Indroduction. Italian intellectuals and international politics

Through the prism of one of the most original personalities of economic culture and Italian politics of the 1970s-1990s, the contribution aims to investigate the theme of international politics as a mirror of the country’s conflictual identity and, consequently, as a field of interest and speculative relevance for intellectuals. Beniamino Andreatta can in fact be considered an exemplary testimony of the value that Europeanism has played in the redefinition of the country’s international politics in an open context of multilateral relations. At the same time his personality sheds light on the role that intellectuals/technicians have given to Europe as an orthopedic corrector and regenerative pedagogy of a political system that had become increasingly inefficient, patronizing, uneconomic: in a word, ungovernable. The essay will first try to highlight which specific elements of Andreatta’s intellectual and cultural formation were the foundation of his vision of international politics. To then rebuild how this vision materialized at the operational level, paying particular attention to the most significant circumstances of commitment of Andreatta within the political institutions.