La scienza politica italiana e gli studi sull’integrazione europea dal 1970 al 2000

Italian Political Science and European Integration Studies from 1970 to 2000

The basic assumption of the essay is that the European integration process is a real peace process, building up human security and trans¬national democratic institutions. The author addresses the different stages of development of political science in re in the Italian academy in the period 1970-2000 aiming at explaining why those studies were late in entering both research and teaching, and identifying the scientific specificity of the field.

The author argues that the delay is due firstly to the fact that European integration studies were born within the discipline of international relations which was included in the Italian university system only in 1968-1969. Secondly, Italian political science was, since the beginning, characterised either as «inside looking» either as beeing abundantly state-centered and inter-governmentalist. Not to say of suspicion for value-oriented paradigms. As regards the field substance, the very few first scholars of European integration were interested in analysing the European Community as a «political system» emphasising the theme of the so-called democratic deficit and looking at the nascent «European» transnational political parties.