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Effective strategic narratives? Italian public opinion and military operations in Iraq, Libya, and Lebanon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2015

Fabrizio Coticchia
Fabrizio Coticchia*
Affiliation:
DIRPOLIS, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
*
*E-mail: fabrizio.coticchia@eui.eu
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Abstract

Public attitudes are greatly shaped by the cohesiveness of the strategic narratives crafted by policy-makers in framing the national involvement in war. The literature has recently devoted growing attention toward the features that define successful strategic narratives, such as a consistent set of objectives, convincing cause–effect chains, as well as credible promises of success. This paper provides an original framework for ‘effective strategic narratives’ for the case of Italy. The military operations undertaken by Italian armed forces in Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya represent the cases through which the framework is assessed. Drawing on content and discourse analysis of political debates and data provided by public opinion surveys, this paper explores the nature of the strategic narratives and their effectiveness.

Keywords

strategic narrativespublic opinionIraqLebanonLibya
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 53 - 78
Copyright
© Societá Italiana di Scienza Politica 2015 

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Coticchia Dataset

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http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/29136
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