Soft power and the legacy of humanism: Italy in the cultural geopolitical arena

This book investigates the geopolitical significance of soft power in an era of global fragmentation, reinterpreting Joseph Nye’s theoretical framework through the Italian case. In a world increasingly shaped by systemic crises, protracted conflicts, and new geographies of interdependence, cultural attraction is conceptualized as a strategic resource and as an alternative to coercive paradigms of power. Italy projects influence through a centuries-old reservoir of cultural capital rooted in the legacy of Roman civilization, the Renaissance, and contemporary diasporic networks. Italian soft power operates across transnational educational, symbolic, and diasporic circuits, sustained by a decentralized and reticular model of cultural diplomacy that strengthens Italy’s agency within the international system. The study advances an interpretation of Italian civilization as a geocultural actor, the living embodiment of a diffuse humanism capable of generating symbolic proximity and cooperative engagement within a post-national order. Italy thus emerges as a form of gentle power: a credible mediator in an increasingly polarized and fluid geopolitical landscape.