The Construction of Africa in Italian Foreign Policy: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Mattei Plan

This thesis analyses the discursive construction of Africa in Italian foreign policy from the colonial period to the contemporary Mattei Plan. Adopting a constructivist and postcolonial theoretical approach, and in particular employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study investigates how official texts, political speeches and policy documents have contributed to shaping representations of Africa and to legitimising specific forms of Italian intervention on the continent. The analysis focuses on the temporal evolution of these discourses, structured around four key historical phases: the colonial and fascist period, the post–Second World War era, the 1990s and 2000s, and the current phase marked by the Mattei Plan, considered the latest manoeuvre of Italian foreign policy towards Africa. For each period, the thesis examines how Africa has been narrated and thus discursively constructed, how Italy has in turn constructed its role and identity in relation to the continent, and which narratives have been employed to justify interventions. The central argument of the thesis is that language and word choices are not neutral, but rather serve to construct the “Other” and to legitimise specific policy choices and actions. By tracing both transformations and continuities in Italian foreign policy discourse on Africa, this thesis contributes to a critical understanding of how language, power and identity shape foreign policy practices and the legitimisation of external intervention.