Superdiversity and Sub-National Autonomous Regions: Perspectives from the South Tyrolean Case

Abstract

This chapter discusses whether the policies aimed at protecting the historical traditional minorities in South Tyrol help or hinder the creation of a tolerant and pluralistic society, and enable a defensive approach so far adopted by the South Tyrol authorities towards migration and the cultural diversity of migrants and their families. It relies primarily on the analysis of legal and policy documents, and judgments of national and international courts as well previous literature and empirical studies on South Tyrol. The chapter focuses on the competences of the South Tyrolean authorities and the measures introduced by them as regards integration and inclusion. It also looks at several recent rulings, concerning the Province of Bozen/Bolzano, by the Italian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice. The chapter concludes with observations on how to develop a defensible framework for the management of new and more complex forms of diversity at the subnational autonomous level in, but also beyond, the South Tyrolean case that reconciles unity and diversity and that overcomes, at the same time, the traditional 'old–new' minority dichotomy.