This dissertation offers a detailed examination of Italian foreign policy during the early Republican period with particular attention to relations with Latin America. It investigates how domestic dynamics—political negotiations, party ideologies, and electoral pressures—shaped Italy’s strategic orientation abroad. The central research question asks in what ways internal factors and the organizational structures of political parties influence the formulation of Italian foreign policy in Latin...
This dissertation examines the evolution of China’s global role through a critical analysis of the People’s Republic of China’s cultural diplomacy, with a particular focus on the Confucius Institute initiative and its development during Xi Jinping’s “new era.” The Confucius Institute project is positioned as a lens through which to investigate the interplay between China’s self-conceptualizations, representations, and expectations as a cultural global power and the responses these elicit from...
This thesis provides a historical analysis of the complexity of energy, technological and scientific relations between the European Economic Community (EEC) and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) from the 1960s to the 1980s. It focuses on the institutional frameworks and diplomatic dynamics that shaped their interactions in the post-colonial context. Particular attention is given to how global energy crises -especially the 1973 oil shock- impacted these relationships, prompting cooperati...
This doctoral thesis investigates the role of the oil and gas sector in shaping a “just” energy transition in Africa, with a focused case study on Kenya’s emerging biofuels sector. Drawing on an International Political Economy (IPE) framework enriched by energy justice and political ecology perspectives, the research critically examines how global regimes and corporate structural power interact to influence policy and practice in resource rich contexts. Primary fieldwork—including interviews ...
Gli elevati livelli di radiazione solare e il ritardo nel raggiungimento dell'accesso universale all'energia (SDG7) in Africa sub-sahariana hanno portato gli attori internazionali nel campo dello sviluppo e dell’energia a inquadrare i sistemi solari off-grid per uso domestico come una soluzione tecnologica ideale, alternativa alle reti elettriche tradizionali, per l'elettrificazione rurale della regione. Guidati da tali considerazioni, dal mantra del mercato alla “base della piramide” e della...
Despite recent advancements in L2 vocabulary assessment research, carefully validated tools for collocation assessment remain limited, especially for languages other than English. This thesis aims to address this gap by developing and evaluating the CombITA test (Combinations in Italian test), a tool for assessing collocation knowledge in intermediate-advanced L1 Greek learners of Italian, using an argument-based approach to validation.
Evidence supporting the interpretation of CombITA score...
This study represents a starting point for the reconstruction of a reliable, philologically sound text of the Quadriregio, a didactic allegorical poem in Dantean tercets, composed between the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries by Federico Frezzi, theologian and bishop of Foligno, who died in 1416. The investigation focuses on the modes of transmission of the poem and the possibility of reconstructing a common archetype, leading primarily the identification of the main manuscript gr...
La presente ricerca intende offrire un repertorio aggiornato alla seconda metà degli anni Novanta dei progetti di riforma riguardanti il Ministero degli Affari Esteri nonché delle riflessioni concernenti le criticità, i ricorrenti dilemmi tematici ma anche le pratiche virtuose che hanno contraddistinto l’operato degli Esteri, sia nella sua dimensione centrale che estera. L'idea è di presentare questo quadro di proposte riformatrici attraverso la lente del dibattito interno all'Italia, animato...
La tesi cerca di spiegare i cambiamenti e l'evoluzione dell'Arabia Saudita. La tesi confronta le strategie e lo soft power del regime saudita negli ultimi decenni con uno studio storico di quattro casi in cui la regione e la monarchia hanno vissuto un periodo di agitazione rivoluzionaria: l'era del nazionalismo arabo e le minacce affrontate dal regime; il pan-islamismo rivoluzionario iraniano; l'instabilità che ha colpito la monarchia dopo la Seconda Guerra del Golfo, e infine la rivolta arab...
Online distance learning, especially in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), poses some challenges for managing a large-scale interaction taking place among a high number of students. Learning Analytics (LA) offers tools that can help overcome these challenges by providing relevant information about student engagement patterns and their modes of interaction. This research presents a case study where the LA system of the EduOpen platform was applied for exploring and interpreting students’ int...