsistent and lacking ambition.

This book offers new insights into the position Italy has attained in the international community in the 21st century. It explores how the country has sought to take advantage of its passage from a bipolar to a multipolar system and assesses the ways in which it has engaged internationally, its new responsibilities, and the manner in which it conducts its policies in the pursuit of its interests, whether political or commercial. It argues that although Italy is engaged internationally, there is a gap between its actions and what it actually delivers, and as long as this gap continues Italy is likely to remain a partial and unreliable foreign policy actor. Divided into three parts, this book explores:

• the context and processes which characterise Italy's external action
• its relations with crucial countries and regions such as the US, the EU, and the BRICs
• its security and defence policies.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Politics, Foreign Policy analysis and Italian studies.