Prof. Federico Donelli
Professor at the University of Trieste, Italy
Dr. Federico Donelli is Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Trieste, Italy. His research fields have covered international politics and security of the Middle East and Africa, focusing on the foreign policy of the different regional and extra-regional players in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is the author of multiple articles appearing in International Affairs, Third World Quarterly, Small Wars & Insurgencies, and The International Spectator. He is also author of Turkey in Africa. Turkey’s strategic involvement in sub-Saharan Africa (Bloomsbury, 2021) and Power Competition in the Red Sea. Testing the Post-Liberal International Order (Bloomsbury, 2025).
He is also a Senior Research Associate at the Istituto di Studi di Politica Internazionale (ISPI) in Milan, Senior Scholar Associate at the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Uppsala, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Orion Policy Institute (OPI) in Washington D.C. He is a consultant on political and security issues to a variety of governments, private companies, and international organizations.
Qualification
PhD in Political Science
Research Interests
International security, geopolitics, Africa politics and security, Red Sea, Foreign Policy
Publications
Books
Donelli, F. (2025). Power Competition in the Red Sea: Testing the Post-Liberal International Order. New York: Bloomsbury.
Donelli, F. (2021). Turkey in Africa: Turkey’s Strategic Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa. London: I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury.
Special Issues
Di Peri, R., & Donelli, F. (2021). The (re)configuration of the Euro-Mediterranean space after the 2011 Arab uprisings: borders, politics and identity. De Europa, 4(1).
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Levorato, G., & Donelli, F. (2026). Conflict Management from Below: Insights from Somali Clan Militias and Colombian Indigenous Security Initiatives. Ethnopolitics. doi: 10.1080/17449057.2026.2620950.
Donelli, F. (2025). Maritime Disruption in Yemen: The Making of a Hybrid Red Sea Order. Middle East Policy. doi: 10.1111/mepo.70018.
Donelli, F., & Levorato, G. (2025). Go with the Flow. The Fluid Nature of African Security Governance: A Tool for Interpreting African Security Regime Configuration(s). Cambridge Review of International Affairs. doi: 10.1080/09557571.2025.2518128.
Donelli, F., & Cannon, B. (2025). Beyond National Boundaries: Unpacking Turkey’s Role in the Sahel and Beyond through Geopolitical Imagination. Geopolitics. doi: 10.1080/14650045.2025.2456024.
Donelli, F., & Kabandula, A. (2025). Drivers of influence of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in East Africa: Evidence from Sudan. South African Journal of International Affairs, 31(4), 389–409.
Donelli, F., & Pericoli, A. (2024). Foreign aid, identities, and interests: Qatar and the UAE in Sudan. The International Spectator. doi: 10.1080/03932729.2024.2416892.
Levorato, G., & Donelli, F. (2024). Chronicles of African Engagement: Beyond a Dualist Reading of Foreign Intervention. African Solutions Journal, 5(1), 1–25.
Levorato, G., & Donelli, F. (2024). Undoing the Liberal versus Illiberal Peacebuilding Dichotomy. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 18(3), 266–285.
Pericoli, A., & Donelli, F. (2023). Qatar's foreign aid and political strategies in the Horn of Africa: the case of Somalia. Global Policy, 15(1), 53–65.
Coticchia, F., & Donelli, F. (2023). The Inevitable Clash? Populists and Foreign Policy Bureaucracies. International Studies Review, 25(4).
Cannon, B., & Donelli, F. (2023). Reevaluating Turkey’s national role conception and its foreign policies in Africa: Continuity or a break with the past? Journal of Balkans and Near Eastern Studies, 26(3), 295–310.
Donelli, F., & Cannon, B. (2023). Power Projection of Middle East States in the Horn of Africa: Linking Security Burdens with Capabilities. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 34(4), 759–779.
Cannon, B., & Donelli, F. (2023). Rwanda’s Military Deployments in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Neoclassical Realist Account. The International Spectator, 58(1), 109–127.
Costantini, I., & Donelli, F. (2022). Sponsor-proxy dynamics between decentered multipolarity and non-state actors: evidence from the MENA region. Small Wars & Insurgencies. doi: 10.1080/09592318.2021.2025288.
Özşahin, M. C., Donelli, F., & Gasco, R. (2021). China-Turkey Relations from the Perspective of Neo-Classical Realism. Contemporary Review of the Middle East, 9(1), 218–239.
Dentice, G., & Donelli, F. (2021). Reasserting (middle) power by looking southwards: the Italian policy towards Africa. Contemporary Italian Politics, 13(3), 331–351.
Levaggi, A. G., & Donelli, F. (2021). Turkey's changing engagement with the Global South. International Affairs, 97(4), 1105–1124.
Donelli, F. (2021). Turkey’s involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa: an empirical analysis of multitrack approach. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 40(1), 18–33.
Donelli, F., & Levaggi, A. G. (2021). Crossing Roads: The Middle East’s Security Engagement in the Horn of Africa. Global Change, Peace & Security, 33(1), 45–60.
Donelli, F. (2020). Explaining the role of intervening variables in Turkey's foreign policy behaviour. Interdisciplinary Political Studies, 6(2), 223–257.
Donelli, F., & Dentice, G. (2020). Fluctuating Saudi and Emirati Alignment Behaviours in the Horn of Africa. The International Spectator, 55(1), 126–142.
Cannon, B., & Donelli, F. (2019). Asymmetric Alliances and High Polarity: Evaluating Regional Security Complexes in the Middle East and Horn of Africa. Third World Quarterly, 41(3), 505–524.
Donelli, F. (2019). The Gülen Movement in Africa: From Transnational Asset to Anti-Turkish State Lobby. Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 13(1), 67–80.
Donelli, F. (2019). Persuading through culture, values and ideas: The controversial case of Turkey’s cultural diplomacy. Insight Turkey, 21(3), 113–133.
Donelli, F. (2018). The Ankara Consensus: the significance of Turkey’s engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa. Global Change, Peace & Security, 31(2), 57–76.
Donelli, F. (2018). Syrian Refugees in Turkey: A Security Perspective. New England Journal of Public Policy, 30(2), 1–15.
Donelli, F. (2017). Features, Aims and Limits of Turkey’s Humanitarian Diplomacy. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, 11(3), 59–83.
Donelli, F., & Levaggi, A. G. (2016). Becoming Global Actor: the Turkish agenda for the Global South. Rising Powers Quarterly, 1(2), 93–115.
Book Chapters
Levaggi, A. G., & Donelli, F. (2025). Regional Security Interdependence: The Middle East and the Horn of Africa. In E. Wastnidge & F. Belcastro (eds.), International Relations in a Multipolar Middle East. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Cannon, B., & Donelli, F. (2024). Reevaluating Turkey’s national role conception and its foreign policies in Africa: Continuity or a break with the past? In E.E. Tepeciklioğlu, F. Vreÿ, B. Baser (eds.), Turkey’s Pivot to the African Continent Strategic Crossroads. London: Routledge.
Donelli, F. (2021). Being “southern” without being of the Global South: The strange case of Turkey’s South-South Cooperation in Africa. In A.O. Tepeciklioglu & E. Eyrice (eds.), Turkey in Africa: A New Emerging Power. New York: Routledge, pp. 75–90.
Donelli, F., & Levaggi, A. G. (2018). From Mogadishu to Buenos Aires: The Global South in Turkish Foreign Policy in the late JDP period (2011–2017). In E. Parlar Del (ed.), Middle Powers in Global Governance: The Rise of Turkey. London: Springer International Publishing, pp. 53–73.
Donelli, F. (2017). A hybrid actor in the Horn of Africa: An analysis of Turkey’s involvement in Somalia. In A. Ylönen and J. Záhořík (eds.), The Horn of Africa since the 1960s: Local and International Politics Intertwined. Abingdon/New York: Routledge, pp. 158–170.