Societal Security in South Tyrol: A Model to Deal with Ethnic Conflicts

Abstract

South Tyrol has been referred to as a model to deal with ethnic diversity and resolving ethnic conflicts. This article explains the South Tyrol model’s success by blending ethnic politics with concepts from security studies: societal security and securitization. Societal security refers to threats that emerge from the fact that humans belong to communal groups that do not correspond to defined state borders. Securitization is the process by which an issue is considered as an existential threat that requires emergency measures. The article develops a framework to identify which dynamics made South Tyrol successful, analyzing factors that sparked security concerns and processes of securitization and highlighting actions and measures that tackled these dynamics. Concurrently, South Tyrol is used as an empirical case to expand our understanding of societal security and elaborate (and test) a detailed toolkit to prevent or dissolve the violent mobilization of ethnic diversity and societal security threats.

Conservation with local people: medicinal plants as cultural keystone species in the Southern Alps

“…Interestingly, the 10 CKS candidates provide remedies for the most common health problems and therefore can be considered as the first-aid kit that characterizes the culture (Menendez-Baceta et al 2014). The most frequent therapeutic uses were digestive, respiratory, and integumentary systems that were in line with other ethnobotanical surveys on medicinal plants in Alpine areas (Mattalia et al 2013, Vitalini et al 2013, 2015, Cornara et al 2014. All CKS candidates had the characteristics of a multi-contextual remedy for several disorders highlighting their central role in traditional folk medicine.…”

“…Over 300,000 native German (70%), 100,000 Italian (26%), and 20,000 native Ladin (4%) speakers live in South Tyrol (population census of 2011, ASTAT 2018). After being a part of the Habsburg Empire for centuries, South Tyrol and the neighboring Trentino became part of Italy after World War I followed by Italianization measures under Mussolini and now has an autonomous regional government under the Italian state (Steininger 2003, Lantschner 2008) with a power-sharing system across the linguistic groups that successfully deals with ethnic diversity, resolves potential conflicts, and encourages interethnic cooperation (Alber 2017, Carlà 2015. The South Tyrolean society encompasses three clearly distinct linguistic groups.…”

Understanding old herbal secrets: The renaissance of traditional medicinal plants beyond the twenty classic species?

“…After centuries of belonging to the Habsburg Empire, South Tyrol became part of Italy after World War I (Steininger, 2003;Lantscher, 2008), with a governance and system of power-sharing between the three clearly separated language groups (German, Italian, Ladin) that successfully manages ethnic diversity, resolves potential conflicts and promotes interethnic cooperation (Alber, 2017;Carlà, 2015, Carlà, 2022. Ladin speakers live mainly in two valleys and Italian speakers live mainly in urban areas, especially in the South Tyrolean capital Bolzano (Carlà, 2022).…”

‘Participatory consociationalism? No, but South Tyrol's Autonomy Convention is evidence that power‐sharing can transform conflicts’

“…Power‐sharing successfully transformed the conflict in South Tyrol because it desecuritised the relationship between the three linguistic groups (Wolff ; Pallaver ; Carlà ). German‐ and Ladin‐speakers saw the actions of the Italian state and the plantation of Italian‐speakers after annexation as an existential threat.…”