James Walston

About

Chair of Department, International Relations and Global Politics, the American University of Rome (AUR) Associate Professor.

Contact: j.walston@aur.edu

Blog: http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/

James Walston has specialized in Italian and comparative politics and modern Italian political history. He has also done research on transnational organized crime, Balkan politics and history and west African politics. He teaches international relations and middle east politics.

As well as being an academic political scientist, James Walston is a political analyst. He writes and comments internationally on Italian politics, the Italian economy and the role of both in Europe and further afield as well as on Italian foreign policy. His blog is been extensively quoted and he explains various aspects of Italian politics and the economy.

He also comments on international relations, UK and US politics for the Italian media.

He has taught politics and history in American and Italian universities for more than 30 years, specializing in Italian politics and modern history where he has published extensively. He has been with AUR since 1991 and was chair of the Department of International Relations from 2002-08. For the last 10 years he has coordinated the international relations module for Rome Sapienza’s EuroSapienza programme in the Department of Economics. For some of that time, the programme worked with the universities of Belgrade and Sarajevo.

In 2003, he began the Department’s field study program which includes AUR’s annual Ghana trip and regular trips to European institutional sites like Brussels, Geneva and Vienna and conflict resolution sites like Kosovo, the Basque Country and Northern Ireland. Together with Prof. Isabella Clough Marinaro, in 2008, he started AUR’s Center for the Study of Migration and Racism in Italy. Together, they are working on research and integration projects with the City of Rome and other Italian local governments. His other research interests include democracy consolidation, conflict and conflict resolution in West Africa and organized crime which he has brought together in a research project on Transnational Organised Crime in Italy, Spain and West Africa with colleagues at the Real Instituto Elcano in Madrid and the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre in Accra.  In September 2011, he taught at Milan University’s new Summerschool on Organised Crime. He is also working on projects on politics, history and memory, national identity in the Balkans.

Walston has lived in Italy since 1974.

Education

• Associate Professor of International Relations
• Ph. D. Cambridge University
• Diploma di Perfezionamento, University of Rome, Sapienza
• B.A. Cambridge University

Current Teaching Activities

• Associate Professor & Chair, Department of International Relations, AUR
• Prof. Walston teaches International Relations, Political Science and Modern History.
• His specialization topics are: Nationalism,Memory Politics & Identity, Conflict and Conflict Resolution, Italian, Balkan and West African history and politics.
• Since 2004, he has coordinated the International Relations module in the University of Rome, Sapienza, EuroSapienza Programme.
• Occasional lectures on Italian politics for visiting programs.
• Since 2000, lecturer on Italian politics and society for Trinity College, Conn. Elderhostel program

 Past Teaching Activities

• 1990-2003            Lecturer in Political Science and History for various American programs in Rome including Temple, Loyola, Trinity (Conn.)
• 1979-87            Lecturer in Political Science and History, University of Maryland, University College, European Division.

Current Interests and Work

• Identity and memory in the Balkans, Migration and racism in Italy, Italian foreign policy, Italian government, conflict resolution

Past Work

• Clientelism and organized crime
• History and memory in Italy.

Publications

2012
“Introduction: Italy’s 150^th Anniversary” in Bulletin of Italian Politics 3 (2) Winter 2012: 217-224 and guest editor http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_224795_en.pdf

Guest editor, second part of 150^th anniversary articles Bulletin of Italian Politics 4 (1), Summer 2012

“Italian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War” in Carbone M. (ed) Italian Foreign Policy Lexington

2010
“Italy’s ‘second generations’: the sons and daughters of migrants” Bulletin of Italian Politics 2 (1) Summer 2010

2008
“La politica estera: il difficile perseguimento di un ruolo influente” in Mark Donovan and Paolo Onofri (eds.) Politica in Italia. I fatti dell’anno e le interpretazioni Bologna, Istituto Cattaneo/Il Mulino:  151-171

“Foreign Policy: The Difficult Pursuit of Influence” in Mark Donovan and Paolo Onofri (eds.) Italian Politics. Frustrated Aspirations for Change Bologna, Istituto Cattaneo/Il Mulino: 123-140 (English version of above).

2007
“Italian Foreign Policy in the ‘Second Republic’. Changes of Form and Substance” Modern Italy Volume 12 (1) February

2006
“So far, so good in Ghana” Aspenia (29-30): 125-31 (English version of “Progressi democratici”.

2005
“Progressi democratici: il caso Ghana” Aspenia(29): 199-205

“Kosovo: the end of the beginning” OpenDemocracy 24 October 2005 http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-yugoslavia/independence_2953.jsp2004            “The Shift in Italy’s Euro-Atlantic Policy. Partisan or Bipartisan?” The International Spectator  XXXIX (2) October-December 115 – 125

2000
Various articles in Moliterno Gino (ed.) Encyclopædia of Italian Culture Routledge. Including “Southern Question”, “Parliament”, “Constitution”, “Parties”, “Presidents of the Council”, “Presidents of the Republic”

“Nationalisms and internationalism: the response of Italian Jews to Fascism” in Thomas P. DiNapoli The Italian Jewish Experience. Forum Italicum. A journal of Italian Studies.  SUNY, Stony Brook: 141 – 154

1999
“The radical left in Italy” Renewal Vol 7 (2) Spring: 18-26

1997
“History and memory of the Italian concentration camps”Historical Journal 40 (1) 169-183

[12 Sept. 2012       Recorded interview with Roman Herzog for the audio documentary site “I campi fascisti” reconsidering History Journal article on history and memory and its relevance today. http://www.campifascisti.it/scheda_testimonianza_full.php?id_tst=35# ]

1996
“Italy’s olive harvest” Renewal Vol 4 (3) July 60-66

1995
Le Strade per Roma. Clientelismo e politica in Calabria (1948-1992) Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino (updated and revised translation of Mafia and clientelism)

“Maybe this time: the emergence of the pragmatic left in Italy” Renewal Vol 3 (4) October 71-77

1994
“The Second Republic?” Renewal Vol 2 (3) July 62-71

1993
“The Italian Left in the middle of the avalanche”Renewal 1 (4) 38-46

1991
“Contesto internazionale” in Bostrom Ingemar and Nencioni Giuseppe Orizzonti d’Italia Copenhagen, Handelshojskolens Forlag: 92-98

“Questione meridionale” in ibid.: 233-241

“Mafia” in ibid.: 242-248

1988
Mafia and Clientelism. Roads to Rome in Post-war Calabria London, Routledge

1987
“Mafia in the Eighties” Violence, aggression, terrorism 1 (2): 13-40

Updated and revised version of “Hunting the vote: building electoral consensus in Calabria” in Quatermaine Luisa and Pollard John (eds.) Italy Today Exeter, University of Exeter Press: 93-116

“The law and propsed reform of political corruption in Italy” Corruption and reform 2: 175-183

1986
“See Naples and die; organised crime in Campania” in Kelly Robert (ed.) Organized crime. A global perspective Totowa NJ, Rowman & Littlefield: 134-158

1985
“Hunting the vote: building electoral consensus in Calabria” in Quatermaine Luisa and Pollard John (eds.) Italy Today Exeter, University of Exeter Press: 89-110

1983
“Political corruption in Italy” ECPR Workshop Papers, University of Essex

with Webb and others “Etiology and outcomes of protest” American Behavioral Scientist 26 (3) Jan-Feb: 311-331

1981
“The use of preference votes in a mafia area of Southern Italy” Contemporary Crises 5: 417-445

“The referendum as an instrument of pressure group politics” ECPR Workshop Papers, University of Essex

1980
“Il meccanismo di cambiamento dei diritti civili e le leggi sociali nelle democrazie dell’Occidente” Sviluppo (22) Jan-Mar: 46-56

“Legal abortion in Italy” IPPF Regional Information Bulletin (9) 1 April

“Clientelism and preference votes in Southern Italy” ECPR Workshop Papers, University of Essex

1978
“Gli albanesi in Calabria: Norman Douglas rivisitato” Zjarri X (1-2): 51-54

Journalism

Walston writes commentary and analysis on his blog Italian Politics with Walston and for Foreign Policy, openDemocracy and other publications.

Recent articles include:

Foreign Policy

2012

10 Dec
Return of the Silviosaur

2011

15 July
Rumor and Recriminations in Rome

14 Feb
“Berlusconi’s Real Woman Problem

21 June
The Final Curtain

16 Nov
Berlusconi’s Final Act

1 Dec
The Da Monti Code

2010

19 Nov
Bunga Bunga Forever

21 Sept
The Truth About Italy: James Walston replies

14 Sept
The Bordello State

openDemocracy

2012

9 Dec
Monti’s move and the Italian game of politics

29 Oct
A spectacle, not an election: how Italians see the race

1 Oct
All aboard the Monti bandwagon!

4 Sept
Italy’s other crisis

10 April
Umberto Bossi resigns

4 Jan.
Squealing parliamentarians

2011

6 Nov
New Italians: Leadership in the immigrant communities

18 Oct
Flames in Rome

4 May
Punching below its weight

5 Jan
The risks of mayhem in Italy

Wanted in Rome

Regular articles on Italian politics for the English-speaking community in Rome.

Italian Insider

Blogs published in Rome newspaper

Europa Quotidiano

2012

10 Mar
Lo sgarbo di Cameron

7 June
Le Falkland di Obama

25 July
Sistema elettorale, la legge di Dublino

East – Crossroads Europe

2012

October
Europa e Stati Uniti, due vecchi amici in English America Votes, Europe abstains

Commentary and Analysis

Commentary and analysis on Italian politics sought and quoted by international media. Including: TV: BBC, CNN, CCTV, RT, AP, Reuters, AFP, Sky, ABC (US and Australian), Korean Broadcasting System, PressTV. Radio: BBC, NPR, ABC, CBC, Deutsche Welle, RTE, RFI, Vatican. Press: Reuters, AP, AFP, Bloomberg News, Norwegian News Agency, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Toronto Globe & Mail, Washington Post, LA Times, Business Week, Les Echoes, To Nima (Athens), Pravda (Bratislava). Comment on international relations for Italian media: TV: RAI, Sky TG24, YouDem. Radio: RAI News, RAI 3 Mondo, Radio Radicale, Radio Città Futura (Rome), Radio Onda d’Urto (Brescia). Press: ADN Kronos.

Recent participation in seminars and roundtables

Nov. 2012 Invited participant to Aspen Institute, Rome closed seminar on immigration

Oct. 2012 Speaker at Institute of Global Studies, Rome discussion on US presidential elections

July 2012 Invited member of roundtable panel discussion as part of Reggio Calabria online newspaper  HYPERLINK “http://www.strill.it” www.strill.it ’s cultural month, “Tabula rasa”.

May 2012 Chaired British School in Rome closed seminar on Libyan intervention

Consultancy

Regular consultancy for US, Asian and European investors on Italian politics.

Regular briefings for embassies on Italian politics.

Peer Reviews

Feb. 2013 Research project for Austrian Social Science Fund on historical memory.

Academic journals and publications. Royal Museum for Central Africa Festrschrift. Journal of Modern Italian Studies.