South Tyrol (Italy), with its three officially recognized language groups (Germans, Italians and Ladins), is a successful model of how a minority problem can be solved. It is based upon the principle of dissociative conflict resolution, which means separating the language groups as much as possible between themselves, as well as the principle of consociational democracy, which focuses primarily on the cooperation between the language groups’ elites. In the last few years it has been observed that while the institutional frame has not changed, society has, thereby starting to undermine the existing political and institutional system from below. This concerns mainly the ethnic division, which is being questioned more and more by civil society, as well as aspects of cooperation between the elites. As a consequence of this process, South Tyrol's autonomy is moving toward further integration, with the latter again translating into strengthening the two factors of territoriality and identity.
Due to the absence of a strong constitutional veto player, comparative research uses to classify Austria as country with weak federal structures, occasionally even as a "federation without federalism". From an institutional perspective, the assessment is definitely correct, in particular with regard to the nearly insignificant status of the second chamber Bundesrat. Apart from constitutional provisions, however, there are informal forces at work in decision-making processes. Our thesis is that any approach ignoring the fact that the nominal constitution is paralleled by a real one falls short. Instead, we focus on the Conference of State Governors which, though not established by law, is a strong player in Austria's multi-layered system qualifying the picture of "weak" federalism. The paper gives on overview of origin and function of the conference and its ambivalent role in making up for the shortcomings of the federal structures. Taking recent attempts of reorganizing fiscal equalization between states and federation as an example, the need of reforming the allocation of rights and duties between the different levels and, at the same time, the obstacles blocking the reform is outlined and analyzed.
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