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FROM REFOULEMENT AT SEA STRATEGY TO В‘HERMES 2011В’ MISSION: ITALIAN MANAGEMENT OF MIGRATION FLOWS DURING AND AFTER В‘SECURITARIANВ’ BIENNIUM (2008-2009)

Francesco Bacciottini

Abstract

This paper aims to rebuild with an historical approach Italian management of migration flows during last Government Berlusconi (2008-2011). The research focuses specifically on political strategies carried out by Italian right-wing Government of that time, to highlight reasons and effects of their evolution in national and international framework. The starting hypothesis is that migration issue became the main resource to gain electoral consensus in political competition and, in the meantime, an instrument to unbalance international scenario in favour of BerlusconiВ’s Government requests which were directed at acquiring a dominant role in European arena. Final purpose of the study is to stress changing role of migration matter in political debate. The paper takes into account the specific climate of tension developed during the so called В‘securitarianВ’ biennium (2008-2009) and consequences it had in planning Italian preliminary strategy of migration flows management. The research analyzes then relations between Italy and Libya to put into light shadows which characterized the Benghazi Cooperation Treaty of 2008 and it focuses on frictions between Italy, Malta and France to highlight BerlusconiВ’s final purpose and his European ambitions. The analysis of the evolution of Italian strategies emphasizes new variables acquired by migration issue in national political debate and in international arena where role of migrants started to be used as a bargaining chip due to Arab Spring effects. Beyond referring literature and official publications, the main source of the paper is state-wide circulation press of that time. Several newspapers have been analyzed day by day to rebuild political climate of the period and to give a chronological reconstruction of events. This article borders both Contemporary History and Political Science due to its methodology and its arguments and it represents an in-depth-analysis of a single issue of a bigger work concerning security policies of the main Italian parties in the period circumscribed between 2008 and 2013.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocialF2018/1.6/S01.011

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