Prof. Flavia De Lucia Lumeno

Università degli Studi Niccolò Cusano

Bio

Prof. Flavia De Lucia Lumeno, PhD, is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at the Università degli Studi “Niccolò Cusano” in Rome, where she teaches Euro-Mediterranean Relations and Contemporary History. She earned her PhD at Sapienza University of Rome. Her research focuses on twentieth-century Italian foreign policy in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In 2025 she was awarded an ASMEA Research Grant.

Eni’s Energy Diplomacy and the Consolidation of Algerian Sovereignty (1962–1978)

Abstract

How did newly independent Algeria turn legal sovereignty over its hydrocarbons into effective control? Drawing on little-studied documents from the Eni archives and Italian state records, this article follows Algeria's relationship with Italy's state oil company from 1962 to 1978. It shows that Eni helped build Algerian sovereignty through institutional advice, training, and engineering, but also became the counterpart against which Algiers asserted it. The case recasts resource decolonization as a transregional process.