Abstract
South Tyrol, an Italian province with a German-speaking minority and an extensive political autonomy to protect its diversity, has witnessed the increasing arrival of migrants from foreign countries. The Province has extensive powers in matters concerning migration, especially the integration of the migrant population, and it is developing policies on the basis of the specific characteristics of its society. At the same time, its actions should submit to a general framework established by the Italian government as well as decisions taken at the European level. Combining political science and law approaches, the contribution explores the role played by regional, national and supranational actors in the shaping of South Tyrolean policies, including a legal analysis of national and international judgments on provincial laws and decentralized competences on migration and integration in South Tyrol. The analysis will reveal the problems and tensions among levels of governance vis-à-vis the management of immigration in territory characterized by complex diversity and robust but at same time feeble decentralized system of power.
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Notes
- 1.
In this contribution, the term ‘old minorities’ is used to refer to communities whose members have a language, culture and/or religion distinct from that of the rest of the population, and who became minorities as a consequence of a re-drawing of international borders, or who for various reasons did not achieve statehood of their own but came to be part of a larger country or several countries (Medda-Windischer 2010; Harff and Gurr 2004).
- 2.
According to the last 2011 census, South Tyrol population is composed of 69.4% German speakers, 26.1% Italian speakers and 4.5% Ladin speakers.
- 3.
Vertical dimension of multilevel governance, which is the focus of this chapter, refers to the linkages among levels of territorial governance (local, national and supranational), whereas the horizontal dimension refers to relationship and cooperation among various public and private actors within the same level of territorial governance.
- 4.
See, in this regard, the Programme of the Südtiroler Volkspartei (SVP), in which it is reported that ‘The stated aim of the SVP is to further establish autonomy at all levels and thus to grant South Tyrol the highest possible degree of independence’ (Südtiroler Volkspartei 2016, p. 4). Translation by the authors.
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Carlà, A., Medda-Windischer, R. (2018). Multilevel Governance and Migration: Conflicts Among Levels of Governance in the South Tyrol Case. In: Lacroix, T., Desille, A. (eds) International Migrations and Local Governance. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65996-1_4
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