The Political Economy of Italy in the EMU: What Went Wrong?

Leila Simona Talani ()
Additional contact information
Leila Simona Talani: King’s Collage, UK.

Journal of Economics and Political Economy, 2014, vol. 1, issue 2, 133-149

Abstract: Although Italy was amongst the most enthusiastic founding members of the European Economic Community in 1957, the Italian capacity to respect the imperatives of European integration could not, and, still, cannot, be given for granted, as the recent sovereign debt crisis demonstrates. Apart from the many structural inconsistencies that persist not only in the economic, but also in the political and social organization of the country, also the public debate is sometimes characterised by a tendency to blame the process of Europeanisation for the less palatable decisions taken by the national institutions. This article addresses the sub-national, national and supranational dimensions of the process of Italian Europeanisation focusing in particular on the role of domestic socio-economic actors in influencing monetary policy decision making processes. The article is based on field research conducted by the author both in Italy and Brussels. The main object of this research effort was to analyse to what extent the outcomes of the process of European monetary integration have been influenced by domestic politics and by domestic economic interest groups in Italy with the final aim of assessing the impact of Italian entry into the EMU and especially its future within it. Thus, at the core of this research lies the following question: What is the role of domestic politics and domestic interest groups in monetary policy-making? The theoretical starting point of this interpretation of the process of European monetary integration is represented by an integrated domestic-foreign policy focusing on the role of economic interest groups in defining national exchange rate and monetary policy decisions. It is not here the place to discuss the different theories explaining the process of European integration and, more specifically, of the issue of European monetary integration. Here it will simply be underlined that, to explain foreign economic policy choices, policy outcomes need to be linked to domestic politics.

Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.kspjournals.org/index.php/JEPE/article/download/61/218 (application/pdf)
http://www.kspjournals.org/index.php/JEPE/article/view/61/218 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ksp:journ1:v:1:y:2014:i:2:p:133-149

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economics and Political Economy is currently edited by Bilal KARGI

More articles in Journal of Economics and Political Economy from KSP Journals Istanbul, Turkey.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bilal KARGI ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).