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IntroduzioneAnche se quello di sicurezza è un termine impiegato molto frequentemente negli studi di relazioni internazionali, in particolar modo negli ultimi decenni, la sua elaborazione concettuale è lungi dall'aver raggiunto un livello soddisfacente. Eppure, alcuni dei molti studi dedicati specificamente a tematiche contemporanee, come il controllo degli armamenti e la politica di difesa degli stati occidentali, e in primo luogo degli Stati Uniti, hanno fornito definizioni piò o meno esplicite e articolate. Così, ad esempio, Donald Brennan (1961, 8) sostiene che la sicurezza è composta, in proporzioni variabili, tanto dalla protezione della sopravvivenza nazionale, intesa questa nei suoi significati fisici, politici e degli standard di vita, quanto dal perseguimento dei fini di politica estera. Secondo Morton Berkowitz e P.G. Bock (1968, 40), invece, la sicurezza sarebbe una piò generica «capacità di una nazione di proteggere i suoi valori interni da minacce esterne».

Umberto Gori has held the first chair of International Relations in Italy and has been the first scholar to address a series of central topics in the analysis of foreign policy and international politics. Those who browse, even if only rapidly, his rich bibliography cannot but be struck by the great variety of the topics examined: from the first works of a predominantly legal nature, we move on to studies centered on methodological and epistemological issues, relations between states, analysis of foreign policy in general and Italian foreign policy in particular, Peace Research, strategic affairs, intelligence, and finally the impact of the information and digital revolution on international politics and contemporary strategy. What holds together so many different issues is, firstly, a constant attention to methodology and, secondly, a clear preference for a predominantly operational approach, in the belief that knowledge must always be functional to decision and action. These basic attitudes are reflected not only in his strongly characterized research agenda, but also in the twofold nature of his teaching commitment: on the one hand, Gori taught outside the university classrooms, at military and governmental institutions, for decades; on the other hand, he introduced issues traditionally reserved to diplomacy and security institutions into the Italian academic context. Such a propensity to build bridges between different worlds - academic, military, technological, diplomatic, financial - and a research vocation that has never failed make Umberto Gori a figure indissolubly linked to the birth and development of International Relations in Italy.

Fino a tempi relativamente recenti – più o meno fino alla fine della guerra fredda – la triade realismo, pluralismo, strutturalismo ha espresso un ruolo analogo a quello di una sorta dilimesdisciplinare e, come tale, ambiguo nei riguardi dello spazio cognitivo oggetto di indagine. Espressione della forza di programmi di ricerca ormai istituzionalizzati da una presenza accademica pluridecennale, la stessa triade ha delimitato anche la frontiera dell'identità disciplinare, i limiti all'interno del quale la riflessione sistematica sui problemi della politica internazionale poteva veder riconosciuto il proprio diritto di cittadinanza nell'ambito della teoria delle R.I.

The political role of international theoretical discourse is an essential & most contested issue in the IR contemporary debate. The resistance of traditional perspectives to the inclusion of self-reflective elements on the agenda of international political analysis reflects the inadequacy of the theoretical framework to bear the ambiguous relation between political & theoretical discourse. I argue that metaphorical analysis has the potential both to offer an important self-reflective contribution to IR discipline & to discard its theoretical boundaries -- as defined by positivist & neopositivist assumptions. Political metaphors establish meanings that frame both political & theoretical discourse. The distinction between these two, albeit possible on analytic grounds, is in practice much less tenable; the cognitive representations of each commonly spill over to the other. Once metaphorically established, the meanings attached to these representations play a role that is both influential & latent or, more precisely, influential because latent. The analysis of political metaphors offers the opportunity to shed some light on & investigate the latent meanings that theoretical discourse assimilates from political discourse & vice versa. However, the theoretical requirements of metaphoric analysis are not compatible with the main assumptions that constitute the theoretical framework of IR traditional perspectives. The second part of the article presents reasons why metaphoric analysis, while comfortably adaptable to critical & constructivist research programs, does indeed "threaten" IR disciplinary boundaries -- as defined by the realist, pluralist, & structuralist triad -- but it also offers the opportunity to expand them toward grounds that appear more acceptable both socially & theoretically. 1 Table, 84 References. Adapted from the source document.