Federico Donelli
Biographic Data
| ID | 2140056 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Federico Donelli |
| GIVEN NAMES | Federico |
| FAMILY NAME | Donelli |
| SIGNATURE | DONELLI F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Trieste |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6093-3510 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Conflict Management from Below
The article challenges conventional views in peace studies portraying local responses to violence as spontaneous and unstructured. Drawing on cases from Colombia (Guardia Indígena) and Somalia (Ma’awisley), we demonstrate how local actors can autonomously shape security through systematic, coherent, and long-term strategies. The article shifts attention to a hitherto neglected form of purposive local agency amid conflict, whose marginalisation in…
Foreign Aid, Identities and Interests
The entanglement of domestic and geopolitical dynamics with the evolution of the aid strategies of the Gulf States is particularly evident in the Horn of Africa (HOA), where the regional competition for exercising influence has affected the modalities of humanitarian and development interventions. A comparison of the foreign aid given by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Sudan in the context of its political and humanitarian crisis duri…
Maritime Disruption in Yemen
Since late 2023, Houthi forces in Yemen have employed drones and missiles to disrupt commercial shipping in the Bab al‐Mandeb Strait, necessitating global rerouting and prompting multilateral naval responses. These events challenge the conventional view that the land domain is fragmented and prone to conflict, while the maritime domain is cooperative and regime‐governed. To explain the developments in Yemen, this article applies regional security…
Go with the flow. The fluid nature of African security governance
This article explores the evolving dynamics shaping African security governance. Drawing on the concept of regime complex, the study frames African security governance as a fluid system characterised by overlapping institutions and non-hierarchical interactions. Within it, the research emphasises the role of state actors in strategically selecting the institutional arenas that best align with their interests during security crises by means of for…
Beyond National Boundaries
For many scholars, Türkiye’s foreign policy since the early 2000s has been seen as shifting from a West–oriented to an East-facing approach, with its engagement in Sub–Saharan Africa reflecting this change. This article offers an alternative perspective, arguing that Türkiye’s geopolitical imagination and national role conception as a ‘centre country’ provide a deeper understanding of its policies in Africa and beyond. By examining Türkiye’s invo…
Qatar's foreign aid and political strategies in the Horn of Africa
The purpose of this article is to analyse the relationship between Qatar's foreign policy and foreign aid in the Horn of Africa (HoA), with a particular focus on Somalia. Since the 2017 blockade, the HoA has become increasingly important to Qatar's foreign policy and aid efforts, intensifying political and economic competition with other Gulf players. This research describes Qatar's foreign policy strategies and tools in the HoA from 2011 to 2021…
Turkey-Africa Relations and Turkey’s National Role Conception as the Centre Country
The increase in Turkey’s visibility and power in Sub-Saharan Africa has attracted great attention. The rise of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party, the story goes, engendered an abrupt shift from a cautious to a proactive foreign policy. We posit, however, that the seeds of Turkey’s opening to Africa date back decades and are an extension of its centre country (merkez ülke) national role conception. Turkey only appeared cautious prior to the 20…
Undoing the Liberal versus Illiberal Peacebuilding Dichotomy
Peacebuilding necessitates a re-evaluation of the Western/liberal, non-Western/illiberal dichotomy. After numerous failures in liberal peacebuilding and the lack of innovative intervention approaches, scholars sought potential alternatives in emerging powers’ involvement in post-conflict reconstruction. However, the debate often oversimplifies the issue, categorizing Western peacebuilding as inherently liberal and non-Western peacebuilding as ill…
Drivers of influence of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in East Africa
Recent studies show that political and security competition between states in the Middle East vis-à-vis the Horn of Africa has intensified since the Arab Spring. This competition has exacerbated instability in fragile states such as Sudan. However, there is limited research on the influence of the Gulf States in Sudan. Using the neoclassical realist agent-structure framework, data from the Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity (FBIC) index and inte…
Rwanda’s Military Deployments in Sub-Saharan Africa
The Rwanda Defence Force recently staged military operations against insurgents in Mozambique and the Central African Republic. Both actions were performed outside regional or multinational efforts. This makes the contemporary actions of Rwanda outliers in the international relations of Sub-Saharan Africa and heralds shifts in conflict management on the continent. An explanation is found in the application of neoclassical realist theory to the ca…
New Directions in the Study of Populism in International Relations
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the international dimensions of populism, by now a major political phenomenon around the world. This interest, however, has been confined largely to the state level, especially the influence of populism on foreign policy. In this Forum, we argue that it is important for analysis to move beyond the state level and view populism as a concept and phenomenon of international relations (IR) rather …
Power projection of Middle East states in the Horn of Africa
The reported militarization of the Horn of Africa by Middle Eastern states has generated great interest among scholars and analysts alike. Their analyses and articles about the projections of power from the Middle East to the Horn of Africa are exaggerated, however, because they underappreciate the extant and enduring security burdens of the states in question and overestimate their national power capabilities. This is largely due to common mispe…
Sponsor-proxy dynamics between decentered multipolarity and non-state actors
Contemporary civil conflicts are increasingly inter- and trans-nationalized: distinctive conflict dynamics extend beyond the boundaries of the respective states and are exposed to foreign involvement, in different forms. Within this trend stands the often mentioned but yet to be fully grasped role of non-state actors, referred to as, among others, proxies, mercenaries, militias (pro-government or not), or insurgents. The article revises the debat…
Turkey’s involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa
Since 2005 the Ankara government has increased its diplomatic engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Along with the improvement of political and economic relations, Turkey has carved out an interesting role in humanitarian assistance and development aid. Taking principles and norms from both, Turkey has elaborated its own way of development which lies between the DAC and non-DAC countries. A feature that makes Turkey’s approach toward SSA differ…
China–Turkey Relations from the Perspective of Neoclassical Realism
There is plenty of studies focusing on China’s global outreach through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In tandem with this, the extensive literature on China depicts it as the next hegemon to succeed in the USA. Along this line, flourishing ties with various Asian nations, including the Middle Eastern countries, as a result of China’s recent foreign policy activism has been addressed extensively. While most research has been stressing the ris…
Reasserting (middle) power by looking southwards
In 2015, the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi launched a new Italian agenda for Africa. Until then Italian involvement in African affairs had been almost exclusively restricted to multilateral initiatives. Through its new pro-active approach, Italy has engaged with the African countries through a dynamic and multi-layered partnership aimed at fostering peace, stability, economic growth and human development on the continent. Within this framework, Ita…
Crossing Roads
This paper aims to analyse the growing enlargement of the spheres of competition from the Middle East into the Horn of Africa. It does so by using insights from regional order and realist neoclassical literature to understand the expansion of regional powers into this area as the result of strategic interactions within their own region. The central argument is that the clashing interests among Middle Eastern regional powers and power asymmetry wi…
Turkey's changing engagement with the global South
Over the past fifteen years, Turkey has tried to achieve the status of global actor. Enhancing ties with the global South has been one policy to achieve this objective. The article aims to analyse the changing trajectory of Ankara's approach towards a non-traditional orientation of its foreign policy, the southern dimension, by focusing on the determinants of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) foreign policy in the last decade. The key arg…
Fluctuating Saudi and Emirati Alignment Behaviours in the Horn of Africa
The overthrow of Omar al-Bashir after three decades of rule has brought to light a dynamic that has been present for years: an interweaving of political, economic and security issues between the states of the Horn of Africa and the Gulf monarchies. Since 2011, the most active powers are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which seek political support to counter both Iran’s influence and the growing Turkish presence. The two …
Asymmetric alliances and high polarity
The Middle East and the Horn of Africa exist in two distinct regional security complexes (RSCs), groupings of states exhibiting intense security interdependence within a distinct region, but rarely between regions. Recent geopolitical changes and related analyses, however, point to either a subsuming or a joining of the two RSCs, potentially leading to a high degree of uncertainty in two conflict-prone regions. Given the importance of such develo…
Persuading through Culture, Values and Ideas
Cultural diplomacy always links to and often overlaps with soft power and public diplomacy. Thus, the three notions have entered the lexi- con of International Relations, and have become standard terms in foreign policy thinking. Drawing on the conceptualization of cultural diplomacy, this article examines the features, structure, actors, and possibilities of Tur- key’s foreign cultural strategy. Specifically, it focuses on an analysis of the dou…
The Ankara consensus
Although research has examined the Turkish agenda for Africa since 2002, few studies have considered Turkey's uniqueness compared to other extra-regional actors. This study is an attempt to analyze and conceptualize the characteristics, benefits, challenges, and limits of Turkey's policy toward the region. This article argues that the characteristics of the Turkish agenda toward sub-Saharan Africa have made Turkey a non-traditional actor in the r…
The Ankara consensus
Although research has examined the Turkish agenda for Africa since 2002, few studies have considered Turkey's uniqueness compared to other extra-regional actors. This study is an attempt to analyze and conceptualize the characteristics, benefits, challenges, and limits of Turkey's policy toward the region. This article argues that the characteristics of the Turkish agenda toward sub-Saharan Africa have made Turkey a non-traditional actor in the r…
New Directions in the Study of Populism in International Relations
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the international dimensions of populism, by now a major political phenomenon around the world. This interest, however, has been confined largely to the state level, especially the influence of populism on foreign policy. In this Forum, we argue that it is important for analysis to move beyond the state level and view populism as a concept and phenomenon of international relations (IR) rather …
Reasserting (middle) power by looking southwards
In 2015, the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi launched a new Italian agenda for Africa. Until then Italian involvement in African affairs had been almost exclusively restricted to multilateral initiatives. Through its new pro-active approach, Italy has engaged with the African countries through a dynamic and multi-layered partnership aimed at fostering peace, stability, economic growth and human development on the continent. Within this framework, Ita…
Asymmetric alliances and high polarity
The Middle East and the Horn of Africa exist in two distinct regional security complexes (RSCs), groupings of states exhibiting intense security interdependence within a distinct region, but rarely between regions. Recent geopolitical changes and related analyses, however, point to either a subsuming or a joining of the two RSCs, potentially leading to a high degree of uncertainty in two conflict-prone regions. Given the importance of such develo…
Turkey's changing engagement with the global South
Over the past fifteen years, Turkey has tried to achieve the status of global actor. Enhancing ties with the global South has been one policy to achieve this objective. The article aims to analyse the changing trajectory of Ankara's approach towards a non-traditional orientation of its foreign policy, the southern dimension, by focusing on the determinants of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) foreign policy in the last decade. The key arg…
Sponsor-proxy dynamics between decentered multipolarity and non-state actors
Contemporary civil conflicts are increasingly inter- and trans-nationalized: distinctive conflict dynamics extend beyond the boundaries of the respective states and are exposed to foreign involvement, in different forms. Within this trend stands the often mentioned but yet to be fully grasped role of non-state actors, referred to as, among others, proxies, mercenaries, militias (pro-government or not), or insurgents. The article revises the debat…
Beyond National Boundaries
For many scholars, Türkiye’s foreign policy since the early 2000s has been seen as shifting from a West–oriented to an East-facing approach, with its engagement in Sub–Saharan Africa reflecting this change. This article offers an alternative perspective, arguing that Türkiye’s geopolitical imagination and national role conception as a ‘centre country’ provide a deeper understanding of its policies in Africa and beyond. By examining Türkiye’s invo…
Crossing Roads
This paper aims to analyse the growing enlargement of the spheres of competition from the Middle East into the Horn of Africa. It does so by using insights from regional order and realist neoclassical literature to understand the expansion of regional powers into this area as the result of strategic interactions within their own region. The central argument is that the clashing interests among Middle Eastern regional powers and power asymmetry wi…
Maritime Disruption in Yemen
Since late 2023, Houthi forces in Yemen have employed drones and missiles to disrupt commercial shipping in the Bab al‐Mandeb Strait, necessitating global rerouting and prompting multilateral naval responses. These events challenge the conventional view that the land domain is fragmented and prone to conflict, while the maritime domain is cooperative and regime‐governed. To explain the developments in Yemen, this article applies regional security…
Drivers of influence of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in East Africa
Recent studies show that political and security competition between states in the Middle East vis-à-vis the Horn of Africa has intensified since the Arab Spring. This competition has exacerbated instability in fragile states such as Sudan. However, there is limited research on the influence of the Gulf States in Sudan. Using the neoclassical realist agent-structure framework, data from the Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity (FBIC) index and inte…
China–Turkey Relations from the Perspective of Neoclassical Realism
There is plenty of studies focusing on China’s global outreach through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In tandem with this, the extensive literature on China depicts it as the next hegemon to succeed in the USA. Along this line, flourishing ties with various Asian nations, including the Middle Eastern countries, as a result of China’s recent foreign policy activism has been addressed extensively. While most research has been stressing the ris…
The Ankara consensus
Although research has examined the Turkish agenda for Africa since 2002, few studies have considered Turkey's uniqueness compared to other extra-regional actors. This study is an attempt to analyze and conceptualize the characteristics, benefits, challenges, and limits of Turkey's policy toward the region. This article argues that the characteristics of the Turkish agenda toward sub-Saharan Africa have made Turkey a non-traditional actor in the r…
Persuading through Culture, Values and Ideas
Cultural diplomacy always links to and often overlaps with soft power and public diplomacy. Thus, the three notions have entered the lexi- con of International Relations, and have become standard terms in foreign policy thinking. Drawing on the conceptualization of cultural diplomacy, this article examines the features, structure, actors, and possibilities of Tur- key’s foreign cultural strategy. Specifically, it focuses on an analysis of the dou…
Fluctuating Saudi and Emirati Alignment Behaviours in the Horn of Africa
The overthrow of Omar al-Bashir after three decades of rule has brought to light a dynamic that has been present for years: an interweaving of political, economic and security issues between the states of the Horn of Africa and the Gulf monarchies. Since 2011, the most active powers are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which seek political support to counter both Iran’s influence and the growing Turkish presence. The two …
Asymmetric alliances and high polarity
The Middle East and the Horn of Africa exist in two distinct regional security complexes (RSCs), groupings of states exhibiting intense security interdependence within a distinct region, but rarely between regions. Recent geopolitical changes and related analyses, however, point to either a subsuming or a joining of the two RSCs, potentially leading to a high degree of uncertainty in two conflict-prone regions. Given the importance of such develo…
China–Turkey Relations from the Perspective of Neoclassical Realism
There is plenty of studies focusing on China’s global outreach through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In tandem with this, the extensive literature on China depicts it as the next hegemon to succeed in the USA. Along this line, flourishing ties with various Asian nations, including the Middle Eastern countries, as a result of China’s recent foreign policy activism has been addressed extensively. While most research has been stressing the ris…
Reasserting (middle) power by looking southwards
In 2015, the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi launched a new Italian agenda for Africa. Until then Italian involvement in African affairs had been almost exclusively restricted to multilateral initiatives. Through its new pro-active approach, Italy has engaged with the African countries through a dynamic and multi-layered partnership aimed at fostering peace, stability, economic growth and human development on the continent. Within this framework, Ita…
Crossing Roads
This paper aims to analyse the growing enlargement of the spheres of competition from the Middle East into the Horn of Africa. It does so by using insights from regional order and realist neoclassical literature to understand the expansion of regional powers into this area as the result of strategic interactions within their own region. The central argument is that the clashing interests among Middle Eastern regional powers and power asymmetry wi…
Turkey's changing engagement with the global South
Over the past fifteen years, Turkey has tried to achieve the status of global actor. Enhancing ties with the global South has been one policy to achieve this objective. The article aims to analyse the changing trajectory of Ankara's approach towards a non-traditional orientation of its foreign policy, the southern dimension, by focusing on the determinants of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) foreign policy in the last decade. The key arg…
Sponsor-proxy dynamics between decentered multipolarity and non-state actors
Contemporary civil conflicts are increasingly inter- and trans-nationalized: distinctive conflict dynamics extend beyond the boundaries of the respective states and are exposed to foreign involvement, in different forms. Within this trend stands the often mentioned but yet to be fully grasped role of non-state actors, referred to as, among others, proxies, mercenaries, militias (pro-government or not), or insurgents. The article revises the debat…
Turkey’s involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa
Since 2005 the Ankara government has increased its diplomatic engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Along with the improvement of political and economic relations, Turkey has carved out an interesting role in humanitarian assistance and development aid. Taking principles and norms from both, Turkey has elaborated its own way of development which lies between the DAC and non-DAC countries. A feature that makes Turkey’s approach toward SSA differ…
Rwanda’s Military Deployments in Sub-Saharan Africa
The Rwanda Defence Force recently staged military operations against insurgents in Mozambique and the Central African Republic. Both actions were performed outside regional or multinational efforts. This makes the contemporary actions of Rwanda outliers in the international relations of Sub-Saharan Africa and heralds shifts in conflict management on the continent. An explanation is found in the application of neoclassical realist theory to the ca…
New Directions in the Study of Populism in International Relations
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the international dimensions of populism, by now a major political phenomenon around the world. This interest, however, has been confined largely to the state level, especially the influence of populism on foreign policy. In this Forum, we argue that it is important for analysis to move beyond the state level and view populism as a concept and phenomenon of international relations (IR) rather …
Power projection of Middle East states in the Horn of Africa
The reported militarization of the Horn of Africa by Middle Eastern states has generated great interest among scholars and analysts alike. Their analyses and articles about the projections of power from the Middle East to the Horn of Africa are exaggerated, however, because they underappreciate the extant and enduring security burdens of the states in question and overestimate their national power capabilities. This is largely due to common mispe…
Qatar's foreign aid and political strategies in the Horn of Africa
The purpose of this article is to analyse the relationship between Qatar's foreign policy and foreign aid in the Horn of Africa (HoA), with a particular focus on Somalia. Since the 2017 blockade, the HoA has become increasingly important to Qatar's foreign policy and aid efforts, intensifying political and economic competition with other Gulf players. This research describes Qatar's foreign policy strategies and tools in the HoA from 2011 to 2021…
Turkey-Africa Relations and Turkey’s National Role Conception as the Centre Country
The increase in Turkey’s visibility and power in Sub-Saharan Africa has attracted great attention. The rise of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party, the story goes, engendered an abrupt shift from a cautious to a proactive foreign policy. We posit, however, that the seeds of Turkey’s opening to Africa date back decades and are an extension of its centre country (merkez ülke) national role conception. Turkey only appeared cautious prior to the 20…
Undoing the Liberal versus Illiberal Peacebuilding Dichotomy
Peacebuilding necessitates a re-evaluation of the Western/liberal, non-Western/illiberal dichotomy. After numerous failures in liberal peacebuilding and the lack of innovative intervention approaches, scholars sought potential alternatives in emerging powers’ involvement in post-conflict reconstruction. However, the debate often oversimplifies the issue, categorizing Western peacebuilding as inherently liberal and non-Western peacebuilding as ill…
Drivers of influence of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in East Africa
Recent studies show that political and security competition between states in the Middle East vis-à-vis the Horn of Africa has intensified since the Arab Spring. This competition has exacerbated instability in fragile states such as Sudan. However, there is limited research on the influence of the Gulf States in Sudan. Using the neoclassical realist agent-structure framework, data from the Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity (FBIC) index and inte…
Foreign Aid, Identities and Interests
The entanglement of domestic and geopolitical dynamics with the evolution of the aid strategies of the Gulf States is particularly evident in the Horn of Africa (HOA), where the regional competition for exercising influence has affected the modalities of humanitarian and development interventions. A comparison of the foreign aid given by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Sudan in the context of its political and humanitarian crisis duri…
Maritime Disruption in Yemen
Since late 2023, Houthi forces in Yemen have employed drones and missiles to disrupt commercial shipping in the Bab al‐Mandeb Strait, necessitating global rerouting and prompting multilateral naval responses. These events challenge the conventional view that the land domain is fragmented and prone to conflict, while the maritime domain is cooperative and regime‐governed. To explain the developments in Yemen, this article applies regional security…
Go with the flow. The fluid nature of African security governance
This article explores the evolving dynamics shaping African security governance. Drawing on the concept of regime complex, the study frames African security governance as a fluid system characterised by overlapping institutions and non-hierarchical interactions. Within it, the research emphasises the role of state actors in strategically selecting the institutional arenas that best align with their interests during security crises by means of for…
Beyond National Boundaries
For many scholars, Türkiye’s foreign policy since the early 2000s has been seen as shifting from a West–oriented to an East-facing approach, with its engagement in Sub–Saharan Africa reflecting this change. This article offers an alternative perspective, arguing that Türkiye’s geopolitical imagination and national role conception as a ‘centre country’ provide a deeper understanding of its policies in Africa and beyond. By examining Türkiye’s invo…
Conflict Management from Below
The article challenges conventional views in peace studies portraying local responses to violence as spontaneous and unstructured. Drawing on cases from Colombia (Guardia Indígena) and Somalia (Ma’awisley), we demonstrate how local actors can autonomously shape security through systematic, coherent, and long-term strategies. The article shifts attention to a hitherto neglected form of purposive local agency amid conflict, whose marginalisation in…
Political science (20 works) · Political economy (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Economics (15 works) · Development economics (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · International Development and Aid (12 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (11 works) · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts (8 works)