The Political Ecology of Ethnicity: the Case of the South Tyrol

THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF ETHNICITY: THE CASE OF THE SOUTH TYROL

PIERRE ROSSI

B.a., University Of British Columbia, 1984

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

Political Science Department

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to the required standard

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

August 1990

© Pierre Rossi, 1990 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. '

Department

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DE-6 (2/88) i i

Abstract

Unlike ethnies defined by genotype, religion or socio- cultural traits, ethno-linguistic groups require a structural basis that is territorial. Only in such a context can they exist and survive. The coexistence of three distinct ethno- linguistic groups - indigenous Germanophones and Ladins and recently-settled Italophones - in the South Tyrol is proof of this. This structural imperative stems from the societal changes of the last few centuries which made capitalist relations of production and statist institutions the dominant structural bases of social organization. The changes reshaped infrastructural mechanisms of social organization, their structured properties and the superstructural knowledge that guides human agency in instantiating such properties.

The consequences for the South Tyrol and its peoples were their subordination to external centres. Under fascist rule this subordination created a bifurcated spatio-functional order which, under conditions of democratic rule and political autonomy, enabled the indigenous periphery or complementary region to assert its centrality vis-a-vis the territory's

Italophone-controlled vital centre by using autonomous political institutions located in the same vital centre. Table of Contents

Abstract ii List of Tables v Acknowledgement iv

Chapter I GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1

Chapter II THE TYROL IN THE AGE OF CAPITALISM AND NATIONALISM 13

Chapter III THE LANGUAGE OF NATIONAL TERRITORIES AND THE RESTRUCTURATION OF TYROLEAN SPACES 27

Chapter IV POST-1945 STRATEGIES OF TERRITORIAL CONTROL AND THEIR STRUCTURAL BASES 44

1. THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL STRUCTURES 46 1.1 The Evolution Of Italian Political Structures 47 1.2 The SVP, The Politics Of Hegemony And Spatio- functional Disengagement 51 1.3 Autonomy And The Italophone Community 66 1.4 Recent Trends 70

2. THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIO-CULTURAL STRUCTURES 79

3. THE EVOLUTION OF DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURES 99

4. THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRUCTURES 109 4.1 The Transformation Of Agriculture 111 4.2 The Development Of The Service Sector 114 4.3 The Evolution Of The Industrial Sector ..116 4.4 Recent Economic Trends 119 4.5 The End Of The Ethnic Division Of Labour 121

Chapter V CONCLUSION 129

1. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TOPONYMS AND TERMS (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER) 132

2. APPENDIX A 133

3. APPENDIX B . . 1 33

4. APPENDIX C 1 34

BIBLIOGRAPHY 138 iv

Acknowledgement

I shall like to thank Professor Jean Laponce for his suggestions and guidance in the writing of this dissertation. I shall also like to thank Dr. W.Stuflesser of ASTAT, Dr. W.

Aufschnaiter and B. Leiter of the 'Amt fuer Sprach

Angelegenheiten', Dr. G. Silvestro of the 'Assessorato

Istruzione Pubblica in Lingua Italiana', Dr. I. Ghirigato of the

CISL-SGB, the Director of the 'Circolo Culturale-Kulturverein

O.Griesstaetter' of Salorno-Salurn, the Director of the 'Istitut

Ladin Micura' de Rui' of Urtijei, Ms. Elisabetta Berti of the

'Circolo Leonardo da Vinci' of Laives-Leifers, Dr. A. Strobl of

the Andere Suedtirol-Altro Sudtirolo, Ms. Eva Klotz of the WHB and the Press Office of the MSI-DN. Their material help and

cooperation were essential. V

List of Tables

1. Tyrolean Population per Area and Year, 1835-1910 (in Absolute

Numbers and Percentiles) 19

2. South Tyrolean Population per Language Group and Year, 1880-

1910 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 20

3. South Tyrolean Population, 1910-1943 (in Absolute Numbers and

Percentiles) 41

4. South Tyrolean Workforce per Language Group, 1939 (in

Percentiles) 41

5. Results of Provincial Elections by Parties Representing the

Indigenous Population in Selected Areas, 1948-1983 (in Absolute

Numbers and Percentiles) 55

6. Provincial Vote per Language Group and Ethnic Political

Alignment in Ladin Area, 1960-1983 (in Percentiles) 56

7. Results in Provincial Elections by Parties Representing

Italophone Population per Ideological Grouping, 1948-1983 (in

Percentiles)

8. Proportion of Italophone Vote going to MSI, 1980-1987 (in

Percentiles) . 69

9. Ethnic Identification (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles)

10. Distribution of 1985 Municipal Councillors according to

Declared and Presumed Ethnic Identity in Selected Areas (in

Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 81

11. Distribution of Presumed Assimilated and Non-Assimilated vi

1985 Municipal Councillors in Selected Areas (in Percentiles)

12. Socio-cultural Distance - Approval Rate (in Percentiles)

13. Exogamy Rate among South Tyrolean Families (in Percentiles)

14. Perception of Ethnic Self-Denial (in Percentiles) 88

15. Frequency of Self-Denial (in Percentiles) 88

16. Motivation for Self-Denial (in Percentiles) 88

17. Associational Behaviour per Language Group (in Percentiles)

18. Second Language Spoken or Understood per Age, Occupation and

Education Level (in Percentiles) 96

19. South Tyrolean Population per Language Group, 1910-1946 (in

Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 100

20. Demographic Factors in Selected Years, 1961-1987 (per

thousand) 100

21. Fertility Rates per Language Group in Selected Years, 1972-

1996 (Number of Children per Woman) 100

22. South Tyrolean Population per Sex and Language Group, 1961-

1981 (in Percentiles) 102

23. South Tyrolean Population per Age and Language Group, 1961-

1981 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 102

24. South Tyrolean Population, 1946-1981 (in Absolute Numbers

and Percentiles) 103

25. Number of Families per Size and Language of Head of

Household, 1986 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 106 vii

26. Number of Families per Size and Area, 1986 (in Absolute

Numbers and Percentiles) 106

27. Housing Units per Type of Deed and Language Group, 1961-1981

(in Percentiles) 106

28. South Tyrolean Population per Area and Language Group, 1961-

1981 (in Percentiles) 107

29. Ratio of Italophones to Germanophones/Ladins in Selected

Municipalities and Years, 1910-1981 107

30. Ladin Population per Area, 1910-1971 (in Absolute Numbers

and Percentiles) 108

31. Proportion of Ladin Population to Total Population in Ladin

Areas, 1961-1981 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) ....108

32. Proportion of Ladin Population per Area , 1961-1981 (in

Percentiles) 108

33. Workforce per Economic Sector and Language Group, 1939 (in

Percentiles) 110

34. Agricultural Machines and Fuel Consumption in 100 Kgs, 1960-

1985 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 113

35. Agricultural Companies per Surface and Size, 1936-1982 (in

hectares) 113

36. Number of Beds per Type of Operation, 1960-1984 (in Absolute

Numbers) 114

37. Number of Guests, 1960-1985 (in Thousands and Percentiles)

114

38. Number of Overnight Stays, 1950-1985 (in thousands and

Percentiles) 114

39. Number of Service Companies and Workforce per Size, 1951- vi i i

1981 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 115

40. Industrial Employment per Branch, 1951-1981 (in Percentiles)

117

41. Industrial Plants and Workforce per Plant Size, 1981 (in

Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 117

42. Provincial Workforce per A. Sector and Language Group B.

Language Group and Sector, 1961-1981 (in Absolute Numbers and

Percentiles) 121

43. Workforce per Occupational Category and Language Group, (in

Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) ...123

44. Workforce per Language Group and Occupational Category,

1961-1981 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 124

45. Workforce per Language Group, Occupational Category and

Sector, 1961-1981 (in Percentiles) 125

46. Workforce per Language Group and Occupational Category in

Selected Areas, 1961-1981 (in Percentiles) 127 1

I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The South Tyrol or Upper Adige is an alpine territory

located in north-eastern Italy on the border with Austria.

Prior to 1919 it belonged, along with the Trentino, to the

Habsburg empire. The boundary change and the waxing and waning

of history made it into an ethnically-mixed area where three

distinct ethno-linguistic groups - indigenous Germanophones and

Ladins and recently-settled Italophones - uneasily coexist. The

South Tyrol confirms the appearance, and in many cases the

reappearance, of centrifugal pressures within established

nation-states and the incomplete process of national integration

(see Aarebrot, 1982; Alcock, 1979; Allardt, 1979; Gourevitch,

1979; Sussi, 1982). This trend contradicts earlier predictions of integration and of the general application of the western-

styled nation-state as the dominant form of socio-political organization (Almond and Verba, 1966; Geertz, 1963).

In historical terms the comparative value of the South

Tyrolean case lies in the fact that it was one of the first

European ethno-linguistic peripheries to experience the full weight of central state policies (during the fascist era) designed to eliminate ethno-linguistic differences and political dissonance, and the first one to successfully resist and counteract their effects. In analytic terms the South Tyrol is a significant case study because it enables us to shed some light on the conceptual differences that ethnic phenomena entail, and on the particular characteristics of linguistically- defined ethnic collectivities and the underlying societal 2

changes that have structured the existence and evolution of such

groups in the last two centuries.

Ethnic collectivities or ethnies are"empirically-defined by ascriptive criteria, usually some variant or combination of four characteristics (genotype, religion, socially-significant collective origin, language) that determine collective identity

(Geertz, 1963: 108; Jackson, 1984: 222, Laponce, 1984: 24), but

analytically they possess important differences. Whereas the

first three features, which we might call type A, perform a

functional role in the shaping of ethnic identity and the

reproduction of ethnies, the latter also performs a structural

role. The essential functional principles for type A ethnies

are limited to one or few institutional domains and social

mechanisms of reproduction, namely the family and endogamy for

racial groups, religious institutions and observance for

religious communities and socio-cultural institutions and

practices for ethno-cultural groups (not primarily defined by

race, religion or language, e.g. immigrant groups). By

contrast, the reproduction of type B groups depends on language

acquisition, use and retention and on the institutional fora

where these functional principles can be performed. Both these

principles and institutions require a spatial context that is

structurally enclosed and exclusive (Kahane, 1986; De Marchi,

1982). Consequently, where language is the dominant definiens

of ethnic collectivities different propositional perspectives

are applicable.

Type A ethnies need only institutional autonomy and can 3

exist within larger, multi-ethnic social systems structured by any politico-territorial arrangement that at least tolerates this autonomy; type B ethnies need some form of spatio- functional secession from wider heteroglossic social systems.

This can take the form of a single independent state (e.g.

France), a single sub-state politico-territorial unit (e.g. post-1970Belgium) or at least a set of constitutional and administrative measures that maintain stable linguistic boundaries at the state-level (e.g. pre-1970 Belgium or substate level (e.g. Swiss Canton of Valais-Wallis).

However arranged, spatio-functional separation entails certain structural (demographic, economic, cultural, political) conditions that guarantee a language group a territory, i.e. a spatial framework with a vital centre or central place and a surrounding complementary region (Christaller, 1966: 14-80;

Laponce, 1980: 149-59) in which a sliding scale of spatio- functionally dense communication transactions and socio- economically relevant activities and institutions exist. It is in such a spatio-functional context that transactions, activities and institutions create an integrated communication field in which language groups operate and reproduce.

The abovementioned analytical observation makes the South

Tyrol (and the historic land of Tyrol) a privileged location to observe the contradictory arrangement and rearrangement of spatio-functional structures. This requires an historical and analytical scope that takes into account local and supralocal spatio-functional structures and the underlying societal 4

phenomena that shaped their evolution. In the first instance, we shall see how the lack of spatio-functional control, especially of political institutions, destabilized non- spatially-segregated ethnies, territorialized the ethno- linguistic identities of spatially-segregated ethnies and produced strategies of territorial control that both confirm and modify the analytical observation that ethno-linguistic groups need spatio-functional separation. In fact, the combination of an externally-created vital centre under Italophone control and of a complementary region still under Germanophone control enabled the indigenous group to use autonomous politico- administrative institutions, physically located in the vital centre, to assert the centrality of the complementary region and marginalize the same vital centre. In the second instance, the

rise of capitalist relations of production and of modern statist

institutions (Gellner, 1983: 1-7) entailed a more rigid spatio-

functional organization and intellectual definition of social

life. Heretofore fragmented social systems, cultures, economies and polities were brought within a single, all-encompassing

global world-economy and interstate order.

How are we to analyze such phenomena as they apply to the

spatio-functional structuration of language groups in the

(South) Tyrol? We must begin by recognizing that the basis of

all life is matter and the organization of social life cannot

escape from this fact. For Marvin Harris (1979) at the heart of

materialist approaches are several premises. First, human bio- 5

psychological givens 1 mean that social systems possess two

infrastructural components, namely, a mode of reproduction 2 and

a mode of production. 3 Hence a dualsex, multiage and self-

reproducing collection of humans that satisfies its minimal

subsistence needs possesses a distinct mode of reproduction and

production on which its existence rests. Both modes require

minimal security and order as a way of guaranteeing the least

internal and external interference, but the built-in instability

that stems from resource allocation produces two main

organizational relationships, one that is domestic ft and another

that is political, 5 which entail some form of sustainable

social organization (Harris, 1979: 46-76).

The sustainability of social systems rests on

communication. Unlike other primates, human communication

entails unique speech acts that rely on and instantiate symbolic

processes. The human brain produces behavioural phenotypes that

are recurrent and stem from both recursive and discoursive

thinking. Humans engage in ritual behaviour, form aesthetic

judgements, formalize speech acts in oral and/or written story•

telling, participate in valued recreational activity and above

1 Eating, least energy expenditure for activity, sexual urges, emotional satisfaction/security. 2 Reproduction mechanisms like natality, fertility, natality, mortality, child-rearing, birth control. 3 Production mechanisms like subsistence production, technology, techno-environmental relationships, ecosystems, work-systems. fl Family structure, age and sex roles, sexual division of labour, socialization, gender and social hierarchies. 5 Political organization, economic division of labour, political socialization, stratification, institutional control, conflict resolution mechanisms. 6

all are absorbed in self-analysis and external observation.

Hence human communication plays a crucial role in instantiating

superstructural processes, but in so doing , it plays a vital

role in shaping the structural and infrastructural bases of

social organization.

A simpler triangular scheme summates socio-environmental

phenomena under infrastructure, structure and superstructure.

The modes of reproduction and production are thus

infrastructural in nature, domestic and political economies are

structural because they organize production and reproduction,

while language-based intellectual and symbolic activity is

superstructural. The infrastructure has strategic primacy

because humans are bound by natural laws, but bnfrastructural

mechanisms rely on the domestic and political economies to

function, and both infrastructure and structure operate thanks

to the cooperative and cost-minimizing behaviour of humans,

mediated by socially-valued ideological and ideational patterns

(Harris, 1979: 70-5). This is made possible by one coordinating

mechanism: language. As a genetically predisposed human faculty

it becomes a structured property of human societies in the form

of structured, albeit semiconsciously held, sets of rules and

codes that enable humans to comprehend, know and signify

reality.

Since both infrastructural mechanisms and structured

properties relay on human agency as their instantiating mode,

human recursive (Giddens, 1981; ibid, 1986) and discoursive

(Delle Fave, 1986) knowledge inform individual and collective 7

identities and through a feedback mechanism shape individual and collective behaviour as it creates, recreates and modifies structured properties. Such interactive behaviour and the knowledge that informs it are never random, but are shaped by personal, family and collective histories as well as social hierarchies and relations of power so that individual existence and agency reflects collective structures (Habermas, 1981: 269-

70; Pradelles de Latour, 1983: 79-80).

This theoretical model enables us to consider the regularities underlying social phenomena, the (dis)continuities of their structural circumstances as well as the role played by human agency in instantiating such circumstances. In this sense we can see that ethnic collectivities possess certain infrastructural (dualsex, multiage, self-reproduction), structural (ascription, social organization, plurality) and superstructural (social identity) attributes (see Jackson,

1984), and that the difference between type A and type B ethnies is structural since the different ascriptive factors require different organizational forms, functional autonomy for the former and structural for the latter.

Similarly, we can see that in the modern period infrastructural mechanisms and structured properties came to be defined by capitalist relations of production and statist

institutions. At an infrastructural level, the rise of the first rests on the expansion of oligopolistic pressures from their traditional pre-modern niche of long-distance trade into primary and secondary economic activities within a widening 8

spatio-functional framework (Braudel, 1982: 229-47), so that it could transform prevailing techno-environmental and demographic relationships in the old world. The arrival of American specie revolutionized monetary circulation (volume and velocity) and averted the structural implosion typical of pre-modern economies

(Braudel, 1981: 466-8; Weatherford, 1988: 14-6). American foodcrops (e.g. potato and corn) launched European populations on an upward demographic spiral by relaxing demographic patterns

(Braudel, 1981: 31-102; de Vries, 1984: 213-38), shifting locational concentration of population to the cities, and reshaping human-domesticated animal complementarity

(Weatherford, 1988: 59-73). The ensuing restructuring provoked technical, managerial and technological innovations in all sectors and branches of the economy and created modern industrial and financial systems within globally-linked national markets (Braudel, 1982: 297-329; de Vries, 1984: 213-31;

Weatherford, 1988: 21-57). This change realigned primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in the new world-economy, and for the first time in human history, secondary and tertiary activities could dominate survival strategies and free agriculture from its environmental constraints and from the hegemony of subsistence and command mechanisms (Braudel, 1984:

589-92; Good, 1984: 42-4, 108-11).

At a structural level, European political organization, social hierarchies and spatio-functional divisions of labour were strenghtened and from their marginal niche capitalist relations colonized all branches and sectors of the economy 9

(Braudel, 1981: 31-107) and spread to include in a wider spatio- functional universe far away regions and disparate labour systems, social orders, ethno-cultural groups and political orders. The transformations of socio-environmental structures gave rise to a new urban and statist order in Europe (Hohenberg and Hollen Lees, 1985: 79-96) centred in the Atlantic seabord where cities organized the trading network and controlled primary and secondary activities under the benevolent eye of the state (de Vries, 1984: 241-6).

The rise of the statist order resulted from the universal application of centrally-located institutions that were internally-differentiated according to the functions of its various components and externally distinct from those social objects - agents, collectivities, processes, relationships, structures - that pertained to civil society (Nettle, 1968: 566-

77). This was made possible by its monopoly over command mechanisms and security functions (Whittlesey, 1935: 85-97) and by its alignment with those social groups that best served its

interests and whose interests it best served. Its activism spread to include economic activities and its performance stimulated and was stimulated by the same changes that pushed capitalist relations to the fore (Braudel, 1982: 515-32).

The unfolding of such structural processes required the

regimentation of linguistic structures, i.e. the closure of the communication field (where language is speech and code) and of

the semantic field (where language is speech and content)

(MacKay, 1985: 12-3), and a superstructural treatment of 10

language variety as unnatural, dysfunctional and in need of corrective measures (Salvi, 1978: 543-57). This was made necessary by the growing density of communication transactions and intensity of economic and politico-bureaurcratic operations

(Braudel, 1981: 385-429; Stewart Sweet, 1984) and led to greater

language variability in the form of specific subcodes and lower

language variety (Laponce, 1988: 36).

This transformed the communication field by replacing

heretofore functionally irrelevant language asymmetry with

short- and medium-term functional specialization and

stratification of languages and longterm language homogenization

(Laponce, 1984: 21-38). However, this process of linguistic

simplification was conditioned by geographic and socio-cultural

distance and by the (in)adequacy of economic and politico-

bureaucratic integration. Typically, the consolidating economic

and political orders encompassed a variety of ethnies, but while

type A ethnies could be integrated in the new social system

within a single homoglossic spatio-functional system, ethno-

linguistic groups could not be so easily accomodated. Where the

abovementioned distance was low and integration adequate

linguistic variance could be reduced by the functional

specialization and stratification of subordinate languages.

Where distance was high and integration inadequate centralizing

orders and peripheral groups engaged in a tug-of-war over the

latter's spatio-functional separation.

The same process of spatio-functional closure of linguistic

boundaries also transformed the system of meanings carried by 11

language, i.e. the semantic field. Putative ascription was translated into a juridical category and ethnicity was treated as the basis for a total view of reality (Smith, 1986: 129-34), one in which the individual and collective outlooks were reconstructed and given a new transhistorical quality that could serve as a civic (Hobsbawm, 1972) or ersatz (McNeil, 1986) religion. Ascriptively-defined population groups could realize themselves as a nation and establish a supralocal, i.e.

'national' identity and sense of solidarity (Nairn, 1983).

Furthermore, this reconstruction and associated behaviour defined and shaped the geographic limits and ethno-linguistic definition of countries and regions to reflect the intellectual arguments of those directly engaged in the formation and

implementation of territorial strategies.

With this scheme in mind we shall first analyze the unfolding of the aforementioned structural processes as they applied to the Tyrol and its Austrian context. Second, we shall describe the superstructural responses of the various parties to

such processes as they developed into distinct spatial

orientations and strategies of territorial control of the

(South) Tyrol. Finally, we shall analyze the politico-

territorial strategies pursued in post-1945 South Tyrol and

their structural and superstructural causes and consequences.

It will thus be possible to see that, given the underlying

structural processes and behavioural responses, conflict will

ensue should peripheral areas fail to enforce political control

over ethno-linguistic boundaries and socio-economic processes in 1 2

local central place systems. In Austrian Tyrol and during the first phase of Italian rule in the South Tyrol national and local superordinate centres prevented such structural adjustments and were the root cause of political conflict between ethno-linguistic groups. In the present phase (since

1945) in the South Tyrol, conflict obtains because the recently- created Italophone group failed to create and control a separate spatio-functional framework, and has instead become subordinated to the centralizing pressures of the indigenous periphery. 1 3

II. THE TYROL IN THE AGE OF CAPITALISM AND NATIONALISM

The rise of capitalist relations of production finds its temporal origin in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries when a structural crisis in the dominant mode of production was overcome by the gradual geographic expansion of the European economy and by its functional restructuring. However, the semiperipherality of Austria and the peripherality of regions like the Tyrol delayed their full application. Once felt these infra- and structural changes were met by haphazard responses.

Attempts by the Austrian Crown to modernize the structures of the empire (Liebel, 1979: 355-53; Taylor, 1985: 33-9) were conditioned by a patchwork of social hierarchies and territorial units (Good, 1984: 347; Taylor, 1985: 33-5), but on the long run, resistance was overcome (Good, 1984: 29-31) and in the

Tyrol change gave new life to the old crossroad that had linked the Mediterranean region to central and Western Europe since

Roman times (Guderzo in Bergier et al., 1975: 86-7; Lane, 1973:

423-5).

The gradual integration of Habsburg domains into this world-economy produced technical innovation, population growth, the reversal in the relative terms of trade of agriculture and modern industrial growth (Good, 1984: 20-4). The main stimulus for the transition from proto-industry to industry was the revolution in agriculture. Government-sponsored land reclamation and improved land use had increased agricultural productivity, but the real qualitative change was the introduction of new crops like the potato and a system of crop 1 4

rotation in lieu of the old three-field system. This improved the fertility of non-fallow soil and served as the first largescale processed cash crop that linked the primary sector more closely to the total economy (Good, 1984: 69-72).

Modern industrialization and mechanized factory production appeared in the 1820s, and by the 1850s the industrial sector had freed itself from agriculture. The new technology of production (steam and fossil fuels) increased the proportion of fixed capital by means of higher volumes of output and investments. The production and distribution of mass-produced goods was possible, and the replacement of fluvial navigation and slow overland transportation with rail links gave inland centres the opportunity to catch up with the dominant centres of the Atlantic seabord (de Vries, 1984: 171-2).

By the mid-century greater administrative efforts were necessary and the result was the organizational consolidation of

Austrian corporate structures in the form of large companies and cartels, and the expansion of joint-stock banking. The alliance of financial institutions to industrial firms reinforced the managerial hierarchy but since transformation was reactive and not pristine traditional command mechanisms assisted the process of change (Good, 1984: 188-218; Rudolph, 1975: 11-8).

By the. 1880s economic complementarity, political imperatives and production innovations had transformed the

Austrian economy. Alongside traditional industries like mining, textiles and food processing, modern metallurgy, electrical utilities, chemicals and machine tool industries grew around the 1 5

urban quadrilateral of the middle Danube centred on Vienna,

Linz, Prague and Brno (Ranki in Bairoch and Levy-Leboyer, 1981:

165-73; Good, 1984: 42-54; Rudolph, 1975: 10-1).

Integrative pressures spread from the economic heartland on the southern shore of the Middle Danube northward towards the

Bohemian lands, eastward into the Magyar plains and the

Carpathian mountains linking factories, fuel and food and further stimulating the expansion of industry (Good, 1984: 125-

33). The abolition in 1848 of the 'Robot' system in Austria finally eliminated the last vestiges of feudal relations and established for the first time an open labour market that penalized small farmers, landless peasants and some members of the rural gentry. The result was largescale emigration to the cities to strenghten the ranks of the socially mobile (Taylor,

1985: 108-9).

This long process of development was not evenly felt throughout Austria, but by the early part of the twentieth century backwash effects had declined (Good in Bairoch and Levy-

Leboyer, 1981: 141-6; Good, 1984: 150-5). Nevertheless, for a long time these backwash effects created significant regional disparities and politicised ethno-cultural markers. The protracted uneven distribution of benefits, especially in latecoming regions, combined with the partial success of some

'spread' impact had grave political consequences for this multi• ethnic society.

The onset of modern economic growth in the Habsburg lands found Austro-Germans in privileged business, professional, 1 6

technical and political positions, and the redistribution of capital and labour favoured Austro-Germans both at the centre and in the peripheries (Zoellner, 1967: 223). This antagonized peripheral elites and populations, even though economic growth was swelling the ranks of the modern sectors of the economy with members from the smaller ethnic groups. The severe economic crisis that lasted from 1873 to 1896 accentuated inter-ethnic competition and political confrontation since its impact affected Austro-Germans more seriously than the other groups and discredited the hitherto dominant liberal economic theory and political ideology, but also forced ruling groups to open up to other ethno-cultural groups, compelling such groups to seek difficult accomodation (Good, 1984: 162-3).

The deterioration of inter-ethnic relations affected the empire as a whole but the impact varied according to regional circumstances. In the Tyrol, this process had begun in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when empire-wide political centralization, uniformization (read: Germanization) of the administrative language and eventually French conquest tranformed political and socio-economic structures (Stella,

1979: 556-71). The reimposition of Habsburg rule in 1814 did not restore the status quo ante and paved the way for considerable changes. Under greater market pressures agricultural output grew, but as in the past, the different 1 7

tenurial systems conditioned the process. Where impartibility 6

prevailed farmers were protected from the worst effects of

commercial pressures, while in areas of partible ownership, the

transition to greater cash crop production was achieved at the

expense of food production. This transition also removed

reproductive restraints and the population expanded (Cole and

Wolf, 1974: 151-2) beyond local absorptive capacity. This meant

that the Italian Tyrol was very vulnerable to the fluctuation of

commodity prices and forced to rely on food imports. Drop in

prices or imports could have an immediate negative impact since

imperial grain policies gave preferential treatment to Magyar

production and penalized Lombardy and Venetia, the Italian

Tyrol's nearest suppliers.

Transition to greater market involvement and partible

inheritance promoted the fragmentation of farm estates and

weakened farmers' ability to manage their land. External

competition and poor financing forced many off the land. The

expansion of local proto-industrial activities and the

appearance of the first modern industrial plants, significant

Over time, those estates that could support a single peasant family were closed off and placed outside the land market, i.e. the so-called 'Closed Estates' (Ger. Geschlossene Hof, Ita. Maso Chiuso); only the very small or very large estates could be portioned and exchanged. By the early fifteenth century ad hoc arrangements were codified into customary law (Hoefrecht) (Wolf, 1970: 105-7) whereby individual estates could provide the peasant household and collateral family members the necessary access to a wide range of resources. A set of exclusive and partial rights to privately and communally held land developed placing the main factors of production under peasant control. 18

compared to adjacent areas - 49 plants in the Italian Tyrol versus 26 in the transalpine Tyrol, 30 in Vorarlberg and none in the cisalpine section of the German Tyrol (Pristinger, 1978: 13)

- was still insufficient to reemploy redundant rural labour because it was too closely tied to processing agricultural commodities (Great Britain, 1920: 22-37; Stella, 1979: 570-6).

When plant diseases struck, the economy was devastated

(Greenfield, 1967: 496). The loss of Lombardy (1859) and

Venetia (1866) further aggravated the economic crisis (Rusinow,

1969: 32), and mass emigration to other parts of the empire

(Rudolph, 1975: 17), to Italy and overseas followed (Great

Britain, 1920: 22; Martinelli, 1919: 141; Stella, 1979: 581-2).

Emigration itself had been a traditional option for

Tyroleans but a fundamental difference existed between the

German and Italian Tyrol. Under conditions of impartible inheritance, the effects of commercial pressures and of proto- industrial activity on fertility and natality were kept within tolerable limits; consequently, when the former became stronger local economic structures could resist and population growth be limited. By contrast, where partibility prevailed rural workers could more easily and rapidly adapt to commercial pressures, seek employment in proto-industrial and later industrial activity, and abandon traditional demographic restraints.

At the turn of the century natality in the German Tyrol was

8x1000 with zero migration balance compared to 11x1000 and a negative emigration rate of 6x1000 in the Italian Tyrol (Wallis,

1918: 58). 19

TaDle i: Tyrolean Population par Area ana Tear. 1835-1910 ( tn Absolute Nunbars and Percent ilea)

TOTAL NORTH TYROL SOUTH TYROL ITALIAN TYROL 1835 719000 29. OX 3 1 OX 40 OX 1880 787188 3 1 . IX 24 . 5X 44 4X 1910 893639 32 . 2X 24 8% 42 OX Sources: 1835 figures In Cole and Wolf. 1974: 290: 1880 figures In Egger. 1978: 28-9. OSZ. 1961: 1910 figures (n velter. 1965: 63/105. OSZ. 1961

These demographic trends transformed the internal demographic balance in the Tyrol. Because of its geographic location and more developed central place system, market and capitalist pressures favoured the transalpine section of the

German Tyrol where high natality and immigration caused the highest population increase (+37.84%) in this 75-year period compared to (+32.28%) for the Trentino (high natality and emigration) and (+0.87%) for the cisalpine part of the German

Tyrol (low natality and high emigration).

Unlike the transalpine and Italian Tyrol modern economic pressures reached the cisalpine part of the German Tyrol late, but by the last decade of the nineteenth century land reclamation, railway construction and textile production transformed the local labour market and work system. In the upper reaches of the Adige/Etsch river, long stretches of marshland were reclaimed and flooding overcome by river controls. Land reclamation during the 1860s stimulated the arrival of more desperate Italophone peasants, and in some villages like Bronzolo/Branzoll and Vadena/Pfatten Italophones became a majority (Alcock, 1970: 15). In the subsequent decades other migrants from the Italian Tyrol arrived to work in fluvial transportation along the Adige/Etsch and played an important role in the building of the Verona-Kufstein and Bolzano/Bozen-

Merano/Meran railways (Paoli in Goglio, 1979: 53-4), so that by 20

the 1890s Italophones represented a substantial segment of the

resident population of the Bassa Atesina/Suedtiroler Unterland,

the city of Bolzano/Bozen and the Burgraviato/Burgrafenamt (see

Appendix C, map D) (Caragata in Battisti, 1946: 47-8; Cole and

Wolf, 1974: 112). Table 2: South Tyrolean Population per Language Group and Year. 1880-1910 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) TOTAL GERMAN ITALIAN LAQ1N OTHER 1880 193249 92 0% 8.0%v N/A 1890 197233 90 4% 9 6%* N/A 1900 207983 91.5% 4.1% 4 3% 0. 1% 1910 333459 92.2% 30% 4.1% 0.7% Votes: N/A - not available; figures based on Spoken, not Motner Language: 1910 figures exclude foreignera and military.

Sources: 1880-90 figures in Egger. 1978: 28-9; 1900-10 figures in Provtncia Autonoma. 1984: 154.

The activities that had prompted the arrival of Italophone

immigrants also stimulated the migration of Germanophones

towards the reclaimed valley bottoms. Italophones were thus

unable to form a compact spatial settlement in which they could

occupy all functional domains. Gradually, assimilatory pressures were reasserted and the Italophone proportion of the

total population declined (see table 2).

The economy of the Italian Tyrol had also recovered from

its depression once the demand for leading cashcrop, emigrants'

remittances, the constitution of provincial mortgage banks and of rural Credit Unions pulled the economy out of its slump and

reduced the stimulus to leave. The new railways and paved roads

facilitated exports and opened up the region to the new,

leisure- and recreation-seeking urban middle classes, hence

Italophone immigration towards the German Tyrol did not

transform ethno-linguistic structures. Nonetheless, immigration

left a lasting mark. 21

The arrival of Italophone immigrants from limitrophic areas altered the prevailing social relations in the German Tyrol since workers in the few large companies like the railways and the construction industries or the larger farms organized the first Mutual Aid Societies and trade unions. In some sectors like construction Italophones held a quasi-monopoly, which, despite efforts by Austrian unions, made them easy targets of ethnic and social prejudices (Ghirigato, 1986: 19-25). Fear of

Italian immigration accentuated social tensions and gradually carved a deep fissure. The linguistic borderline became the battleground between increasingly militant elites in both the

Italian and German Tyrol.

The Tyrolean battleground was but one of many in the empire and each reinforced and/or defused the others. Economic transformation was the main cause but the forum where inter- ethnic confrontation played itself out was political. The original post-Napoleonic political arrangement of the empire had combined political centralization with bureaucratic decentralization, and throughout Austria regional governments were created under appointed governors.

The liberal reforms of 1848 did not survive the counter• revolution of 1849, but they set in motion a contradictory process in which centrifugal and centripetal tendencies countered each other. At a political level, the conflict threatened the integrity df the state. The Magyar landed nobility, which had been muzzled in the post-1848 period by greater centralized control, found an unexpected ally in the 22

Austro-German middle classes, the partisans of the 1848 liberal

revolutions, against the neo-absolutist regime. The same regime

had negotiated the transformation of the empire into a

centralized bureaucracy with a common body of laws, fiscal

regime and economic structures, but its social base was too

narrow to incorporate and coopt all hostile forces and was

forced to accomodate the most powerful groups.

The 1867 'Ausgleich' or historical compromise between

Austro-Germans and Magyars decoupled the empire into two halves

7 and established a confederal relationship between the two

countries and set each on separate constitutional roads 8

(Taylor, 1985: 106-52; Whiteside, 1967). In Austria internal

decentralization followed historic and not ethno-linguistic

lines so that only six of its seventeen provinces were

ethnically homogenous, or internally segregated along ethno-

linguistic lines. Consequently, decentralization and cooptation

into the imperial and/or provincial civil service did not reduce

inter-ethnic tensions (Kahn, 1979: 87-8).

At a practical level, the institutional rearrangement of

the empire accentuated the use of German as an official and

customary language in both central and provincial levels of

7 Vienna and Budapest were still linked by a common currency, financial and fiscal arrangements, foreign policy and defence force, but all other areas of jurisdiction were divided. 8 Hungary increasingly developed along centralistic and autocratic lines in which local autonomies were suppressed and peripheral ethnies and provinces subjected to policies of Magyarization. Austria went the other way and accentuated the federal nature of its political institutions. 23

government (Burian, 1970-1: 82-100; Whiteside, 1967: 160-1). 9

In all multi-lingual Crownlands, German was never used alone,

but official bilingualism was never satisfactory for either

dominant Austro-Germans or subordinated ethnies. The

practicality of German unilingualism was always challenged by

peripheral language groups and neither side was strong enough to

impose itself or feel secure. Imperial and Provincial

authorities in mixed provinces were thus pulled by socially-

ascending bilingual minority elites and well-entrenched

unilingual Austro-German elites (Zoellner, 1967: 228-9).

The socio-economic transformations and demographic shifts

of the second half of the nineteenth century forced the

authorities to adopt legal and statutory vagueness and specific

administrative interventions. Complaints and legal recourses

routinely ended up in the Imperial Court of Justice and the

Administrative Court but divergent views prevailed, and in the

end the imperial government simply muddled through and

instituted ad hoc measures that satisfied no-one (Whiteside,

1967: 190-4; Goldinger, 1967: 136-54; Taylor, 1985: 234-5). 10

The conflict in the Tyrol was one of the most serious

because, alone among Crownlands, it found itself enbroiled in

interstate rivalries and irredentist claims. The loss of

Lombardy in 1856 and Venetia in 1866 to the Piedmontese-Italian

kingodom led to to the re-incorporation of the Italian Tyrol 9 Official status meant use in external and internal communication with the public by all government institutions and agencies. Customary status meant use in external communication alone. 10 In 1877 the Administrative Court concluded that all languages, including those spoken only in a few districts, were customary and had to be treated equally, but the Imperial Court of Justice upheld the principle of non-transferability of language rights. 24

(since 1848 the Imperial Regency of the Italian Tyrol) into the

Tyrol. This left Italophones underrepresented in Crownland

institutions at a time of persistent economic difficulties. The presence of bilingual Germanophone civil servants, military

personnel and their families in Italophone districts, the lack

of control over educational institutions and the loss of the

only Italian language universities in Lombardy and Venetia

accentuated this sense of deprivation and alienation

(Greenfield, 1967: 520-2; Stella, 1979: 572-3).

As the economic and the political crises worsened, the

positions of Italophone autonomists, increasingly identifying

themselves with the Italian Tyrol or Trentino, and Imperial and

Provincial authorities polarized. Austrians and German-

Tyroleans viewed local demands as part of an overall irredentist

movement that threatened the region as well as the symbolic

raison d'etre of the empire, i.e. the dynastic loyalty of its

various peoples. On the other hand, opposition to Trentine

autonomy exacerbated Trentine anxieties and led many to

reconsider their territory's relationship to and place in the

empire. For decades the endless flow of popular petitions,

parliamentary motions and political boycotts of the provincial

diet were met by intransigence, ignorance and often repression,

while the few concessions like the institution of a separate

Italian language school Council in 1892 were seen as too little

too late (Greenfield, 1967: 501-3).

Given the relative backwardness of the province inter-

ethnic confrontation was for the most part limited to small, 25

usually urban, segments of the population. The ad hoc concessions made by Tyrolean authorities and the general apathy

of a largely peasant population meant that political activity was delegated to dominant social elites or appropriated by self- appointed groups with limited appeal in a political system still

defined by restricted franchise. Furthermore, despite the

weaknesses and the negative impact of Imperial and Provincial

policies, the complementarity of the Trentine economy and its

close integration with that of the empire, so painfully achieved

after repeated changes in boundaries, dictated prudence.

Serious attempts 11 were made (Furlani and Wandruszka, 1974:

212-4), but nationalist sentiments and forces had become too

strong and moderates were swept aside. Such groups successfully

monopolized the public debate and defined its discourses. A

panoply of cultural associations appeared, seemingly dedicated

to educational activities and economic aid, but more often

engaged in nationalist agitation and propaganda (Alcock, 1970:

16; Cole and Wolf, 1974: 55).

Wherever pan-Germanist organizations brought their

propaganda a potent Italian response was elicited. The presence

In 1901 their efforts almost succeeded. The old Imperial Regency was to be reestablished and some legislative powers devolved from the Provincial Diet to two Regional Assemblies dominated by members of either major Tyrolean ethny (Ladins were not considered). When in joint session these assemblies would act as a single Provincial Diet; separately they would legislate in their own areas of jurisdiction. In order to compensate Italophone numerical inferiority, a minimal Italophone representation was reserved in the Provincial Executive Council. This compromise could thus guarantee Trentine autonomy and maintain the territorial integrity of the Tyrol. 26

of such organizations in border villages and Trentine towns where small Germanophone enclaves existed raised concerns and made calls for a German Tyrol from Kufsteih to Ala seem a real danger (Greenfield, 1967: 514; Rusinow, 1969: 33-6). However, inter-ethnic tensions never degenerated into open civil strife, and most Tyrolean Italophones remained passive and ambivalent, still sure of the Austrian status quo and weary about a possible

Italian future (Rusinow, 1969: 33). 27

III. THE LANGUAGE OF NATIONAL TERRITORIES AND THE

RESTRUCTURATION OF TYROLEAN SPACES

The Great War consummated an historical break with the past, but its fate lay not with the military fortunes of the contending parties, but in the discoursive and recursive

knowledge that informed the territorial demands and strategies

of local populations and external elites.

It is essential to distinguish discoursive and recursive

thinking since they affect differently the semantic field that defines social action. The former refers primarily to systems

of thought, ideologies, belief- and value-systems that serve as

repertories whose contents reflect ad hoc and deliberate

intellectualizations, whereas the latter identifies the

attitudes, gestures and words that express both our conscious

and unconscious, personal and impersonal knowledge. The sources

of creation and dissemination are intellectual and more readily

identifiable in the case of discoursive thinking and social and

relatively anonymous in the case of recursive thinking.

The interaction of these two forms of knowledge dictated

the orientations of both resident populations and respective

ethno-cultural heartlands and elites towards the Tyrol and its

cisalpine section. The former developed a concrete

identification with the territory in which they lived, and where

they sought sociopsychological solace. Natural bonds united

them to their places of birth/burial and created a unison of

body and environment. Conversely, the latter tended to abstract

and produce intellectual argumentations often divorced from 28

first-hand experiences and estranged people from the immediate contact with the environment. Yet, if natives formulated moral validation for their presence and hold over a territory and expressed it through symbolic and emotional appeals, only the intervention of self-appointed elites could translate this yearning for identity into clearly-defined instrumental and territorial orientations and legitimate a program for action

(see Cohen, 1976). This intervention enabled indigenous populations to internalize action-driven orientations and offered them the necessary intellectual plausibility for territorial control.

In the southern Tyrol the intervention of competing elites politicized the separate existential experiences and led to inter-ethnic confrontation over the territory. In the Trentino

Italophones were inspired primarily by practical considerations over provincial autonomy and sought separation from the overbearing Innsbruck administration in order to control those functional domains and institutions that would ensure their existence. The memory of a separate Trentine administration both in the recent and more remote past, albeit linked at some level to the rest of the Tyrol and the empire, was the driving force behind their activism. By contrast, among Tyrolean

Germanophones provincial unity was an important economic and political asset for it would preserve their control over a wider spatio-functional region; but it too had an important emotional and symbolic appeal, whose echoes dated from medieval times.

Among scholars and publicists the festering political 29

conflict between Tyrolean Germanophones and Italophones was

caught up in opposing intellectual views. Among German scholars

organicist analogues led to the description of the Tyrol as a

single, natural orographic unit, a 'Passland' or 'Passstaat', a

country of transit that linked two separate hydrographic basins

(Weilenmann, 1963). 12 As a crossroad dating from the eighth

century, the Tyrol had become an inner alpine region that could

sustain and coordinate a middle level urban-commercial network

within the context of an essentially agrarian economy (Kinzl in

Huter, 1965: 247-52). The memory of conflict and wars also

suggested that the Tyrol was a defensive bulwark or an offensive

wedge going as far back as Roman times. These notions of

crossroad and military borderland merged with the idea that the

Tyrol like other Alpine territories was a 'landschaft', i.e. a

single cultural landscape and a cohesive geographic unit (see

Appendix C, map A), structured by ancient ties and symbolic and

material relations.

In Italy the orographic theories of Swiss and German

scholars found little support. Instead, the work of geographers

like Giovanni and Olindo Marinelli shifted the emphasis from

mountains to rivers and argued that Italy's natural borders were

based on hydrographic criteria (Marinelli, 1919: 132-3). The

alpine watershed (see Appendix C, Maps A and D) that separated

the rivers flowing southward towards the Adriatic sea were

12 This theory had originally been articulated by the Swiss historian Aloys Schulte in his studies of Switzerland and its place in the wider European state system (Bergier, 1975: 4-5). 30

'naturally' Italian (Nice in Battisti, 1946: 12-4), hence all

lands within the alpine crest were geographically Italian. The

support of German scholars like Ratzel, Ritter and Daniel lent

intellectual credence to the hydrographic pretentions of Italian geography (Montecchini in Battisti, 1946: 19-22), for as Ratzel wrote the "Southern Alps, where they stand out as an independent group, are wholly Italian" (quoted in Freshfield, 1915: 415).

This intellectual debate and relative epistemic

orientations had a bearing on the discourse surrounding the

'just boundaries' of the Italian state. Not only were ethno- cultural commonalities used to justify an Italian nation-state

but geography became the ideological tool that delineated the

state's territorial domain. The shape of the country encouraged

this opinion and the development of geopolitics (Douglas, 1973:

160; Portinaro, 1982: 1-7) as a specialized discipline with

scientific pretensions gave intellectual comfort, scientific

plausibility and empirical verification to its exponents.

When unity was established in 1861 the question of who was

Italian and where Italy's limits stood was not solved because

not all Italo-Romance areas had been incorporated, even though

some non-Italo-Romance areas had (see Appendix C, map B). But

if Italian patriots of the Risorgimento had sought the

liberation of all nations, big and small, coexisting in a world

of independent nation-states, their successors were raised in an

intellectual climate filled with positivist and social darwinist

ideas and arguments. Instead of the Mazzinian doctrine of self-

determination Italian nationalism shifted towards national 31

aggrandizement and colonial aggression. The old liberal

nationalism gave way to a new, belligerant and chauvinistc

imperialism (Segre, 1979: 178), and the geography of natural

borders and living space entered the Italian political debate.

Austria too did not escape these passionate debates over

the spatial characteristics of nationhood. Austrian geographers came to view the empire as a geographic unit, not merely the

byproduct of centuries of history, with a central basin lying in

the Viennese heartland that was linked to its various peripheral

regions by an outer mountainous ring going from the eastern Alps

to the Carpathians and the Dinaric Alps. This ring surrounded

the Middle Danube whose hydrographic projection flowed from

North-West to the South-East and linked Western Europe to the

Balkans and beyond (Hoffman, 1967: 121-6).

The effect of intellectual claim and counterclaim was to

draw the local populace and their external supporters into the

debate. People from different backgrounds raced to print,

publish or utter the latest and highest nationalist hyperbole.

Match boxes carried nationalist slogans and sport activities

redeemed the individual body and the collective soul. In the

Tyrol, civic leaders engaged in competition with monumental

works in Bolzano-Bozen (1889), on the Bergisel (1893), and in

Trent (1896) (Cole and Wolf, 1974: 55; Greenfield, 1967: 514).

Of all participants and players, great and small, one

stands out as the main Italian architect of the Tyrolean saga:

Ettore Tolomei. Steeped in the animosities of old Austria and

cognizant of the political frustrations of post-unitary Italian 32

intellectuals, he almost single-handedly set out to make the cisalpine or southern German Tyrol a national issue. (Gatterer in Agostini, 1985: 178). As an experienced journalist he used his remarkable skills to coax, cajole and probe the powerful and the not-so powerful by means of selective historiographic and ethnographic research and in time he was able to offer Italian public opinion ready-made terms, ideas, concepts about the southern Tyrol and its role in the 'millenary' history of the

Italian nation (Lill, 1982: 115; Stadlmayer in Huter, 1965), while the presence of a large and compactly-settled Germanophone population in this 'Italian' territory was proof, if any was necessary, of the need to redeem these 'Germanized Italians'

(see Morandini in Battisti, 1946: 70-80; Barduzzi, 1962) and to make political and ethnic boundaries consonant.

Till the Great War Tolomei's activities were limited to small, albeit powerful, intellectual and political circles.

Without the war, it would have been difficult for him or any of his adepts to translate their aspirations into deeds, but the experiences on the battlefield inflamed passions so that people like Tolomei could reap the benefits. Even then, the political claim for the South Tyrol emerged only as the expression of a strategic orientation.

With Italy's victory the interplay of competing territorial orientations found an operational forum. At the peace table

Italians and Austrians articulated their respective claims (for 33

the Brenner watershed) 13 and counterclaims (for the unity of

the German Tyrol); 1" however, the failure to fulfill Italian

territorial demands on the eastern border (Rusinow, 1969: 41-52)

and the indefatigable action of Ettore Tolomei 15 tipped the

balance.

In the early stage, Italian objectives were limited to the

assertion of Italy's sovereignty, the appeasement of a hostile

population and the administrative integration of the province

into the state. Strong German-Tyrolean identity had convinced

Italian political and military leaders (Rizzi, 1962) that the

hitherto centralistic state apparatus could not work in the

South Tyrol. As part of their strategy of accomodation, Italian

occupation authorities sought to appease the new autonomy-minded

subjects, now organized in a united German League that sought

the largest degree of political autonomy possible (Toscano,

1967: 71-83), and pledged a special arrangement for all new

provinces (Lill, 1982: 117-8). The ruling conservative elites

13 Socialists and some liberals were contrary to the Brenner border and the military was prepared to accept the Salorno- Salurn gap along the language divide. 14 Austrians sought to allay Italian strategic concerns by pledging Tyrolean demilitarization and Swiss military guarantees (Alcock, 1970: 21). German-Tyrolean leaders offered to become independent, join Switzerland, or even become part of Italy so long as the territorial integrity of the German Tyrol was maintained (Rusinow, 1969: 55-66; Toscano, 1967: 33-43). 15 He was appointed head of a 'Commissariat for the Language and Culture of the Upper Adige', closely tied to governmental and non-governmental elites (Rusinow, 1969: 57), and became the 'expert' on 'Upper Atesin' affairs to the Italian delegation at Versailles. 34

were ready to reform the system built over the previous fifty years and address the latent regionalism of many parts of the country, and to this effect instituted a Royal Commission on

Administrative Reform to formulate recommendations about the

future structures of the state (Weibel, 1971: 25-6). This did

not happen.

The war had unleashed a tidal wave of social change that

the old liberal regime could not.manage. The transformation of

the economy and the rise of new, generally younger, politically-

conscious groups doomed institutional reform. One of the

contributing factors to Italy's intervention on the side of the

western allies was the growing antagonism between those economic

circles in heavy industry and mixed banks that were not tied to

German capital and sought to free the country's economy from

Germany and those groups still tied to the central European

power. The former successfully used heightened nationalist and

irredentist sentiments to force Italy to join the Entente powers

but in doing so they divided their own ranks. This limited the

ability of Italian economic planners to manage economic

reconversion (Mori in Bairoch and Levy-Leboyer, 1.981: 158-9) at

a time of workers' militancy, inflation, structural adjustments

in all sectors of the economy and growing unemployment (Cohen,

1979: 78-86). These factors weakened the steering capacity of a

narrowly-based and culturally-remote ruling class, against whom

stood a radicalized nationalist camp that included frustrated

war veterans, a good number of intellectuals, class-conscious

industrialists and agrarian groups, and downward mobile civil 35

servants.

Soon this composite group rallied around a fledgling political movement that wanted political centralization, repression of all political opponents and organized social forces and its integration into the state. By exploiting the fears of fractious ruling groups the fascist movement was able to obtain the support of some of its segments and acquire sufficient political resources to gain power (Mori in Bairoch and Levy-Leboyer, 1981: 158), to reorganize itself into a mass organization of the middle classes and to regiment industrial and agricultural workers. The lack of ideological coherence did not impede their action, but instead allowed them to merge in

1923 with the Italian nationalist party and incorporate their cadres and well-defined political discourse (Cunsolo, 1985: 47-

63; Ragionieri, 1976: 2126-32).

It was in the newly-acquired provinces like the southern

Tyrol that the organizational and ideological convergence of different political and social movements was sanctioned since it was here that the nationalist appeal could be fulfilled. The fascist party used its power in the South Tyrol to rehearse its conquest of the country. Under its rule the national government asserted central control over the country, transformed local administrative units into a bureaucratic chain of spatio- functionally diffused regions, provinces and municipalities under close central supervision (Ragionieri, 1976: 2163-71, 36

2224-31). 16

In the South Tyrol. the first stage of fascist

administrative reorganization entailed the wholesale replacement

of local functionaries with outsiders, the immediate application

of Italian laws, the abolition of the German school system, and

the creation in 1923 of a single, Trent-dominated provincial

administration and the transfer of two Ladin valleys (Fodom and

Ampez) to neighbouring Belluno province, followed in 1927 by the

creation of a separate Bolzano-Bozen province and the separation

of several ethnically-mixed rural municipalities south of the

homonymous provincial capital (Gruber, 1979: 115; Rusinow, 1969:

173) .

The ever-vigilant Tolomei opposed this last change on the

grounds that

To assimilate the Upper Adige ... we must become the national masters of the [provincial] capital. In truth we cannot see how the removal of all Italians in neighbouring Adige valley can profit the rapid assimilation of Bolzano (quoted in Gruber, 1978: 118).

For him denationalization had to be accomplished by

transforming the South Tyrol into an auxiliary region of a

16 The transformation of the state along more authoritarian lines did not represent a break with the past; instead it accentuated long-standing centripetal tendencies of the old liberal regime (Ragionieri, 1976: 1687-1719). The monarchical state embodied the principle of sovereignty inherited from the ancien regime in which the state was seen as an organic whole with full authority vested in the centre alone. The division of power and the geographic distribution of functions did not recognize any independent existence to local government, but treated them as local administrative branches of central institutions (Dente, 1985b: 22-7). 37

Trent-dominated central place system. However, his views were

not heeded.

The new political arrangement based on highly pyramidal

intergovernmental relations was accompanied by a new political

discourse and a new set of social practices designed to rapidly

incorporate the indigenous population. However, the eagerness

to fully implement such a discourse and practices was wrought

with contradications. The 'redemption' of 'Germanized' Italians

could not be accomplished overnight, but fascist authorities

failed to institute an intermediate phase in which a Standard

Italian-Low German diglossia could develop and link a

functionally bilingual and somewhat enculturated generation of

indigenous South Tyroleans to their conquerors (Egger, 1978: 19-

20, 45). Instead the fascists promoted the immigration of

Italophones to occupy all positions of social control and

political mediation between state and population and effectively

barred access by local elites 17 to subordinate positions of

responsability (Ghirigato, 1986: 28-9).

As part of this strategy of denationalization and political

incorporation fascist policy also entailed the superstructural

reconstruction of the South Tyrolean landscape. Through

official iconography and epigraphy the Italianness of the

province had to be asserted and reflect the new fascist rigour.

A wave of initiatives designed to stamp out the indigenous

17 This was despite the reluctant but forthcoming adherence of at least some notables and white collar workers frightened by political instability and economic chaos in Italy and Austria (Gatterer in Agostini, 1985: 179-85). 38

character followed, ranging from neo-classic architecture and scholarly work (Pasetti and Mazzei in Battisti, 1946) to the

Itaiianization of streets, toponyms and family names (Da Massa in Battisti, 1946: 41-2; Gruber, 1979: 48-9).

Against this project stood a hapless, bitter and hostile indigenous population, leaderless since the desolution of independent political parties and the repression of autonomous political activities. However, the brutal attacks against the indigenous population were not successful in the short term, largely because of its organizational autonomy. Under the leadership of the local clergy, tacitly supported by the Vatican and of some of the leaders of the disbanded German League, the indigenous population was able to carve a certain degree of social autonomy by means of an illegal and underground school network - the Catacomb schools - and a few theological colleges

(Volgger, 1985: 19-33).

Autonomous social organization was based on a high degree of economic self-sufficiency. Italian conquest and the new border had seriously affected the local economy, but estate management and day-to-day farming operations had remained in indigenous hands. Economic recovery in Italy, especially of the primary sector (Cohen, 1979: 71-7), helped them because the

South Tyrol was in a better economic position than neighbouring

Trentino thanks to its larger and more efficient farms to make the transition and compete in the north-Italian market (Gruber,

1979: 142-3), and through diversification and quality improvements regain their traditional markets in Central Europe 39

(Gruber, 1979: 142-3; Weigend, 1950: 370-2).

The onset of inflationary pressures and a weak financial situation in the mid-twenties led the fascist government to implement tight fiscal monetary and tariff policies in combination with an agricultural policy designed to raise prices and investment (Cohen, 1972: 642-53). The overall effect was to protect inefficient industries (Castronovo, 1984: 83-6), maintain industrial wages near subsistence levels, increase unemployment (Cohen, 1972: 649-53) and reduce agricultural productivity. In the South Tyrol agricultural modernization was thus stifled, but many South Tyrolean farmers were able to revert back to a mixture of limited market involvement and subsistence farming (Cole and Wolf, 1974: 88-9; Rusinow, 1969:

175). However, with the onset of the 1929 depression

international trade and labour movements declined and South

Tyrolean labour became underutilized and commercial crops

overexploited (Cole and Wolf, 1974: 88-9; Toniolo, 1937: 476).

On the long run, this situation would be untenable.

This period of crisis coincided with the second stage of

fascist policy of denationalization and spatio-functional

incorporation. After the political system they turned their

attention to the local economy. The government pursued a policy

of rural settlement in expropriated and reclaimed farmland

(abolition of Closed Estate Legislation in 1929) (see page 17.

footnote 6) but, despite a growing number of insolvencies, only

5% were taken over and assigned to Italophones (Gruber, 1979: 40

209; Cole and Wolf, 1974: 58). 18 The fascists were more

successful in exploiting the province's rich hydroelectric

potential and use it as an instrument of colonization.

Beginning in 1924 a number of hydroelectric projects under the

aegis of Italian companies were built and by 1939-40 the South

Tyrol boasted a production of two billion Kwtt or about 12-14%

of Italy's total energy production (Castellani in Battisti,

1946: 108-13; Leidlmair in Huter, 1965: 376).

Hydro-power was crucial to fascist economic policy. It was

part of ad hoc initiatives taken to overcome some of the

problems caused by the growing isolation and structural

rigidities of the Italian economy. The increasing inefficiency

of its industrial and banking sectors had already forced the

government to rescue several private concerns and assist the

process of capital accumulation more directly (Castronovo, 1984:

83-6; Mori in Bairoch and Levy-Leboyer, 1981: 160-1), and the

presence of this plentiful and relatively cheap domestic hydro•

electric power was essential to support private oligopolies and

state monopolies.

This energy source and the accessability to local and

foreign raw materials were also essential for the

industrialization of the province. This would mobilize capital

and labour from other parts of Italy, reduce national

unemployment and, above all, accelerate Italianization (Alcock,

1970: 41-2). The result would be the transformation of the

18 Those Italophone colonists who managed to settle in the province did so by accepting indigenous ascendancy. 41

prevailing techno-environmental relationships, technology of production and work-system, now based on a urban-industrial structural hierarchy and set the stage for the spatio-functional

incorporation of the capital's complementary region.

At a demographic level the effect of these policies was to transform the province from a compact German province into a mixed German-Italian area.

Table 3: South Tyrolean Population. 1910-1943 (In Absolut* Table 4: South Tyrolean workforce per Language Numbers and Percentiles) Group. 1939 (in Percentiles) TOTAL GERMANOPHONE ITALOPHONE LAO IN OTHER TOTAL GERMAN ITALIAN 1910 233459 92.24% 3 02% 4.05% 0 69% Agriculture 44.5% 60 5% 6 0% 1921 252092 75.71% 10.65% 3.93% 9.71% Industry/Crafts 29.0% 14 6% 23 0% 1939 334331 70.15% 34 17% 3.43% 2 25% Conmerce 12.0V 11 6% 21.6% 1943 C29370O 60.03% 35 66% 3 62% 0.70% Public Adrtlnlstrat ion 14 SX» 0 5% 17 1% Other Activities above* 12 8% 31 5% Notes: 1910 figures based on Spoken Language: TOTAL 100 0% 100 0% 100 0% 1921 flgurea based on Mother Tongue. Other includes Germanophone born In North Tyrol and Austria or about Sources: BorgtolI in Battistl. 1946: 116: 6600 with Italian surnames: Pnstlnger. 1978: 29. Sources: 1910 figures In Provlncla Autonona. 1984: 154; 1921 figures In Ibid, and Egger. 1978: 28-9: 1939-1943 figures In A I COCK. 1970: 496.

Table 3 shows a dramatic change in the ethno-linguistic character of the South Tyrolean population. The Italophone population increased by over 1000% compared to only 43% for the entire population. The main beneficiaries were the two urban centres of Bolzano-Bozen (+3143%) and Merano-Meran (+4708%) where the Italophone population rose from 1682 and 392 in 1900 respectively to 54544 and 18849 in 1939 (Caragata in Battisti,

1946: 46-7). As table 4 shows Italophones came to dominate the civil service and the new industrial sector while the indigenous population was relegated to the primary sector and the more traditional secondary and tertiary activities.

This ethnic and spatio-functional division of labour was designed to isolate the indigenous population geographically and socially as a prelude to its assimilation and/or marginalization. However, the indigenous population remained 42

steadfastly attached to its identity and unwilling to cooperate

with the new masters. The apparent failure to redeem these

'Germanized' Italians convinced the fascists to accept a nazi

proposal of population transfer (De Felice, 1973: 23-31).

Altogether 90% of Germanophones and 61% of Ladins opted for

Germany (Huter, 1965: 341) and in the next three years 80% of

those employed in the transportation industry, 67% in crafts,

40% in tourism, but only 9% of those working in agriculture

trekked across the Brenner Pass and left their native land

(Latour, 1965: 107-9; Leidlmair in Huter, 1965: 367).

Had the new industrial economy become firmly rooted in the

province and the rural crisis run its course as was already

happening in other mountain areas of Italy (Toniolo, 1937), the

seed of disintegration so brutally sown by the fascists would

have caused the collapse of the indigenous community. The

anacronistic and self-defeating agricultural policies of the

fascist government had delayed this phenomenon in the South

Tyrol, but on the long run, any attempt to modernize agriculture

within an Italophone-controlled urban-industrial economy and

political arrangement would have achieved this objective. At

this point Italian territorial hold over the South Tyrol would

have included sovereignty, complete administrative subordination

to external political centres, full control over its economic

resources and demographic preponderance. 19

19 In 1943 Italophones were 72% of the all Italian citizens (37%of the resident population) compared to 24% for Germanophones and 4% for Ladins (Alcock, 1970: 496). 43

The new political organization would correspond to a new, highly centralized statist order and would reinforce the new

economy and division of labour in which urban-industrial activities dominated the province's economic life. These

structural changes would have altered the mode of production by

shifting the centre of techno-environmental relationships away

from agriculture and the countryside to industry and the cities.

The tragic denouement would have guaranteed the indigenization

of the settler population and its ascendancy in the new spatio-

functional framework. New generations of 'Upper Atesins' would

have developed their own sentimental and symbolic attachment to

the province, and the selective and often fraudulent use of

archaeological, ethnographic, artistic and historical data would

not be challenged by the presence of an indigenous population.

This would weld the province to the Italian cultural area by

means of new superstructural expressions (art, music,

literature) that reflected Italian and not German standards, and

the remaining indigenous South Tyroleans would be in no position

to pose a threat to the new society because their geographic

dispersal and social isolation would facilitate their

integration into the dominant division of labour and cultural

networks. 44

IV. POST-1945 STRATEGIES OF TERRITORIAL CONTROL AND THEIR

STRUCTURAL BASES

The radical solution did not pass because the war

undermined the fascist regime and stopped the flow of optants

towards Germany, and the two years of nazi occupation placed the

twenty years of fascist policy in jeopardy. In preparation for

peace negotiations Italy and Austria reformulated traditional

arguments about the strategic, economic and historical

importance of the South Tyrol. Austria emphasized the ethno-

cultural homogeneity of the Tyrol on both sides of the Alps and

called for a referendum to decide the fate of the contested

province and, as a sign of good will towards the erstwhile foe,

pledged to protect Italian economic interests (hydro power) and

security concerns as well as guarantee the rights of the newly-

created Italophone minority. 20 Italy put forth the watershed

theory and Tolomei's ethnological claims and argued that the

changes that had taken place in the province had become

irreversible since the South Tyrol was firmly integrated into

the Italian economy and local resources were essential for

Italy's economic reconstruction. 21

20 Short of complete annexation, Austria was willing to partition the South Tyrol and reestablish a direct geographic link between northern and eastern Tyrol (Alcock, 1970: 102-5). 21 Lombard and Venetian industrial and financial groups had heavily invested in the province and built the most modern industrial infrastructure the country possessed (Weibel, 1971: 288) and were unwilling to give up this prized possession. Hydroelectric power (90% exported to northern Italy), forest products and some mineral ores were crucial factors of production for the northern Italian economy (Alcock, 1970: 102— 4). 45

At the peace conference, Italian economic arguments and the promise to protect the Germanophone minority were successful.

As part of the peace settlement Italy signed an accord with the

Austrian delegation that pledged to

the populations of the ... zones [Bolzano-Bozen province and neighbouring bilingual townships of the Trento province] ... the exercise of an autonomous legislative and executive regional power. The framework within which the said provisions of autonomy will apply, will be drafted in consultation also with local representative German-speaking elements (Provincia Autonoma, 1985: 47)

Despite this pledge a tragic legacy weighted heavily on the

South Tyrol. The partial exodus was the culmination of a brutal twenty-five year encounter. After the short-lived liberal experiment the South Tyrol had served as a laboratory and an instrument for an authoritarian and totalitarian response to the profound transformations that had begun in late nineteenth century Italy. Fascist strategy sought to undermine the indigenous socioeconomic and political institutions in order to incorporate the territory and its population into the Italian body politic. Consequently, drastic actions had to be taken to reverse its effects, especially at a time when the development of South Tyrolean resources, the creation of an industrial zone, the largescale immigration of Italophones and the partial exodus of indigenous South Tyroleans had left both population groups hanging on precarious structural foundations, neither in full control of the province nor adequately integrated in a single spatio-functional system. 46

By the end of the war the South Tyrol had become a segmented society made up of two main ethnic clusters that were visibly distinct, geographically and socially separate and to a considerable degree, functionally segregated. The creation of an ethnically-segmented society and the transformation of political and economic structures were an inheritance against which the indigenous population had to fight. In the subsequent years the interaction of local demographic and socio-economic processes and external pressures shaped the political strategies pursued by each ethny and their ruling elites as they adapted to wider socio-economic changes.

1. THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL STRUCTURES

Political structures are an important variable for they mediate socio-economic processes, they accentuate or reduce the

intensity of their impact and condition their orientation.

Political power also shapes individual and collective behaviour, organizes social networks and enforces given forms of conformity by sanctioning given beliefs and attitudes about the collective

I and the individually-held collective identity. Consequently,

the evolution of political institutions and culture and of power

relations reflect but also affect all other processes of socio•

economic structuration. It is in this sense that we can see

that the postwar political evolution of the South Tyrol, and of

the political strategies of its resident populations, was 47

closely linked to the evolution of Italian and Austrian political practices, culture and institutions as well as of prevailing socio-cultural structures economic processes. The effect was to give the indigenous population the means to assert greater spatio-functional control over the province and marginalize the settler community.

1.1 The Evolution Of Italian Political Structures

When the Constituent Assembly convened to write a new democratic constitution to replace the old 1848 Albertine

Statute three separate committees were established to formulate the principles that would govern citizen-state relations, state organization and the state's economic organization. While the first and third committees elaborated constitutional texts that were inspired by notions of social rights and mixed economy, the second formulated a more traditional and restrictive set of constitutional provisions (Dente, 1985b: 81-92; Zariski, 1972:

26-33) governing the spatip-functional organization of the state apparatus (Pinzani, 1976: 2472-80). Consequently, the attempt to decentralize the administration of government was defeated by the doctrinal rigidities of the constitution and the centralistic practices of the bureaucracy and political elites.

Local branches of the state received juridical status to exercise autonomy in specific matters but remained under the ultimate authority of the national parliament and the supervision of its peripheral agencies. Regional statutes 48

(constitutions) for both Normal and Special Regions (like the

Trentino-South Tyrol) would be Acts of Parliament and not Acts

of Regional legislatures (de Servio, 1974: 15-20; Weibel, 1971:

291-2). 22

Constitutional debates were also entangled in cold war

politics. In the postwar years the Italian left opposed

decentralization because it expected to win political power at

the centre and feared that local autonomist governments could

become fiefs of conservative and 'reactionary' forces. When

victory went to the Christian Democrats (DC) both communists

(PCI) and socialists (PSI) became ardent supporters of

decentralization but found the road blocked by the newly

centralist DC (Katzenstein in Esman, 1977: 306-9).

The implementation of regional devolution had to wait

another quarter century. Socio-economic transformations at the

national and continental levels restructured the economy,

mobilized rural masses for urban residence and industrial

employment, and set in motion a process of socio-cultural

homogenization. This event made centre-left coalition

governments possible and broke down some of the ideological

walls that had split the country. The leftwing intellectual

critique of centralism transcended its Marxian sources and

penetrated other intellectual traditions and reinforced those

22 At a legislative level parliament would have jurisdiction over most primary (exclusive) powers while Regional legislatures would exercise jurisdiction over secondary (regulatory- administrative) and tertiary (complementary) powers under the supervision of central agencies, see Graziano in Borst et al., 1975: 109-10 and Dente, 1985a: 134-5). 49

discourses that had advocated devolution (Compagna and Muscara,

1980: 104-7; Zariski, 1972: 111-3).

Under the aegis of the Centre-Left national coalition a program of regional decentralization, of economic planning and social welfare was launched (Gourevitch in Tarrow, 1978: 34-50), but despite high hopes these plans flaundered and instead of efficient economic planning, state-wide delivery of social services and institutional decentralization, a pervasive system of mass patronage developed that used existing political parties as the mediatory vehicle between state institutions and the population and for the distribution of public goods.

Clientelism was nothing new in Italy. Compagna and Muscara write:

Those who unified the young and frail Kingdom of Italy had ... no illusions. Popular participation had been limited to a small class of young intellectuals and enlightened bourgeoisie. They were aware that there was no corresponding economic, social or cultural unity [of the country] in the anthropological sense (1980: 103)

Italian state-builders and post-unitary political leaders were forced to rely on more informal channels of integration,

i.e. through individual political leaders controlling social

forces whose power was guaranteed by restricted franchise in the

first fifties years of the state, and through political parties

in both the fascist and democratic periods because of greater

scale of social organization, bureaucratic intervention and

government assistance (Tarrow, 1977: 2-3).

This party-based system or 'partitocrazia' stifled 50

institutional decentralization and made all major parties the

channel through which middlemen, go-betweens and brokers could

press personal and group claims. By coopt.ing leftwing parties

and many interest groups, it became entrenched and social

stability was bought at the price of inefficiency (Dente, 1985b:

98-111; Zariski, 1972: 140-200).

Emprisoned by this inefficiency-producing system, the new

functional and bureaucratic agencies became fora of political

arbitration between the various parties and the interest groups

they purported to represent. Because decentralization occurred

over a fourteen year period (1963-1977), political parties

reconstructed locally the system that had emerged at the centre.

(Benvenuti in Borst et al., 1975: 230-6; Dente, 1985b: 92-7).

With the onset of the energy crisis and hyper-inflation in the

seventies the central government was able to use its primary

fiscal and financial powers 23 to exercise stringent control

over the Regions. Consequently, with the exception of the South

Tyrol (and the Trentino), decentralization was largely

emasculated (Gourevitch in Tarrow, 1978: 28-63). 24

23 With these powers the Italian central government proportionately collects more taxes (99%) than unitary states like France (93%), Great Britain (90%), Japan (75%) or Sweden (69%), see Rose, 1985: 27-8). 24 Some observers have predicted that Italian regions could become alternative loci of political power and loyalty (Bartole, 1979: 178-80), and in the last few years latent centrifugal pressures among northern Italo-Romance populations have emerged and taken the form of autonomist and federalist parties. 51

1.2 The SVP, The Politics Of Hegemony And Spatio-functional

Pi sengagement

The South Tyrol (and the Trentino) was the only Italian territory that evaded centralistic pressures, but this was not achieved immediately. The ambiguities of the 1946 Italo-

Austrian accord surfaced when the new constituent assembly convened to write a new constitution and failed to separate the

South Tyrol from the Trentino (Volgger, 1985: 177). Trentine financial and commercial groups outweighted South Tyrolean concerns and obtained a single, Trent-dominated autonomous

Region in which they would be dominant. Fascist industrialization had had little impact in the Trentino and had left the province poor, backward and a permanently depressed area. With regional autonomy Trentines could use the regional territory for the benefit of its Trentine section, develop their economy, build up the local infrastructure, help agriculture and modernize industry and tourism-oriented services (Bianco, 1971:

369-70). Regional autonomy could also appease reviving Trentine autonomism (Chiocchetti in Alto Adige, 1986: 34-5; Corposanto,

1979: 400-8), and for the national government a Trent-dominated

Region would contain South Tyrolean irredentism without threatening Italian sovereignty and Roman centralism.

The intervention of the Trentine-born Prime Minister

Alcide de Gasperi - was crucial. As a former member of the

Austrian parliament in the last years of the empire he had been familiar with the political diatribes of the old Tyrolean

Crownland. The text of the new statute closely resembled the 52

aborted institutional accomodation of 1901 in which legislative and executive powers were to be divided between a single regional government and two provincial assemblies (Furlani and

Wandruszka, 1974: 210-5), assigning a certain degree of autonomy to the South Tyrol but within an institutional framework dominated by Trentines.

Regional powers and direct political access to the national centre redressed Trentine atavic problems. Emigration was stopped, the province's economy was developed and the transition to modern capitalist structures in agriculture, industry and service sectors was successfully negotiated so that its residents achieved average incomes higher than their South

Tyrolean neighbours (Bianco, 1971: 369-70). This successful transition also benefitted the modern sectors of the South

Tyrolean economy, i.e. those sectors dominated by Italophones, but not the whole province (Fiorot, 1982: 122-3), and the economic gap between indigenous and immigrant populations

increased (Salvi, 1975: 241).

For indigenous South Tyroleans the division of power between regional and provincial levels of government offered at least an institutional basis that could be used to overcome some of the distortions brought about by twenty years of fascist rule

(Bartole, 1979: 372-3). South Tyrolean leaders, now organized

in a South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP), were keenly aware of

the ethnically segmented nature of the provincial economy and control of the Provincial government was the only means at their disposal to reassert control over economic processes and 53

reconstruct a more balanced social system and division of

labour.

Their views soon proved illusory because the central government failed to speedily implement the Statute and sought to minimize its effectiveness (Pristinger, 1978: 47-8), and the

Region refused to delegate administrative powers to the provinces as prescribed by article 14 of the Statute (Bartole,

1979: 372-5) so that routine administration was left to the

Region under Trentine Christian Democrats.

It is important here to pause and consider more closely the

role of the SVP. According to the Lipset-Rokkan model., political parties are essential agents of mobilization that act as communication networks in order to organize manifest and/or

latent social cleavages and channel demands. They crystallize

conflicting interests by giving such contrasts an expressive

mode and perform instrumental/representative functions on their

behalf. They transform socio-economic and political contrasts

into active demands, but also serve as the institutional fora

where the latter can be tested against the pressures of power.

Most importantly, because social chasms are hierarchically

organized but never in a static, atemporal way, they tend to

vary along territorial-cultural and functional axes which

emerged in the wake of nation-building and industrialization

(Lipset and Rokkan, 1967: 3-15). In other words, parties are

the organizational form by which new and old social groups adapt

to the transformation of the economic and politico-bureaucratic

order along modern capitalist and statist lines. 54

Typically, most political parties formed along one conflictual axis to fulfill both instrumental and representative

functions, generally in response to one dominant social chasm; however, in some societies political parties have had to

organize and represent interests along both axes; the South

Tyrol and the SVP are such atypical examples.

In such situations external threats may suspend or

interrupt the normal interplay of.disparate interests and goals.

Collective aspirations tend to be reorganized around a single

collective goal, but whereas populations in independent states

can compartmentalize short-term conflictual episodes and

longterm conflictual routines and thus minimize the costs of

goal-attainment, stateless or substate collectivities cannot

build institutional arrangements that make compartmentalization

possible; consequently, they tend to be under continuous strain

and social interruption. The single goal of survival

monopolizes resource allocation, centralizes decision-making,

weakens the autonomy of secondary social organizations designed

to organize and mediate social and political relations,

reinforces collective symbols and identity markers and promotes

ethnocentrism and social uniformity. In a sense such

collectivities act like besieged societies (Kimmerling, 1979: 9-

13), and from their earliest encounter with Italy, indigenous

South Tyroleans were under siege. Since the end of the Second

World War the SVP has been their rampart.

The party was founded in May 1945 by a group of anti-nazi

individuals and their immediate goal was the reunification of 55

the province to Austria, but once this objective was thwarted by the victorious allies they transformed the party into an organization dedicated to the revival, after a generation of fascist colonialism, of the separate political, social, economic and cultural life of an indigenous population of 250000 in a country of 45 million.

The strong peasant ethos and inter-class appeal of the

Church provided the intellectual and moral catalyst for the SVP rise to hegemonic representativeness of the indigenous population. Not only was the population strongly Catholic, but many SVP leaders were themselves Church-educated in a community where the Church had been the only indigenous institution that had operated outside fascist control. Consequently, in the 1948 provincial elections almost all indigenous South Tyroleans rallied behind the SVP, sanctioned its social and political ascendancy and guaranteed an institutional basis for what came to be known as the 'sammelspartei', the collection or gathering party (Agostini, 1985: 57-69).

Table 5: Results of Provincial Elections by Parties Representing the Indigenous Population in Selected Areas. 1948-1983 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) PROVINCE of which in PROVINCE of »mch in RURAL AREAS RURAL AREAS 1948 SDPS 0.74* (46.64%) 197 3 SPS 7.98% (7S.B4%) SVP 99 26% (80.42%) SFP 2.66% (59.72%) TOTAL 1080S3 (80.17%) SVP 87.63% (76.62%) 1952 SVP 99.46% (80.26%) PDU 1.73% (73.69%) IS 0.54% (47.46%) TOTAL 150850 (75.29%) TOTAL 113211 (80.08%) 1978 NL 2.58% (31.63%) 1956 SVP 124165 (79.42%) SPS 3 30% (71.23%) 1960 SVP 132351 (78.82%) SFP 1 14% (55 21%) 1964 SVP 96.23* (78.37%) SVP 91.02% (76.86%) THP 3.77% (44.95%) POU 1.98% (77.96%) TOTAL 139446 (77.10%) TOTAL 179622 (75.29%) 1968 SFP 3.72% (61 05%) 1983 AS 3.42% (49 92%) SVP 96.28% (77.38%) SPS 1.97% (68 97%) TOTAL 143314 (76.77%) SVP 87.2B% (77 70%) PDU 3.57% (79 89%) WHB 3.76% (73.38%) TOTAL 194916 (76.58%) Notes: For details on Urban Areas see Appendix A; for details on Parties see Appendix 8: ideological spectrum goes from top (left) to bottom (right)

Sources: Reg 1 one: 1948-68. 1973. 1978. 1983.

The above table shows that support for theSV P has ranged 56

from a low of 87.28% in 1983 to a high of 100% in 1956 and 1960.

Despite electoral shifts the SVP has maintained its overall

hegemonic hold over the indigenous population and reflected its

rural basis. No party from within the indigenous population has

been able to weaken this near-monopoly or, with the exception of

the small Independents' Party or PDU, gather most of its support

from the countryside.

The SVP has also successfully claimed Ladin representation.

Table 6: Provincial Vote par Language Group and Ethnic Political Alignment In Ladin Area. 1960-1963 I1n Percentiles)

1960 1964 1966 1973 1978 1983 GERMAN PARTIES 65.63% 67.78% 69.70% 66.50% N/A 74.28% ITALIAN PARTIES 34.37% 32.22% 29.71% 33.40% N/A 32.19%

Notes: Division of Ladin Vote per Ethnic Political Alignment was calculated by subtracting estimated number of Germanophone and Italophone voters from total vote of each Alignment and dividing estimated Ladin voters by Political Alignment. Estimate based on Adult Population figures of closest census year eligible to vote. for details about Ladin Areas see AppendtM A.

Sources. Region*: 1948-68/1973/1978/1983: I STAT. 1964/1973; ASTAT. 1987b: 70-5. In the immediate postwar period Ladins had sought to

organize separately and formed the 'Zent Ladina Dolomites',

whose membership included half of the adult population. This

experience was short-lived. The lack of a separate politico-

territorial domain, the symbiotic relationship and elective

affinity with Germanophones and provincial economic and cultural

policies led a majority (see table 6) of them to vote for the

SVP (Richebuono, 1982: 117-30). 25

SVP hegemony was reinforced by the great socio-cultural

25 The overall split in provincial electoral results reflects the ethnic division of the adult population and can be considered an accurate representation of the political split between the two major ethnies. Ladins have traditionally split their vote between the SVP and Italian Christian Democrats, till the seventies by a 2:1 ratio and since by 3:1, see table 5. 57

distance that separated indigenous and immigrant populations.

The organizational and attitudinal differences underlined different political cultures and informed separate political

strategies. Only Christian Democrats were ideologically and

socially capable of breaking the gap and cooperate with the SVP

(Fiorot, 1982: 121-2), but like the province itself, South

Tyrolean Christian Democrats were subordinated to the Region and

Trentine Christian Democrats whose economic and political

interests dictated regional centralization and an economic

strategy that favoured urban industrial development,

infrastructural improvements and modernization of rural areas in

the Trentino and the Italianized areas of the South Tyrol.

During the fifties the combination of centripetal pushes

and strong indigenous resistance brought into the open the

social contradictions and generational gap within the SVP. The

notables who had established the party were from a middle class

background and ideologically more liberal than the party's

supporters, i.e. from the social milieu that had suffered from

the 1940-43 exodus. The internal conflict remained latent so

long as the primary goal was the achievement of political

autonomy, but once the latter proved unobtainable because of

Trentine and Italian resistance divisions came to the fore

(Alcock, 1970: 236-42).

The rigidity of the Italian position and the insistence of

the old guard to use only legal and parliamentary channels

exasperated the conflict within the SVP and led to the rise of a

new, younger generation, made up mostly of rural optants 58

educated in the fascist school system and trained in the German

army (Fiorot, 1982: 123). These young Turks were very different

from their elders. Instead of accomodation and negotiation they

were committed to a strategy of confrontation and shifted SVP

opposition from one of process to one of substance. No longer

did they insist that the Statute be fully implemented, but

argued that the Statute be changed so that the Province could

exercise those legislative powers that the Region was unwilling

to delegate.

The resolution of the Austrian question in 1955 radicalized

the situation because now the indigenous population could seek

support from its Austrian brethren and eschew partial solutions.

Italy steadfastly rejected any Austrian role and insisted that

it had fulfilled its obligations and implemented the terms of

the 1946 Accord. 26 The crisis had unexpected consequences in

Austria because it crystallized displaced national frustrations

and contributed to the redefinition of an Austrian national

identity. In this country, the deep social and political

segmentation between city and country, urban proletariat and

rural peasantry and left and right that had prevailed in the

interwar period and contributed to the 1930 civil war and the

failed reunification with Germany, had remained latent in the

decade-long allied occupation and had not been fully resolved

(Katzenstein in Tarrow, 1978: 123-69). In the post-war period

26 It was in this context of rising hostilities that the South Tyrolean question reached the floor of the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1961-62 and transformed the hitherto domestic problem into an international affair. 59

the potential for conflict had inaugurated a consociational

strategy of social control and political accomodation, and in

this context, South Tyrolean matters were delegated to North

Tyrolean Social Christians. This was useful in the short term

because it cemented a common Austrian position and resolve, and

provided needed support to indigenous South Tyroleans; however,

on the long run, it stifled practical policy options in the name

of Tyrolean identity and Austrian nationalism. Social

fragmentation and delegation of power simply reinforced

political immobilism since policy proposals remained impractical

given the power and place of Italy and Austria in Cold War

politics (Katzenstein in Esman, 1977: 301-2).

A similar situation of rigid political positions obtained

in Italy. Both the Trentino and the central government were

satisfied with the status quo since both had what they wanted,

but as Strassoldo writes:

Minorities find protection, freedom and rights when the social costs of their subjugation are greater than the benefits (Strassoldo in Boileau et al., 1975: 25).

And the costs were on the rise (Agostini, I985:a: 107-22;

Volgger, 1985: 205-60). 27

The strategy of confrontation proved costly for the

indigenous, population as well. In the early sixties the SVP

27 Compared to very low (e.g. Brittany) and very high intensity ethnic conflicts (e.g. Kossovo), political violence has played a role in the South Tyrolean situation, but not a dominant one. Nevertheless, in the 1961-1972 period, 22 people lost their lives and 346 terrorist acts were recorded. 60

leadership was increasingly aware that its intransigence was blocking meaningful negotiations and that the emphasis on extreme demands was not helpful. Italian leaders reached similar conclusions and expressed more principled and prudential considerations towards the South Tyrolean minority. Above all, both parties were being pushed by the realization that continued political crisis could compromise the gradual restructuration of the provincial and regional economies.

With international involvement, an escalating terrorist campaign and the growing evidence that the 1948 Statute was unworkable because of SVP boycott, the Italian government set up a nineteen-member 'Commission of Experts' charged with the task of reviewing the Autonomy Statute and formulating proposals for

its reform. Unlike 1948 indigenous South Tyroleans were

represented by eight Germanophones and one Ladin, and between

1961 and 1969 negotiations took place and a 'Package' of 137 proposed changes (text in Alcock, 1970: 434-91) to the 1948

Statute was agreed to by the parties. The old Autonomy Statute was substantially changed, albeit not to the satisfaction of all

SVP leaders and the package approved in November 1969 by slim majority of SVP party members (Alcock, 1970: 450-3).

On January 20, 1972 the new Autonomy Statute was approved by parliament. Under its terms, the South Tyrol did not become a separate Region but the old Trentino-South Tyrol Region lost 61

most of its power. 28 The transfer of powers in the economic,

financial and cultural fields entailed a set of bureaucratic

arrangements such as ethnic proportionality and bilingualism in

the civil service designed to protect Germanophones and Ladins.

29 German was made coequal to Italian throughout the Province

and in all government offices as the language of internal and

external communication, except for the Armed Forces; therefore,

Germanophones had both the right to use their native tongue with

all government offices (a right recognized by the 1948 Statute

but never implemented in State bureaucracies) and to work in it.

As in 1948 South Tyrolean Ladins were not guaranteed equal

treatment, but unlike their Trentine brethren, they achieved

some gains. The existing bilingual immersion school system was

maintained but placed under a separate Ladin School Board and

Ladins were guaranteed a permanent seat in both Provincial and

Regional governments and on-going financing of their cultural

activities (Craffonara, 1986: 15; Egger, 1978: 110-8).

With compulsory bilingualism and proportionality the ethnic

composition of the civil service was profoundly changed. This

had begun at the Municipal, Provincial and Regional and had been

28 Under the 1948 Statute the Regional government held primary jurisdiction in 17 areas and secondary jurisdication in another 8, while the Provinces of Trent and Bolzano-Bozen had jurisdiction in 14 and 3 areas respectively. After 1972 the Provinces acquired primary jurisdiction in 29 areas and secondary jurisdiction in another 11, and the Region was left with primary jurisdiction in 10 areas and secondary jurisdiction in 3 (Provincia Autonoma, 1985). 29 Since Italophones were disproportionately represented in the civil service, current employees were protected and proportionality was to be achieved in a thirty-year period period (1972-2002) 62

achieved by the mid-sixties; now it was the turn of state

agencies (Egger, 1978:39) and from 1975 to 1986 the proportion

of Italophones dropped from 86.10% to 56.14% (Amort, 1987: 24

and supplement).

The new Autonomy increased the financial power of the

Province. From an average of eleven billion lire per annum

during the sixties (Pan, 1979), Provincial revenues grew at

annual rate of about 34% (funds assessed and committed) and 55%

(funds collected and paid) between 1973 and 1983. 30 In

practical terms, this meant that the South Tyrol received

greater transfer payments than neighbouring Trentino and North

Tyrol even though its population is smaller, and the once

dominant Region saw its proportion of combined provincial-

regional revenues drop from 34.1% in 1973 to 1.9% in 1985

(Dall'O' et al., 1988: 197-8; ISTAT, 1986: 24-5).

With its new-found financial endowment the Province has

been able to actively intervene in the local economy. Although

agencies and branches of the central government still account

for a larger share of total public expenditures (60%), most

notably in the delivery of collective services and the payment

of salaries, most discretionary spending (80-90%) now belongs to

the Province, and almost 40% of its expenditures (for the 1983-

88 period) were used in direct or indirect support of economic

activities (Provincia Autonoma, 1988: 68-9).

The period of negotiations coincided with mounting

30 Percentiles calculated by author (from ISTAT, 1986: 25). 63

obstacles and challenges to SVP rule and South Tyrolean society.

The party had to manage the processes that were undermining

traditional economic structures and prevent the marginalization

of the indigenous population in an ethnically segmented division

of labour. Within its ranks, business groups, farmers and

workers were increasingly conscious of the potential dangers to

the indigenous community and of the self-defeating effect of

early SVP actions.

The boycott of Regional institutions and the loss of the

influence in the distribution of Regional funding aggravated

this sense of urgency since the necessary policy options that

could stir economic trends and shape structural adjustments were

being made without South Tyrolean input and often against South

Tyrolean interests. In 1961 an inchoate fronde - the Aufbau or

reconstruction manifesto - called on the SVP to abandon its

sterile and incessant opposition to the Statute, the Region and

the central government and demanded that Provincial economic

policies address the needs of all sectors of the economy

(Ghirigato, 1986: 101-2).

The Aufbau's commitment to change was hedged and partial,

and ultimately failed as a form of organized opposition to the

SVP leadership, but its warnings were heeded. The SVP

reorganized its internal institutions to reflect social changes

and the rise of new social groups - business, workers, youth,

women - and adopted a more bureaucratic structure to organize

such interests (Katzenstein in Esman, 1977: 316-9; Pristinger,

1978: 52-3) and deal more effectively with the growing social 64

differentiation of the indigenous population and still retain the support of its overwhelming majority. At a policy level, it instituted a set of programs to modernize agriculture and reemploy excess rural labour in traditional and new economic activities. Tourism, crafts and small-scale, newly-created industries received Provincial support and attracted foreign investments.

The emergence of party-based.clientelism at the national level enhanced the SVP's bargaining power and facilitated this organizational transformation since the SVP could mediate the process by which the central government instituted a country• wide welfare system and use the resources made available to maintain the political cohesion of the indigenous population.

Under its leadership the corporatist practices of segregated social groups, typical of Austrian politics, was adapted to

Italian political practices (Katzenstein in Esman, 1977: 306-

23). The SVP could thus retain its role as the defender of the

indigenous minority and articulate its demands vis-a-vis local branches of national parties and the central government as well as act as the internal political broker and dispenser of rewards and influence.

SVP dominance should not be confused with complete monopoly. External cultural, educational and social

organizations continued to exist, and the SVP was never a

totalitarian party. Yet the siege mentality conditioned almost

all social groups and organizations. As a quintessential beacon

of indigenous values and attitudes the SVP has always donned the 65

mantel of authority, used a sharply nationalist rhetoric and shown hegemonial impulses.

The party's central role made it the privileged interlocutor of Austrian and Bavarian Social Christian parties and governments and enabled the SVP to closely supervise the process of economic transformation and favour investments from both countries. This transalpine connection opened the party to their ideological and intellectual influences; concepts like socialpartnership (Sozialpartnersshaft) and Co-management

(Mitbestimmung) were adopted in an effort to organize the changing economic system (Pan, 1979) and reduce inevitable social tensions within the indigenous population (Pristinger,

1978: 57-61). However, the growing social and economic differentiation within the indigenous population was an important, albeit unwelcome, byproduct of modernization. It created fears that it might find a political expression and undermine the raison d'etre of the SVP as the single political block of the minority.

Greater socio-economic differentiation, the opening to the outside world and growing educational opportunities offered enabled a growing number of people to question the SVP model of society and its way of exercising power (Acquaviva and

Eisermann, 1981: 84). A small but growing number of

Germanophone blue collar workers subjected to new socializing experiences adopted more clearly-defined class identity and joined national and local ethnic unions at a time of greater worker militancy throughout Italy (Ghirigato, 1986: 128-41; 66

Pristinger, 1978: 148-55).

A 1973 survey showed that 5% of Germanophones was prepared to vote for ideological parties, irrespective of ethnicity, while another 25% (23% for rural respondents and 36% for urban

respondents) indicated a preference for ideologically-oriented parties within their own ethny (Gubert, 1976: 92). Since the

seventies at least half of this potential electorate has put

their preference into practice and voted for inter-ethnic parties (Langer, 1986) while others have opted for parties that have challenged SVP's policy management (Pristinger, 1978: 123-

4) or political compromises.

1.3 Autonomy And The Italophone Community

The new political arrangement set up in 1972 transformed

the Italophone community from a national and regional majority

into a provincial minority. Like other settler experiences,

that of Italophones in the South Tyrol began from a position of

strenght within the territory of settlement but of weakness vis•

a-vis the external centre that created it. This meant that its

initial political behaviour reflected national trends rather

than a process of adaptation to local circumstances.

Since the Second World War the electoral behaviour of

Italians has been stable and shifts of little import. The

proportional system of representation has favoured inter- and

intra-party fragmentation and protest voting, and ideological

divisions have reinforced consociational and coalition politics 67

(Zariski, 1972: 140-200; ibid, 1984: 403-19). This has not

prevented political realignments like the creation of centre-

left coalitions in the early sixties, but the emergence of a

patronage-based informal system has accentuated the rigidities

of formal political institutions based on permanent majorities

and minorities.

Table 7: Results in Provincial Elections by Parties Representing Italophone Population per Ideological Grouping, 1948-1383 (in Percent 1les)

LEFT PROVINCE of which in CENTRE PROVINCE of which m urban centres urban centres 1948 28 08% (79 65%) 1948 33 79% (SB 70%) 1952 25 S7% (81 67%) 1952 39 34% (60 81%) 1956 21 90% (83 40%) 1956 40 32% (63 06%) 1960 25 01% (85 00%) I960 40 42% (65 59%) 1964 12 58% (86 84%) 1964 37 20% (68 31%) 1968 16 14% (89 16%) 1968 38 95% (72 71%) 1973 15 99% (88 23%) 1973 39 53% (74 87%) 1978 28 75% (88 16%) 1978 33 02% (75 51%) 1983 25 65% (88 38%) 1983 29 94% (75 06%) LEFT OF CENTRE RIGHT 1948 9 67% (71 72%) 1948 9 21% (85 84%) 19S2 9 91% (76 47%) 1952 19 03% (79 92%) 1956 11 33% (SO 01%) 1956 16 91% (81 97%) 1960 1 1 16% (77 11%) 1960 19 71% (85 82%) 1964 26 38% (81 57%) 1964 17 12% (85 98%) 1968 22 68% (82 69%) 1968 13 16% (86 05%) 1973 25 49% (96 68%) 1973 11 30% (87 03%) 1978 20 59% (84 17%) 1978 8 92% (88 61%) 1983 22 81% (85 25%) 1983 16 49% (89 49%) Notes: For details on Urban Centres see Appendix A; for details on Ideological Groupings see Appendix B Sources: Reglone: 1948-68/1973/1978/1983.

Table 7 shows the relative predominance of the centrist

Christian Democrats who have managed to retain a 35-40% support

until the mid-seventies. Unlike other ideological groupings

their support has had a strong rural base because of the party's

strong Social-Christian appeal and values. In addition, political considerations and shared Social Christian values have made it the privileged interlocutor of the SVP; however, unlike

other Italian political parties and the SVP, the DC has had to

balance its role as the natural, albeit junior, partner of the

SVP and of its Trentine counterpart and the agent of patronage

distribution with the need to maintain its appeal among a

fragmented Italophone electorate in which a substantial 68

proportion has been tempted by nationalist appeals (Delle Donne,

1984: 19) and responsive to anti-Germanophone prejudices

(Ghirigato, 1986: 45-55).

Under pre- and post-1972 political arrangements Italophone votes have been of little consequence in provincial politics since power was always in the hands of others, but they closely reflect the state of inter-ethnic relations and, therefore, are a good indicator of Italophone reactions to decisions taken by others. As inter-ethnic tensions rose during the fifties and early sixties the right benefitted; in the following years, when negotiations on political reform started and political tensions abated, the left and centre-left gained. In 1983 the pendulum swung back towards the right following renewed inter-ethnic tensions.

In the atypical circumstances of the South Tyrol the

Italophone population has begun to vote like a bloc. In his

1973-76 study Gubert had found that one third of Italophones was prepared to vote for a nationalist party; with the growing

Italophone disenchantment with the Statute and traditional parties the neo-fascist MSI has benefitted. 69

Table 8: Proportion of Italophone vote going to MSI. 1980-1987 (in Percentiles)

PROVINCE URBAN RURAL 80L2ANO- CENTRES AREAS 802EN 1980 7.93% 8.77% 3 72% 8.42% 1983 18.48% 19 90% 11 35% 20.61% 1985 24.73% 27.26% 19.77% 29 56% 1987 29.07% 31.59% 18.68% 33 01%

Motes: For details on Selected Areas see Append < x A; 1980 ana 1985 Municipal Elections: 1983 Provincial Election: 1987 National Election.

Sourest: 1980 vote in Provlncla Autorroaa. 1984: 113-36: 1983 vote in Pegione, 1983: 1985 vote in Provincia Autonona. 1986: 115-40: 1987 vote in Dolonlten. 1987.

Table 8 shows that Italophone now appreciate the value of

brinkmanship and, for some, the full nationalist potential among

Italophones has not been realized (Omnibus, 1987: 10).

Gubert correctly predicted that this shift in Italophone

allegiances would depend on the nature of inter-ethnic

relations. Low tensions would favour the social integration and

political adjustment of the immigrant population to the life of

the province as a result of growing Italophone participation in

inter-ethnic or Germanophone-controlled social and cultural

networks; 31 conversely, high tensions might lead to an

Italophone sammelspartei (Gubert, 1976: 92-3).

31 Leidlmair (1969) had observed the neighbour effect (on the concept, see Laponce, 1987) on Italophone voters during the sixties in the Bassa Atesina-Suedtiroler Unterland, a mixed area south of the provincial capital (see Appendix C, maps D, E and F). According to estimates made by this author about 25% of the Italophone electorate voted SVP during the sixties and 15% during the seventies. However, changing socio-economic structures and rising inter-ethnic tensions have made this phenomenon insignificant. Estimates achieved by subtracting the percentile of population of closest census year from percentile of electoral results and dividing by One/Hundredth of electoral results. 70

1.4 Recent Trends

Why did the statute fail to achieve inter-ethnic accomodation and deescalate political tensions? Some observers believed that once autonomy was implemented inter-ethnic confrontation would recede into the background and socio• economic factors govern political life. The new political arrangement would allow the dramatic socio-economic changes that had taken place within the indigenous population to take their natural course and reshape the political landscape. Multi• ethnic social groups would form around common social experiences and economic interests, and the emotional relevance of inter- ethnic confrontation would decline and be replaced by a more differentiated and pluralistic political life (Katzenstein in

Esman, 1977: 288; Paoli in Goglio, 1979). Others held that the contradiction between a peripheral ethno-national minority and a potentially assimilating national area would survive. The

language of symbols may lose its original resonance but in the absence of shared collective values the various ethnies would

still stress their cultural differences and pursue political

strategies that could aggravate other social divisions

(Andreatta and Faustini, 1976: 730-1).

The skeptics proved closer to the facts because, in multi•

ethnic societies, ethnicity will always remain a potent, if

often latent, source of emotional appeal and political power.

They are not necessarily the most easily destabilized by social

conflict and economic changes so long as the political and

economic steering mechanisms incorporate all ethnic segments and 71

enable respective elites to participate in decision-making and develop common values, ranging from elite accomodation (Aunger,

1981) to different forms of consociational or federal regimes

(Lijphardt, 1979). However, in multilingual societies accomodation cannot be achieved without some form of spatio- functional separation of language groups. In the South Tyrol this option was never envisaged, and even if it had, the juxtaposition of an Italophone-controlled vital centre and a

Germanophone-controlled complementary region would have made it too difficult to implement. Instead, the solution was one of personal language rights within an autonomous province where the numerical majority of the Germanophone population was the key factor. This situation was compounded by the rigidities of the indigenous political culture and the inherent divisions of the

Italophone community and Italian political system (Nolet, 1971:

11-2).

In the years following the 1969 Package the parties came to a tacit agreement (Nolet, 1971: 12-3) to keep negotiations above public scrutiny in order to diffuse potential mass mobilization against it, but the tactic backfired for it left South Tyroleans misinformed and unprepared (Agostini, 1985: 16-9; Ghirigato,

1986: 166). The problem was aggravated by the SVP approach to autonomy. Since its raison d'etre was the maintenance of a pervasive social consensus around traditional Social-Christian beliefs, ethnic differentiation and political cohesion of the indigenous population, its strategy dictated ethnic separation and the perpetuation of inter-ethnic divisions (Pristinger, 72

1978: 153-4; Steurer in Alto Adige, 1986: 22-3). When it lacked the institutional instruments and economic resources to ensure the survival of the minority, this consensus was easily achieved and the 'Volkstumpfkampf' could override all other issues and considerations. However, in the seventies the material and social conditions that had sustained this monolythic consensus no longer existed and the SVP could only pursue two alternative strategies.

It could emphasize its conservative orientation and become a more distinctly rightwing party (Nolet, 1971: 9) and thus take advantage of the integration of the province in the continental economy and the rise of international and subnational

institutions like the European Community, the Alpine Regions

Organization and the West-European Christian Democratic Union.

Through these functional links the party could institutionalize contacts with sister-parties in neighbouring Germanophone countries and rely on their support and resources, but this

option had one important drawback. It would weaken the original political consensus that had ensured SVP hegemony within the

indigenous population.

The other option was to maintain its appeal as the

sammelpartei. Within the context of the new Autonomy Statute

and improved socio-economic conditions this strategy could not

rely on a real sense of deprivation; instead, it had to offer a

political discourse that stressed symbols and issues that 73

divided the two major ethnies. 32 This could only undermine the

recently found political stability, perturb economic development

and weaken the SVP bargaining position vis-a-vis the Italian

government and threaten its own ability to maintain internal

social consensus as well as attract foreign investment.

Unable to escape from its own contradictions the SVP

responded by micro-managing political and economic problems as

they arose. The financial windfall that came with the new

Statute funded countless social and cultural associations and

thus reinforced the organizational bases of the minority's

social segregation, institutional corporatism and cultural

uniformity. Past injustices were stressed and autonomy was

defined as a compensatory covenant between the indigenous

population and the Italian state rather than a common ideal for

all South Tyroleans (Agostini, 1985: 79-105). Similarly, the

SVP cultivated its conservative credentials at a time of a

leftwing drift of Italian, Austrian and West German politics so

as to maintain strong institutional links with sister parties in

the same countries. This cooperation was essential if the South

Tyrol was to exploit its geographic position as a crossroad in

an increasingly integrated continental economy and a regional

32 Some SVP leaders have called for the virtual physical separation of the two ethnies out of fear of 'einmischung' and 'Alsatianization', and demanded the penalization of citizens who objected to ethnic identification (Europeo, 1983: 27), the segregation of school populations (separate entrances, stairways, playgrounds and sport facilities in shared buildings), of rest homes (in Merano-Meran), of the Rotary Club, and the creation of a separate South Tyrolean Olympic Committee (Coletti in Europeo, 1984: 18-20; Giannelli, 1987: 82; Zucchini, 1986: 44-8). 74

political space dominated by conservative and moderate political forces.

The porcupine strategy of micro-management, ethnic separation and conservative alignment was reinforced by bureaucratic resistance and political disinterest in Rome. A process that was supposed to take two years bogged down in an endless game of bargaining that the SVP used to seek additional concessions (Delle Donne, 1984; 19; Giannelli, 1987: 85), and refocus the latent hostility towards the Statute.

The spate 33 of proposals to modify the Statute were not met, but the refusals have been useful in Rome-bashing and in closing ethnic ranks (Girola and Giacomelli in Famiglia

Cristiana, 1985: 63; Zucchini, 1986: 42). However, riding the tiger of inter-ethnic tensions had its occupational hazards. In a political climate that favoured tensions and confrontation terrorism has appeared once again (La Repubblica, 1987: nos.

122-125-126-220; Europeo, 1981: n.14) and fractional splintering occurred within the SVP itself (Agostini, 1986: 15-8, 66;

Folgheraiter in Famiglia Cristiana, 1986). Outside the party both the right and the left have accentuated their criticism and opposition to SVP policy.

Among the issues reopened there were the demand for a federal arrangement between the South Tyrol and Italy (Bianchini in La Repubblica, 1987: n.125), the provincialization of the National Road Maintenance Agency (ANAS) (Nolet, 1984: 14), the collection of custom dues and separate fiscal powers (Zucchini, 1986: 47), the abolition of most bilingual toponyms (Bocca in La Repubblica, 1987: n.128), the de facto creation of separate Bar Associations and legal systems, one for Germanophones and one for Italophones (Rucellai, 1984: 30-6). 75

The strains and stresses placed on the SVP leadership have produced a certain, albeit belated, change in the party's strategy, and led to the departure of some of its most

intransigent members (La Repubblica, 1988: n.92; ibid, 1989: n.97) This shift is partly the result of the inevitable generational change that is bringing younger politicians to positions of responsability, more concerned with the impact of political instability on the province's economy. Some groups

like the Workers' faction (Arbeitnehmer) now share common

interests with their Italophone counterparts (Nolet, 1984: 12-

4), and the business community is now in a better position to manage economic affairs (Giannelli, 1987: 20-2). The Province has implicitly recognized this by supporting the hitherto

Italophone-controlled industrial sector (Provincia Autonoma,

1988: 21-1).

The SVP finally understood the need to reassure the

Italophone community because the constant use and display of pan-Tyrolean sentiments and the expression of overt anti-Italian

stereotypes had antagonized Italophones who find themselves

increasingly isolated in the province and largely abandoned by

Roman leaders. Political instability and Italophone resentment

has also prompted the SVP to reach out towards the Italophone

community in order to better manage economic decisions and

address some of the cyclical and structural problems of the

provincial economy (Nolet, 1984: 12-4). Above all, the

possibility of an Italian sammelspartei was of upmost concern

for it would block political dialogue, destabilize the Autonomy 4

regime, polarize the two ethnies and strenghten the indigenous

right at a time when the economy was in a recessionary cycle.

SVP leaders tried to clarify their policies and took different

steps to allay Italophone fears, 34 most notably in the areas of

ethnic proportionality, public employment and social housing

(Agostini, 1986: 24-6; Ansaloni in Alto Adige, 1986: 43;

Provincia Autonoma, 1988: 4-6), but all these efforts have not

yet overcome some of the cultural and mental schemes that inform

indigenous attitudes (Magnago in Provincia Autonoma, 1988: 6).

The more moderate image and language of the SVP was for

many Italophones too little too late. The turning point came

with the failure of the 1979-80 petition in favour of early

bilingualism signed by 16000, mostly Italophone, residents, and

the publication of the 1981 census which showed a 15% drop of

the Italophone population. By 1985 over 20000 people signed a

MSI-sponsored petition calling for the repeal of the most

important provisions of the 1972 Autonomy Statute (Giannelli,

1987: 67). However, the growing support for the MSI has not yet

become a voting bloc and cannot create an Italophone

sammelpartei because of the former's ideological and political

illegitimacy in post-1945 Italy, and because of the absence of a

territorial base where it could exercise political power.

The other political parties are politically and/or

34 For this reason, the SVP negotiated a pre-electoral program before the 1983 Provincial Elections with the Christian Democrats and Socialists rather than accept their participation in a provincial coalition as representative of the Italophone community (Provincia Autonoma, 1988: 4-6). 77

ideologically unprepared or unable to organize this electorate.

The Christian Democrats are caught between cooperation and

confrontation with the SVP and cannot bridge the social and

ideological gap on their right and left. In the seventies and

early eighties some of the left and centre-left parties tried to

appeal to Germanophone voters by adopting bilingual

denominations and running Germanophone candidates, but their

belated change lacked the credibility with and presence in the

indigenous community to gain any real support and in the process

lost support among Italophones.

The only new alternative has come from those South

Tyroleans who grew up politically in new-left circles in Italy

and/or West Germany and opposed the seeming paucity of ideas and

the political discourses based on narrow views of ethnicity and

class-politics (Giannelli, 1987: 57-61; Langer, 1986: 189-92).

Despite stern opposition and berating by the SVP and the attempt

by some Italian parties to appropriate some of their themes the

New Left has carved out a certain space for itself and may

represent around 4% of the Germanophone electorate and 7% of the

Italophone electorate (in 1983). 35 Nevertheless, it speaks a

political language that is too new for most South Tyroleans,

born and raised in another age and steeped in different values,

and more concerned with the here and now than with lofty ideas

about societal projects.

The rearrangement of political institutions in the South

35 Estimates by author, see Appendix B. 78

Tyrol has given the province of Bolzano-Bozen an extensive financial and economic autonomy and has allowed the SVP and the indigenous population to enhance their functional separation from the fascist-imposed spatio-functional hierarchy centred on the Italophone-controlled capital; but the political situation remains one of impasse.

At a socio-political level, SVP power now rested on its ability to control Provincial institutions, extract resources from central government and manage the internal contradictions of the indigenous population. The existing politico- administrative system was compatible with an internally-unified political system that maximized the use of nationally-allocated resources to compartmentalize the generation of social demands and the articulation of different interests. The paradox is that its success in doing so weakened its political base and undermined its ideological hegemony. The only way it could reconcile these two contradictory trends was to use its new• found power to maintain inter-ethnic contact at a minimum and manage relatively high inter-ethnic tensions while cultivating its conservative credentials vis-a-vis ruling groups in Italy,

Tyrol and Bavaria.

At a structural level, the contradictions inherent in a bifurcated spatio-functional system have only aggravated socio• political contradictions. Political autonomy thus cannot engender longterm inter-ethnic accomodation because the

Italophone community lacks the necessary spatial separation that could guarantee the autonomy of its distinct functional 79

institutions and domains.

It is useful at this point to turn to such institutions and domains to see how and why the lack of Italophone spatial separation plays a role in the present conflict. It will also shed some light on how and why the indigenous population was able to resist the fascist attempt to incorporate and assimilate it into a wider Italian spatio-functional order.

2. THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIQ-CULTURAL STRUCTURES

The evolution of political institutions and strategies of territorial control ultimately depend on human agency, i.e. they are instantiated by the actions of humans which, in turn, depend on the self-evaluative processes that enable humans to apprehend their surrounding. It is, therefore, necessary to look at the socio-cultural attitudes, mentalities and ideas people have about ethnic identity, intra- and inter-ethnic relations and their socio-cultural bases to fully appreciate why and how certain behaviours, actions and decisions are made possible. Only by looking at them can one identify specific traits that pertain to the recursive and discoursive knowledge of people and recognize how they inform individual political behaviour and collective political strategies.

But how do we measure or identify ethnicity and its behavioural and organizational manifestations? The often used method is that of public surveys. In the South Tyrol several 80

survey studies have confirmed behavioural and organizational

differences and identified general patterns that separate South

Tyrolean ethnies. In such studies researchers have recognized

that despite seventy years of Italian rule, culture, understood

in its wider sense (the set of intellectual, behavioural,

organizational and material expressions of social life) remains

the principal factor of differentiation of South Tyrolean

ethn ies.

In 1976 Renzo Gubert found that ethnic identity among South

Tyrolean Germanophones and Italophones was strongly felt, less

so among Ladins.

Table 9: Ethnic Identification (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) R.I. U.I F.L. G.L. R S US. TOTAL GERMAN 1.3% 12% 2.7% 14 9% 98 7% 94.8% 164 ITALIAN 96 1% 97 6% 33.3% 6 8% 1.3% 5.2% 183 LAOIN 1.3% 64.0% 78.4% - 107 TOTAL 75 78 75 74 77 77 456 Notes: Total figures include Others and Oon't Know: R • Rural. U • Urban. F • Fasa Valley. G • Gherdeina Valley G > Germanophones. I > Italophones. L • Ladins.

This table shows that except for a small shift among urban

Germanophones 36 - 1 in 20 - Germanophones and Italophones

retained a strong ethnic identity. The same cannot be said

about Ladins. In Fasa valley (Trentino) losses represented

about one third of the potential Ladin population; in Gherdeina

(South Tyrol) losses were smaller - one quarter - but still

significant. However, a closer look reveals another picture. A

1969 empirical study of family names showed that while two

thirds of all surnames in the Bassa Atesina/Suedtiroler

36 This sample was taken in the provincial capital alone and not from other cities; it is probable that losses in Bolzano-Bozen were compensated elsewhere. 81

Unterland were Italian, only one third of the population

considered itself Italian; consequently, one Germanophone in two

was of Italian origin. 37

In the absence of more precise data, this author has used

the names of municipal councillors as the indicator of ethnic

origin and compared them to their declared ethnic identity.

This was done by using data from those municipalities where,

according to the 1981 census, a substantial Italophone

population lived. Given the nature of inter-ethnic relations in

the province and the strenght of ethnic identities (see table 9)

the results can be seen as underlying indicators of a general,

if not very precise, trend.

Tab»« 10: Distribution of 1985 Municipal Councillors according to Table 11: Distribution of Presumed Assimilated and Non-Ass*mllated Declared and Presumed Ethnic Identity in Selected 1985 Municipal Councillors in Selected Areas (in Areas (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) Percent 1les) OECLARED ETHNIC IDENTITY PRESUMED ETHNIC IOENTITY ITALOPHONES GERMANOPHONES ITALOPHONE GERMANOPHONE ITALOPHONE GERMANOPHONE TOTAL NON-ASSIMILATEO ASSIMILATED NON-ASSIMILATEO ASSIMILATEO 1 55 45% 41 82% 69 09% 30.91% 110 1 76.31% 23.69% 85 29% 14.71% 2 .55 0O% 45.00% 57 50% 42.50% 40 2 91.31% 8.69% 94 12% 5 88% 3 76.00% 34.00* 76 00% 24.00% SO 3 94.76% 5 24% 83.34% 16.66% 4 4 1 25% 55.00% 61 87% 36.25% 160 4 61.61% 38.39% 86 2 1% 13 79% 5 37 77% 62.23% 42 22% 57.78% 45 5 78 95% 21.05% 92 31% 7 69% 6 31 43% 68.57% 34 28% 65.72% 35 6 91.67% 8.33% 100 00% 7 20.00% 80.00% 38.00% 62.00% 50 7 52 00% 47.37% 100 00% B 15.00% 83.34% 16.66% 75.01% 60 8 70.00% 30.00% 100.00% TOTAL 7 1 77% 28 23% 94.28% 5 72% TOTAL 37.70% 60.65% 48 94% 49.18% 450 Notes: see table 10. Notes: 1 > Adlge-Etsch Corridor, see table 9; 2 • Merano-Meran; Source: Regione. 1986. 3 • Bolzano-Bozen; 4 > Bassa-Unterland (Auer-Ora. Bronzolo-Branzol 1 , Kaltern- Caldaro. Kur11nig-Cortina. Leives-Leifers. Neumarkt- Egna. Montan-Montagna. Salorno-Salurn, Vadena-Pfatten): 5 * Etsack-Isarco (8rixen-Bressanone. Fortezza-Franzenfeste) 6 « w1ppta1-Upper Isarco (Brenner-Brennero, Sterzing- vtpiteno); 7 • Burgrafenamt-Burgravlato (BurgstalI-Postal. Gargazon- Gargazzone); 8 . Pus ter-Puster 1 a (Bruneck-Brumco. Innlchen-San Candldo. Toblach-Doobiaco). The total number includes Ladins

Source: Regione. 1986

These tables show that there is a direct relationship

7 See Volkstumsprobleme in Sprachgrenzgebiet des Bozner Unterlandes by Adelheid Heuberger-Hardorp, Innsbruck and Muenchen, Universitaetverlag Wagner, cited in Dall'O' et al., 1988: 169. 82

between demographic size and assimilation. From a high of

almost 50% in the Burgraviato/Burgrafenamt to a low of 5.26% in

the provincial capital Italophones exhibit the greatest

assimilation rate. In the two largest cities and in the two

municipalities of Brenner/Brennero and Sterzing/Vipiteno with

their high numbers of transient military, police and custom

personnel, Italophones show a low assimilation rate, but

provincially one quarter of all those with an Italian surname

have identified themselves as Germanophone. Conversely,

Germanophones seem to be less likely to shift ethnic allegiance;

only 1 in 20 seems to have done so. Even this figure is suspect

since a majority of Italophones are of Trentine origin, i.e.

from a region where small Germanophone enclaves existed and

where some remnants of older and larger Germanophone settlements

survive, hence Italianization might have preceded rather than

followed settlement in the South Tyrol.

If we accept the plausibility of this hypothesis, 38 the

question is why and how members of a national majority would be

assimilated by a minority? Tables 10 and 11 indicate that the

areas with the highest rate of assimilation are in the Adige-

Etsch Corridor and a few municipalities in the Burgrafenamt-

Burgraviato, i.e. those localities (see Appendix C, Maps D, E

and F) where Italophone settlement dates back to the mid-

38 These data are crude indicators of assimilatory trends and ethnic shift, partly because the sample population is small (450) and also because it inevitably underrepresents those groups with the least political power, namely women and young adults. 83

nineteenth century and where Italophones have lived the longest in a pervasive German Tyrolean cultural milieu.

If we consider that, in the absence of territorial segregation, socio-cultural assimilation precedes linguistic and eventually shift (Danesi, 1983), then we can expect assimilation to follow. This process begins with territorial identification.

Rural Italophones (in the Adige-Etsch Corridor) chose municipality above all other spatial units, while more recently settled urban Italophones chose Italy and Europe as their main geographic unit of identification. As we might expect, among

Germanophones and Ladins the main geographic unit selected was province and valley respectively (Gubert, 1976: 66), although in an other survey (Acquaviva and Eisermann, 1981: 125), where respondents had to choose their country from a list that included the Tyrol, Italy and Austria, almost 60% of all

Germanophone and Ladins opted for the first with Italy coming as a remote second. Consequently, through their strong territorial

identification Germanophones and Ladins evince a secular process of indigenization; on the other hand, when Italophones acquire a strong sense of place in the South Tyrol, it can only indicate a gradual shift of the identity from Italo-Romance Italy to

Germanic Tyrol and foreshadow ethnic crossover.

The relationship between ethnicity and space is more than a

superficial link for it points to the fact that it is in a given

territory that the recursive practices that define ethnicity exist. The permanence of ethnic identity and its temporal 84

variation are informed by the day-to-day organization of social

life. In order to understand how the practical and material aspects of ethnicity are implemented one must observe people in

their own environment. Attitudes towards work, family,

religion, etc. are objective markers of behavioural differences

and for those who observe and recognize them, the elements of

identity, while the material products of social life, the

visible aspects of a culture, become the symbols and embodiment

of ethnicity.

These material markers possess a significant instrumental

value in the affirmation of identity. Folkways that might have

disappeared are resurrected not only in a staged manner to

satisfy the expanding market for 'authenticity' and 'traditions'

but also to integrate participants and assert group identity.

Since socio-cultural distance informs attitudes about group

survival and inter-ethnic relations, the greater the distance

is, the more difficult interethnic relations can expected to be.

Early survey results tend to be contradictory. On the one hand,

four out of every five Germanophones considered in-group rather

than out-group cultural activities preferable, compared to three

in four among urban Italophones and one in ten among rural

Italophones. On the other hand, about 80-90% of Italophones

considered inter-ethnic dialogue ideal or useful compared to

only 60-70% among Germanophones. One Germanophone in ten also

expressed a decidedly negative view of inter-ethnic dialogue

while another 5% was favourable to terrorism as a useful means

of self-defence (Gubert, 1976: 146-7). 85

This distance dictates personal availability for and

attitudes vis-a-vis social networks like marriage, friendship

and residential choices.

Table 12: Socio -cu1tura1 Distance - Approve 1 Rate (in Percent 1les1

R. 1 . u I . G.L . R G. U G. L G L G 1 G I L I L Exogamy 50% 60% 20% 33% 19% 37%23% 41% 26% 30% Fr lendehip 37% 35% 69% 57% 50% 58% 34% 44% 30% 4 % Meighbourhood 8% 5% a% 9% 23% 3% 14% 12% 25% 1 % Mo Relations 4% 3% 1% 8% 1% 29% 3% 18% % too* ioo% 100% 100% 1O0% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Motes: see table 9. Source: Gubert. 1976: 136 -7 .

Table 12 shows 39 that a high proportion of Germanophones

(18-29%) expressed a strong desire to remain aloof from

Italophones, while a majority of rural Italophones accepted

Germanophones and Ladins as potential spouses and urban

Italophones showed a strong desire to befriend Germanophones

(57%) and Ladins (67%(). By and large Germanophones preferred

Ladins to Italophones as potential spouses (39-41% versus 23-

26%) and friends (34-30% versus 44-40%), a preference that was

reciprocated by Ladins.

Of these variables, marriage is the most important since it

reshapes all the social networks one participates in as an adult

and acts as the principal, but by no means the only,

institutional forum where human and cultural reproduction occur.

Endogamy and exogamy can retain/move people away from their

early social networks and experiences, and reproduce/transform

their ethnic identity.

Since marriage is a function of available mates as well as

39 Respondents had to select one statement about thier attitude towards the other groups among several. Computation was made using a modified Bogardus' Scale (Gubert, 1976: 136) 86

social mores, the evolution of exogamy reflects overall demographic and social trends. Although accurate data about mixed marriages are limited, some observers have pointed out that since the Italian conquest they have become a permanent fact of life in the city of Bolzano-Bozen and in other mixed municipalities (Egger, 1978: 53).

Tabla 13: Endogamy Rata among South Tyrolean Families

Table 13 shows that since the fifties when one mixed marriage in eight involved Germanophone men and Italophone women, the situation has evolved considerably making it almost a rarity, about one in thirty-eight. Conversely, intermarriage involving Italophone men and Germanophone women has risen from one in twenty to one in seven. Among women the proportion of

Germanophones marrying Italophones has also dropped but not as drastically, while the proportion of Italophone women marrying

Germanophone men has remained unchanged.

This evolution reflects migratory patterns. The rural exodus of the fifties and sixties meant that a large number of

Germanophones, especially men, became available for marriage outside of their traditional milieu. Although they could still call upon women from their native villages, it was probably easier for some to elope with Italophone women. Among

Italophones the end of immigration created a situation where men outnumbered women and exogamy became for some a necessary 4

choice.

The implications of such trends are not readily obvious.

If exogamy creates conditions favourable to ethnic transfers, whether this phenomenon actually occurs or not depends on the immediate contexts where socialization takes place and on the social attitudes of the larger community. Since the mother remains the primary childcare-giver in traditional family structures, we might expect that the child will be closer to her set of specific ethnic markers. However, assimilation to one ethny or the other also depends on the social and affective identification to either parent, on the child's developing sex identity, on the adolescent's need to separate her/himself from and/or emulate parents, and on the social contexts in which

'maternal' language (as code and content) learning and use occur. Exogamy complicates the process of child socialization because children can draw from two sources of identity.

For Egger (1978) the prevalence of Italian in mixed families because of poor German skills on the part of the

Italophone parent probably favoured the Italophone group.

However, if we consider that beyond the family there are several socializing fora (school, street, electronic media) where language skills are acquired and identities formed, it is more likely that whatever assimilatory pull the Italophone group might have had, it was limited and short-lived. This is because the indigenous domestic order is characterized by segregated lineages in which social authority is concentrated in the male head of the family, while in the Italian family structure 88

relations are segmented in a system of generalized reciprocity

(Cole and Wolf, 1974: 245-81). We find two social orders, one that is wheel-like and one is circle-like, and for this reason, we might expect exogamy to favour the Germanophone population because the domestic wheel is integrated into wider formal networks that control social activities and closely supervise members. Better knowledge and use of Italian may thus not be the appropriate indicator of ethnic shift. What matters is the aforementioned totality of socializing fora.

It is at this microlevel that ethnic identity is recognized and asserted and where underlying power structures are experienced. Ascriptive traits, be they clothing, language or physical appearance, tell people who their interlocutors are, and in such encounters underlying power structures indirectly come into play.

About 80% of all Italophones say they recognize the ethnicity of the people they meet compared to 85-90% among

Germanophones (Gubert, 1976: 78),

Table 14: Percept ion of Ethnic Self-Den1al (in Percent 1les) Table 16: Motivation for Self -Denia 1 ( m Percent 1les) TIMES R.I. U.I G.L. R.G. J.G. REASONS R.I. U.I. / G.L. R G. US I Many 3% 5% - 1% 1% Uti1itarian 41% 12% 8% 17% 18% Severs1 24% 9% 4% 1% 5% Ut11itarlan few 28% 12% 7% 16% 20% and Other - 4% 1% 1% 9% None 45% 74% 89% 82% 74% Other 15% 6% 6% 9% 9% L Many 1% 1% 1% Oon't Know 7% 6% - 1% 1% Savaral - - 18 1% 1% No Answer Few -1% 3% 1 1% 4% 7% Requ1 red 37% 72% 85% 7 2% 63% None 99% 97% 87% 94% 91% S Many 1% 3% 3% 1% 1% Notes: for details si• e table 9 . Severe1 3% 5% 3% 3% 8% Faw 18% 15% 8% 16% 21% Source: Gubert. 1976 52 None 68% 77% 86% 80% 70% Notes: for details see table 9. Source: 1976: 79

Table 15: Frequency of Self-Denial (in Percentiles) TIMES R.I. U.I. G.L R.G. U.G. very Often Df ten Somet 1 fnes 7%% 73%% 7%% 75%% 75%% Jarely - 1% 4% 6% vever 92% 94% 91% 88% 88% Motes: for detalis ss e table 9.

Source: Gubert . 1976 82 89

As the above tables indicates observation and behaviour do not necessarily coincide. Rural Italophones saw self-denial among themselves (55%) as well as among Germanophones (32%) at a greater frequency than any other group, probably because the sample was taken in the Bassa Atesina-Suedtiroler Unterland where ethnic shift has been common. In this area family names and even language use cannot be absolute indicators of ethnicity. Elsewhere one might presume that the aforementioned difficulty is less important or non-existant.

Interestingly, Germanophones observed almost the same degree of self-denial among themselves (20-30%) as they did among Italophones (18-26%) whereas Italophones saw more self- denials among themselves than among Germanophones if they lived

in rural areas but not if they were in the provincial capital

(26%). By contrast Ladins did not observed self-denial by

members of the other two ethnies as much as they and the former

saw Ladins engaged in this behaviour. When it comes to actual

self-denial Germanophones confessed to a substantially higher

rate (10-12%) than Italophones (5-8%), but regardless of

frequency most respondents in all three ethnies viewed

utilitarian arguments as the most likely reason for this

behaviour, and very few respondents admitted to engage in

frequent self-denial.

Different motives operate and inform one's willingness to

affirm/deny one's ethnic identity, but different organizational

conditions determine this willingness because they condition the

moments and points of interpersonal encounters. It is here that 90

attitudinal patterns find resonance in divergent associational behaviour.

Table 17 : Aaaoclatlona1 Behaviour per Language Group ( m Percent 11es) CULTURE FOLKLORE RELIGtON SPORT POLITICS Assn Yes No Yes NO Yes No Yes No Yes NO R.I. I 27% 73% 26% 74% 42% 58% 38% 62% 16% 84% G 13% 87% 32% 68% 19% 81% 24% 76% 3% 97% U.I. I 45% 55% 40% 60% 32% 68% 58% 42% 17% 83% G 19% 81% 42% 58% 13% 87% 31% 69% 4% 96% R.G. G 79% 2 1% 77% 23% 73% 27% 52% 48% 45% 55% I 14% 86% 21% 79% 17% 83% 26% 72% 6% 94% U.G. G 81% 19% 7 7% 23% 57% 43% 56% 44% 4 3% 57% I 40% 60% 23% 77% 12% 88% 39% 61% 20% 88% G. L . L 74% 26% 66% 34% 54% 46% 36% 64% 14% 86% I 36% 64% 27% 73% 27% 7 3% 17% 83% 4% 96% G 69% 31% 59% 4 1% 47% 53% 27% 73% 12% 88% Notes for data I Is see table 9: Yes • regular or occaslone 1 part 1cipation. No • NO interest Source: Gubert. 1976: 121-6

Table 17 shows that Germanophones and Ladins are more closely involved in associational activity than Italophones in almost every associational field, but Ladins participate as often in Germanophone associations as they do in their own associations. On the other hand, the lack of separate political representation explains their low interest in politics.

Germanophones are the most involved, in politics above all. At the other end of the associational spectrum we find Italophones who exhibit relatively low involvement. Religion attracts some interest among rural dwellers while cultural activities draw some participation in the cities, especially in Germanophone folk associations; however, even sport-recreational pursuits attract just half of all respondents.

Associational differences are reinforced by distinct educational profiles. In the absence of a local university most

Germanophones (69% in 1981) and Ladins (52%) attended foreign, mostly Austrian, universities compared to less than 4% among

Italophones. Similarly, they are more likely to choose technical careers (about 85% of all students in professional 91

training programs in 1981-86 period) than their Italophone counterpart (15% in same period) (ASTAT, 1987a: 115-6). This institutional bifurcation creates separate professional experiences, skills and networks and promotes the gradual re-

Germanization of professional and technical standards.

The associational and organizational gap among South

Tyrolean ethnies enables them to transmit distinct cultural contents and maintain separate semantic fields. However, this gap is not impermeable; therefore, reproduction of those ethnic markers, traits and self-evaluated beliefs that set one group apart from another and create distinct semantic fields, depend on control over the communication field. It is in this field that such markers and traits are rehearsed and experienced, where differential self-recognition takes place and identities instantiated and substantiated.

In the South Tyrol collective segmentation and individual segregation exist because of separate school systems, relative geographic segmentation and distinct social institutions, but in the modern age this has meant the use of standard languages or koinai, and in more recent times, the access to electronic media. A koine' allows people to engage in written communication and spatio-temporally carry any desired message while the electronic media, radio and television, reconverts oral speech to a higher form of communication by bridging geographic distances, bringing the visual experience to the spoken word and forcing listeners and viewers to compare 92

themselves, their speech and its content to that of others.

Control over the set of institutions and situations where language and communication obtain becomes vital.

The small Germanophone market has not limited

Germanophones' access to a wide variety of sources of information, local and foreign. Compared to them Italophones have fewer local publications but have access to the national press and turn to ten television stations instead of the five

(four foreign) German-language networks. Ladins are far behind; they have a smaller market and lack a single koine'. The few print publications that exist are in local vernacular and usually focus on local issues so that provincial, national and international news are conveyed in Italian- and German-language media. Furthermore, with the exception of a few daily radio broadcasts, they have no access to electronic media in spite of the Province's pledge to carry Rhaeto-Romansch television from the Grisohs (Craffonara, 1987: 23).

The importance of the media lies in the very fact that they are both a window on the outside world and a very private means to receive oneway communication from this same external world.

Being present or absent from such a window means being present or absent from the world. It allows or denies a group access to public space and exposes or conceals it from others. This window is an entry key to the world of others because it acts as an electronic mechanism of socialization. By contrast, accessible radio and television may also carry distorting messages or be inadequately filtered by listeners and viewers 93

alike if their communication skills, in a multilingual society, are insufficient. The irony in the South Tyrol is that

Italophones are both more visible and the least capable of seeing and listening. In a recent survey only 48% of Italophone respondents stated that they watched German-language television compared to 75% among Germanophones (Dall'O' et al., 1988: 142-

3), a marked improvement from the early seventies (Gubert, 1976:

129-32), but still far short.

Despite the passive role in which viewers and listeners are in, the electronic media plays another important, if less visible role, it tends to homogenize speech. Till recently local Germanic dialects served as the primary instruments of communication and cultural identity but the arrival of radio and television has slowly changed this situation. A stable High-Low

German diglossia has emerged enabling Germanophones to rehearse their language skills (Egger, 1978: 11). This diglossia is reinforced by the rural location of Germanophone settlement and the reconstruction of an internal division of labour where

German is used as the main language of communication. This is still not complete because in some geographic areas and social domains Italophones and Italian prevail, but the longterm trend is towards de facto re-Germanization. Hence the integration of

High and Low varieties increasinly satisfies both functional and affective needs, and has led to the decline in functional role and social prestige of Italian.

Diglossia among Germanophones has also meant an additional barrier that separates Italophones and Germanophones since 94

Bavaro-Tyrolean dialects can be learnt only in interpersonal

relations and not in second language courses; consequently, even

when Italophones become bilingual their knowledge is usually

limited to High German. By contrast, their immigrant condition

and urban settlement has had a levelling effect on their spoken

Italian (Egger, 197.8: 12-3), a situation unique in a country

like Italy. 40

The linguistic circumstances of the Ladin community have

not weakened their collective identity, but have affected their

ability to prevent assimilation and caused some hybridization

and lexical borrowing. They are educated in a bilingual program

which forestalls immediate assimilation but favours proficiency

in languages other than Ladin. The lack of separate media

outlets and the massive presence of Italian- and German-speaking

tourists from outside the province reinforces this trend and

marginalizes the use of Ladin vernaculars. Administrative

fragmentation of Ladin valleys and public neglect have

complicated matters since external interference tends to be

German in the South Tyrol, Italian (Trentine) in Fasa valley and

Italian (Venetian) in Belluno province (Borri, 1985; Craffonara,

1986; Richebuono, 1982).

Overall, the absence of clear spatio-functional separation

has made second language skills necessary. Survey data show

that till the mid-seventies as one moved from the most intimate

40 At unification (1864) only 2.5% of the population spoke the vernacular of Florence, and today two thirds of the population remains dialectophone (Lepschy and Lepschy, 1979: 24-38; De Mauro, 1979: 349). 95

social context (family) to the most impersonal social situation

(encounters with strangers), both Germanophones and Italophones used Italian more frequently. On the other hand, because of their size and spatio-functional marginality, Ladins did not and do not have an exclusively unilingual context and so exhibit a greater horizontal mobility in language use in all important social domains (Gubert, 1976: 111-8).

With the advent of the new Autonomy Statute in 1972 bilingualism acquired an added economic value for Italophones and became an important personal objective (Gubert, 1976: 151).

However, unlike Germanophones and Ladins who viewed knowledge of

Italian primarily in utilitarian terms, young Italophones tended to see second language skills as a compensatory instrument to overcome perceived psychological isolation and increasing social subordination (Gubert, 1978: 77; Gubert in Goglio et al., 1982:

214-8). Unlike their elders, still attached to older regional cultural models or indigenous South Tyroleans steeped in a century-old culture, young Italophones developed a fragile self- identity, imperfectly drawn from the ruling cultural models and social ethos of modern life (Gandini in Alto Adige, 1986: 64-5), and bilingualism was seen as an instrument to fill the gap. By contrast, leading members of the indigenous community feared greater bilingualism, especially among young Italophones, for it could dilute ethnic boundaries and act like a Trojan horse

(Gubert in Goglio et al., 1982: 218-22). The gap in second language skills has thus become the source of bitter confrontation between the political leaders of the two main 96

ethnies and reinforced socio-cultural distance.

Despite this tug-of-war second language knowledge has improved.

Table 18: Second Language Spoken or Understood per Age, Occupation and Education (in percentiles!

Age Group: 16-19 JO 29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-..

GERMAN 83 21 79.31 71.91 59.51 31.51 65.11 44.41 ITALIAN 99.91 98 61 94.31 90.41 61 31 95.31 69 91

Occupation: A 8 C 0 E F G

GERMAN 68.51 73.91 33.91 40.21 75.91 90.81 56.11 ITALIAN 36.31 98.41 95.91 98.51 99.91 97.81 84.11

Educat ion: A B C 0

GERMAN 45.31 68.51 75.61 82.01 ITALIAN 84.71 95.81 99.91 98 21

Notes: Occupation A = Farmers. E = unskilled white Collar. B = Self-Employed, F'= skilled White Collar. C = Unskilled Blue Collar, G = Not Employed. 0 = Sk i Med B lue Col lar . Educat ion A ? Compulsory School. C - Secondary School. B = Compulsory School 0 = university, •ith Apprenticeship.

Source: Oall'o' et al.. 1988: 140-1.

This table indicates a strong correlation between second language skills and youth, professional orientation and higher education, with the gap in second language skills dropping as we go from the older to the younger generation, from the least to the most specialized occupations and from lower to higher education. The only exception is represented by those

Italophones who were born or came to the province as children in the twenties and early thirties and those Germanophones thrown into the war as young adults.

For Gubert second language knowledge in the South Tyrol has had a corrosive effect on ethnic identity, primarily because it created a pluralistic language context where interpersonal relations diffused the visibility of ethnicity (Gubert, 1976:

302-4, 351; ibid, 1978: 22-3). Unlike unilinguals who are spared this problem because they must perforce operate in unilingual language contexts, bilinguals perform in contexts where ethnic identity is less easily perceived from simple 97

language interaction so that ascriptive and acquired criteria of

identity coexist and cannot be easily separated from one another. However, erosion does not mean the disappearance of ethnic identity, for only when isolated in an exoglossic context can the individual truly be enculturated. In the South Tyrol

the dangers posed by greater individual bilingualism remain

largely inoperative.

One third of all Italophone respondents stated that they were bilingual compared to only one sixth that claimed to be unilingual, but only 13.6% claimed to be able to actively participate in a conversation among Germanophones; hence very

few Italophones can intervene in an unstructured, free-flowing

speech encounter outside of their language community. To a

lesser extent this is true for Germanophones as well. Only

Ladins can easily intervene in conversations among Italophones

(76.5%) and Germanophones (50.4%). In mixed situations a

slightly higher proportion of Italophones (17.8%) use German

and/or both languages compared to 35.2% for Germanophones. The

data here substantiates the predominance of Italian as the

language most commonly used in informal speech encounters

(Dall'O'. et al., 1988: 146-8; Egger, 1978: 13), but also shows

that more than half of all bilingual Italophones cannot or do

not want to use their second language skills, and therefore

cannot break the communication barrier that separates them from

other South Tyroleans.

If one looks at more structured interpersonal encounters,

the aforementioned trend proves even greater. About half of all 98

Germanophone respondents generally used German in public

offices, while another 37.5% used both official languages according to the situation. Among Italophones 83.4% used

Italian exclusively and only 10.6% both languages. Almost all

Italophone respondents stated that they would address an unknown

public servant in Italian compared to 40.1% for Germanophones

and 85.7% among Ladins (Acquaviva and Eisermann, 1981: 72).

Since about 60% of all Italophone civil servants in state and

para-state offices are still unilingual or unable to use German

adequately, the prevalence of Italian is understandable, but the

significant fact is that a majority of Germanophones expect

and/or demand to use German when initiating conversation with

unknown civil servants.

This overview of the socio-cultural structures leads to

several conclusions. First of all, ethnicity in the South Tyrol

remains a strong factor in social organization and identity, but

not equally for all ethnies. In declining order of significance

Germanophones, Italophones and Ladins maintain strong separate

identities but in mixed areas a certain assimilatory drift among

Italophones has occurred. This seemed to be true for Ladins,

but given the fact that Gubert's survey (see table 9) is dated

1973 and that Ladin population figures show a marked upward

trend (see table 31) it is probably less important today than it

was twenty years ago.

Assimilatory trends have historically favoured the

Germanophone group which makes us think that even when exogamy

might have favoured Italophones it was very likely countered by 99

the strong appeal of the Germanophone environment. This appeal is based on strong associational activities and organizational autonomy in all social domains, including modern media; under these circumstances Germanophones have been able to preserve an impermeable semantic field. This functional impermeability has reinforced but has also been reinforced by political autonomy.

In this sense, the spatial hold of the Germanophone population has been premised but has also been strenghtened by its functional autonomy. The relative weakness of Italophone functional institutions and domains has instead had the opposite ef fects.

3. THE EVOLUTION OF DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURES

The evolution of demographic structures is important because reproduction and all associated phenomena are basic

infrastructural mechanisms and as such they underlie all structured properties of social systems and are in turn affected by them. The diachronic profile of a population group reflects and shapes that of economic structures and in a multi-ethnic context plays an important role since it conditions the

functional autonomy of their socio-cultural institutions, the place of ethnies in the economy and their relative power.

The end of the Second World War brought to an end fascist colonial policies and the attempt to interrupt the social

reproduction of the indigenous population. 100

Table 19: South Tyrolean Population par Language Sroup. 1910-1946 (

Notas: Total figures includes Others Sources: 1910 figures in Provlncla Autonoma. 1984: 154; 1921 figures in Egger. 1978: 28-9: 1939-1946 figures in Alcock, 1970: 496.

These figures show what twenty years of fascist rule had

done. From 3% of the total population Italophones were now over

30%; by contrast, Germanophones had dropped from over 90% to

slightly over 60%.

During the fifties economic conditions still favoured the

Italophone group (Alcock, 1970 215-6) so that a narrow corridor

(see Appendix C, Maps E and F), linking the Italianized

provincial capital with the Trentino, acquired an Italophone

majority. By the sixties immigration no longer played a

significant role in shaping local demographic patterns (ASTAT,

1987a: 83). Consequently, other factors came to play a more

important role in shaping the internal balance of each ethny as

well as their mutual relationship.

Under conditions of stable migratory balance natality,

mortality and fertility remain the crucial demographic

variables.

Table 20: Demographic Factors In Selected Years. 1961-1987 Table 21: Fertility Rates per Language Group in Selected (per thousand) veers. 1972-1996 (Number of Children per Woman)

1961 1966 1971 1976 1981 1987 1972 1976 1981 1986 1991» 1996V Live Births 21.6 22.8 19.5 14 4 12.5 11.3 GERMANOPHONE 2 91 2 32 1 97 1 76 1.64K I ill Oeaths 8 5 9.0 9 4 8 7 8.5 SO ITALOPHONE 2.01 1 .40 1 . 14 1 04 1.01K I.OOK Natural Balance 13.1 13 8 111 5.4 4.0 3.3 LAOIN 3.02 2 42 1 94 1.72 I.6 IK 1 56K Migratory Balanca -8.6 -2.9 -2.5 -2.2 -3 3 -0.5 Varlat ion »4.5 •1 09 • 8 6 • 3.2 •0.7 •2 8 Notes: Figures in brackets are estimates. Sourcea: ASTAT: 1987a: S3: ASTAT, 1988a. 4. Source: Huber. 1986: 21.

Table 20 shows a declining provincial birth rate, a steady 101

death rate and a migratory balance that has become irrelevant.

The overall population growth has thus reached a low ebb in its evolutionary cycle. More significant is the decline in fertility rate for it more closely controls the reproduction of the population and is a predictive indicator of the eventual changes in the age structure. It is clear that if 2.1 offsprings per woman in fertile age is the minimum for self- reproduction (Enger et al., 1986: 127), the South Tyrolean population has already fallen below its reproductive capacity with its post-reproductive population steadily rising.

Table 21 shows that the Italophone population is the most affected by this decline. In 1982 Italophones accounted for only 18.25% of all live births, a proportion expected to drop to

16.92% by 1996. Conversely, their proportion of absolute mortality is expected to rise from 31.20% to 33.07% (Huber,

1986: 27). Germanophones and Ladins have also dropped below the

limit of self-reproduction but because of the dramatic decline among Italophones they will still account for a greater proportion of live births and a lower proportion of deaths.

Although this demographic phenomenon is typical of most western societies, the great discrepancy between Italophones and

the other ethnies seems unusual unless we consider the historical conditions that gave rise to the Italophone

community. 102

Table 22: South Tyrolean Population per Sax and Language Group. Table 23: South Tyrolean Population per Age and Language Group. 1961-1981 (in Percent 1les) 1961-1981 (In Absolute Numbers and Percentiles)

'961 1971 1981 TOTAL 0 5 8 20 21 44 45 64 70- . . MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE GERMAN 232717 12 34% 26 58% 32 18% 20 66% 8. 26% GERMANOPHONE 48.73% 51 27% 48.46% 51 54% 48 15% 51.85% 1961 ITALIAN 128271 9 57% 23 88% 38 65% 22 52% 5 38% ITALOPHONE 51.62% 48 38% 51 08% 48.92% 50 97% 49.03% LADIN 12594 11 33% 27 06% 33 16% 20 30% 8. 15% LADIN 49.85% 50.15% 49.54% 50.46% 48.72% 51.28% TOTAL 49.75% 50.25% 49 34% 50.66% 49 06% 51 85% GERMAN 250351 10 39% 27 88% 33 04% 18 95% 8 74% 1971 ITALIAN 137759 8 7 3% 22 12% 38 85% 22 22% 9 08% Source: I STAT. 1964/1973/1983. LADIN 15463 10 52% 26 68% 34 81% 18 34% 9 65%

GERMAN 279544 T 14% 28 23% 34 50% 19 29% 12 84% 1981 ITALIAN 123895 3 86% 22 01% 38 12% 23 95% 10 06% LADIN 17738 6 80% 28 90% 33 82% 19 56% to 92% Source: ISTAT. 1964/197 3/1983.

Table 22 indicates a reversed sex-ratio among Italophones,

while table 23 indicates a large reproductive group. As an

immigrant group Italophones had a larger reproductive group and

a higher male-to-female ratio because immigrant communities tend

to develop along patterns in which adult males tend to move

first to the point of destination where they cannot recreate the

sex and age structures found in their points of departure.

Although females also migrate cultural and economic factors

preclude an equivalent rate of emigration so that a certain

number of males tend to form households with natives or remain

single.

In table 23 we observe a general aging process of the

population. A marked decline in 0-5 age group affects all three

ethnies, but while the drop among Germanophones and Ladins was

by 30.5% and 15.48% respectively, it was 61.11% for Italophones.

The ratio of the pre-reproductive group (0-20 years) to the

elderly (over 65) among Italophones has dropped from 6 to 1 in

1961 to 2 to 1 in 1981 whereas the same ratio for both

Germanophones and Ladins has dropped only from 4.7 to 3.3 to 1

in the same twenty year period.

Despite the declining birth rate the provincial population 103

will continue to rise and maintain a relative stable social charge index, (number of employed to non-employed people) till

the turn of the century (Huber, 1986: 13-7), but even greater participation of women in paid employment and the introduction of automation might not postpone the growing longterm social

index imbalance. One effect will be the transfer of part of the

fiscal burden of the working population from Italophones to the other two ethnies, but the rise of the post-reproductive age group and the decline of the other two age groups might also cause declining standards of living or stimulate renewed

immigration, primarily from sources outside of Italy and the

European community.

In the short and medium terms, demographic stagnation is

transforming the ethnic composition of the provincial populat ion. Table 24: South Tyrolean Population, 1948-1981 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles)

TOTAL GERMANOPHONE ITALOPHONE LADIN OTHER 1946 311039 61 BIX 32.77* 3.94* 1 . 48* 1953 345772 61 96% 33. 13X 3.67* 1 . 24* 1961 373863 62 25% 34 31* 3.37* 0.07* 197 1 4 14041 62 68% 33 27* 3 73* 0. 12* 1981 430568 84 92% 28 73* 4 . 12* *. 23 VARIATION: 1946 S3 1953 61 1961 71 1971 81 1946-81 TOTAL • 1 1 16% • 8 12* • 10 74* • 3 99* • 38 43* GERMANOPHONE • 1 1 44X • 8 61* • 11 87* • 7 37* • 45.39* ITALOPHONE 12 40% • 11 96* * 7 39* - 10 21* • 21.35* LADIN 3 50* • 0 80* • 22 72* • 14 75* • 44 58* OTHER - 6 sax • 93 91* • 90 42* •721 33* 11 . 34* Notes: 1946-1961 figures Cased on Spoken Language; 1971-1981 figures based on Mother Tongue: 1981 figures include foreigners (4082). residents temporarily absent 1939), ninors of aixed parentage (I860), incomplete or erroneous declarations (1972) and people who refused to delcare their ethnic identity

Sources: 1946-53 figures in Alcock. 1970: 215; 1961-1981 figures in ISTAT, 1964/1973/1983

Table 24 shows a steady rise in the Germanophone and Ladin populations and a decline of the Italophone population in the

seventies, despite predictions to the contrary. According to

Lukesch and Tschurtschenthaler the combined number of

Germanophones and Ladins was expected to be between 295500 and 1 04

299500 in 1982 (1979: 120) compared to the actual figure of

305293 in 1981. By contrast, the prediction for the Italophone population proved completely wrong. The two Austrian demographers had predicted a total Italophone population of about 142000 or 32.5% of the total population in 1981, dropping thereafter to 131000 or 30.2% by the year 2001 (Lukesch and

Tschurtschenthaler, 1979: 120); instead, the Italophone population registered a net loss of 14064 members or 10.2%,

18305 or 13% if we consider the projected demographic increase, down to 123000 or 29% of the total population. During the eighties this decline slowed down and by 1986 the Italophone population stood at 122400, but the trend is predicted to continue and by 1996 Italophones are expected to be 26.91% of

the total population (Huber, 1986: 26).

Why this decline in the Italophone population? We have already seen that Italophones have an atypical sex and age

ratios, hence a lower capacity of self-reproduction, but this cannot be the sole explanation. In the 1971-81 period the

province had a net emigration of 9375 people with 939 residents

temporarily absent (ASTAT, 1987a: 83) in an otherwise stable migratory balance. In the early eighties this trend has

continued (-3536), primarily in the 20-49 age group (ASTAT,

1987a: 88-9; ibid, 1987b: 96-7) and the two main cities

(Provincia Autonoma, 1986: 165-6) where three quarters of the

Italophone population lives.

If we add permanent and temporary migrants (10314) and

treat as probably made up mostly of Italophones we find that a 105

certain number of Italophone losses are unaccounted, 3750 if we use the actual difference between 1971 and 1981 and 7991 if we use the Lukesch and Tschurtschenthaler's prediction. One possible reason for this difference is the removal of people in

reproductive age from the province. The Austrian demographers had estimated a drop in live births in the Italophone population of about 24% (1660 in 1976 to 1251 in 1982) (Lukesch and

Tschurtschenthaler, 1979: 126), but the actual drop was close to

44% (931 in 1982) (Huber, 1986: 27). In addition to emigrants

(10314) and live births not recorded (320) we must add the number of of South Tyroleans who spoiled (1971) or refused (740) to submit a statement of ethnic identity as required by the 1981 census law, we are left with about 5000 Italophones still unaccounted. It is obvious that this figure is probably greater

since we cannot expect that all those who are in the abovementioned categories to be Italophone. If we consider the

rate of Italophone-to-Germanophone shift (see tables 10 and 11), we might see the above figure as a conservative estimate of this phenomenon.

Given its sex and age ratios the Italophone community is

infrastructurally weaker than its indigenous counterparts. This

weakness is translated into a structural weakness of its

demographic mechanisms of reproduction. 106

( tn Table 25: Nuabtr of Faailies par Size and Language of Head of Table 26: Number of Families per Si*e and Area. 1986 Absolute Nuebers and Percentiles) Household. 1986 (in Absolut* Nuebers and Percentiles) • 1 2-3 4-. TOTAL TOTAL WITH WITHOUT SINGLE SINGLE GERMANOPHONE 23.48* 35 70** 26.32* 82819 OFFSPRING OFFSPRING MEN WOMEN ITALOPHONE 29.17* 44.51* 26 32* 53108 . ... - 2000 12.46* 13.83* 10 53* .11.20* 9 26* LAOIN 16.71% 31 80* 51 49% 4428 2001 - 5000 27 88* 31 20* 23 23* 23.13* 20.61* 5001 - 20000 21 93* 23.35* 19 95* 18 44% 19 75% Source: ASTAT. 1987c: 57 Bo 1jrano Boien 28.26* 23 98* 34 26* 34.51% 36 47* Source: ASTAT. 1987a: 103.

Table 25 shows that the ratio of single-family household is

1:2.5 for Italophones, 1:3.3 for Germanophones and 1:5 for

Ladins, hence a smaller family.structure among Italophones while

table 26 shows that the largest proportion of single people and

childless couples live in the two largest urban centres where

most Italophones also live.

Weak household structures are compounded by a weak

residential structure.

Table 27: Housing Units per Type of Deed and Language Group. 1961-1981 (in Percent iles) OWNERSHIP RENTAL 1961 197 1 . 1981 1961 1971 1981 GERMANOPHONE 58. 76* 63 26* 67 35* 35 95* 33. 16* 27 59* ITALOPHONE 19 .32 * 30 17* 40 04* 75 . 46* 66.58* 56 35* LADIN 78. 98* 79 66* 77 26* 17 .50* 1 7 80*1 8 97% GERMANOPHONE 78. 01* 71 78* 66 99* 41 97* 42.20* A3 .47* ITALOPHONE 16 .53 * 22 7 3* 24 20* 56 .79* 56.27* 52 39* LAOIN 5. 40* 5 39* 5 16* 1.08 * 1 35* 1 74* TOTAL 1961 197 1 1981 GERMANOPHONE 58 85* 57 93* 59 24* ITALOPHONE 37 93* 38 47* 34 96* LADIN 3 11* 3 46* 3 86* Notes*.. Total figure includee Others and Other Types of Housing Source: ISTAT, 1964/1973/1983; Provincia Autonoaa. 1984: 181.

Table 27 shows that smaller Italophone families entail more

households, but a number that declined during the seventies.

Similary, the gains in home-ownership made in this period have

not yet made this type of residential settlement dominant.

Consequently, Italophones can more easily terminate leases and

relocate. Emigration and household figures confirm this.

The impact of these demographic patterns has been to de- 107

Italianize those areas where Italophones had become a

substantial proportion of the population.

Table 28: South Tyrolean Population per Area and Language Group. Table 29: Ratio of Italophones to Germanophones/Ladins in 1961-1981 (In Percentile*-! Selected Municipalities and Tears. 1910-1981 BoIzano- Urban Rura 1 Adige- 1910 1941 1953 1961 1971 1981 Bozen Centres Areas Etsch Bronzolo-Branzoll 116x100 121x100 347x100 548x100 253x100 130x100 GERMAN 21 .02% 3177% 62 64% 30.53% Vaoena-Pfalien 141x100 531x100 318x100 297x100 127x100 110x100 198 1 ITALIAN 78 64% 87.82% 11 88% 89.33% Ss'orno-Salurn 24x100 149x100 186x100 297x100 336x100 151x100 LADIN 0. 20% 0.25% 5 45% 0.06% Laives-Leifers 14x100 467x100 241x100 341x100 291x100 214x100 GERMAN 22 37% 33 50% 84 81% 33.89% Brixen-Bressanone N/A N/A N/A 61x100 52x100 40x100 1971 ITALIAN 77 09% 85.85% 8 95% 65.91% Merano-Meran N/A N/A N/A 143x100 312x100 199x100 LADIN 0. 37% 0.44% 6.19% 0 12% Bolzano-Bozen N/A N/A N/A 370x100 339x100 279x100 GERMAN 25 14% 37 03% 84.79% 41 06% 1981 ITALIAN 7 1.81% 59.22% 7.01% 56 30% Notes: Ratio calculated by dividing the number of Italophones LADIN 0 58% 0 69% 8 56% 0 29% with the number of Germanophones/Ladins and multiplying the figure per one hundred. Notes, for details see Append In A Sources: 1910- 1953 figures in Acguaviva and Eiserisann. 1981: 67; Source: ISTAT. 1964/197 3/1983 1961-1981 figures calculated by author from ISTAT, 1964/1973/1983.

.Table 28 shows that in rural areas Italophones have

proportionately dropped by half, including the Adige-Etsch

Corridor where they had become a majority. Table 29 points to

the immediate effect of this shift for it has entailed a steady

re-Germanization of those municipalities where Italophone

numbers were considerable or in the majority. This process has

not even spared those municipalities like Bronzolo/Branzoll and

Vadena/Pfatten where Italophones had been the majority since the

1860s. The only exception is the provincial capital with its

suburb of Laives-Leifers where the demographic ratio is still

2:1 in their favour. Among Germanophones, settlement patterns

have remained relatively stable with most people residing in

rural locations. This has meant that intra-provincial

Germanophone migration and Italophone demographic decline have

not rearranged the internal settlement hierarchy or the

geographic distribution of the total population. Instead, they

have set in motion a process of ethnic change of Italianized

areas. 108

Thus far we have focused on the demographic evolution of

the two main groups and only marginally dealt with Ladins.

However, they deserve a closer look.

Table 30: Ladln Population per Area. 1910-1971 (in Absolute Table 31: Proportion of Lsdln Population to Total Population In Numbers and Percentiles) Ladin Areas. 1961- 1981 (In Absolute Numbers and Percent lies) TOTAL (GHERDEINAI ( TOR) BULSAN TRENT BELLUNO 1910 19613 (21.30%) (28.77%) 48 07% 21 20% 30 7 3% TOTAL LAOIN 1921 18901 (21 30%) (28.77%) 48.07% 21 20% 30 7 3% <96t 1971 1981 1961 197 ! '" 1981 1939 20909 (22.11%) (29 31%) 5 1 42% 20.82% 27 76% HEROE INA 8106 7592 7967 74 11% 7 7 38% 85 69% 1981 21049 (21.50%I (32 30%) 5 3 80% 25.51% 20 89% TOR 7 148 8042 974 1' 95 13% 96.84% 95 7 2% 1971 24276 (24 20%) I 32 08%) 58 28% 24 81% 19.11% TOTAL 13254 15834 18703 85 44% 87 39% 90 94%

Notes: 1921 figures are an astleat* based on deeographic decline Source ISTAT. 1984/197 3/1983 registered In lor and Gherdeina Valleys In 1910-1921 period Total drop of 712 is cloae to the 800 casualties of »ar estimated by Crsffonsra. 1961-1971 sstleates for Table 32: Proportion of ladin Population per Area . 1961- Trent and Belluno Ladins are based on Craffonare's ( In Percent 1les) estimates of the same locations for 1981 Ladin Urban Rural VARIATION Ladin Urban Rural Sources: 1910-1921 figures 1n BorrI, 1985: 24; Area Centres Areas Area Centres Areas 1939 figures In Battisti. 1946: 80. Alcock. 1970: 496. 1961 89 02% (3 03%) 17 . S5XI 1961-71 •20.54 (•106.54) CM.541 and Fontana. 1981: 178; 1971 88 35% (5 40%) ( 8 55%) 1971-81 • I 1.20 l«6B 30) l»27.26 1 1961-1971 figures In ISTAT. 1964/1973 1981 85 67% (7 04<) (7 29%) 1961-81 -34 16 l>226 96) («45.77)

Motes: see details in Appendix A.

Source. ISTAT. 1984/1973/1983

Table 30 shows the effects of administrative subdivision

and the gradual concentration of the Ladin population in the

South Tyrol where they enjoy some constitutional protection.

Within the South Tyrol protection has meant the re-Ladinization

of Dolomitic valleys. Table 31 shows that Ladins are increasing

their control over their traditional area, proof of the greater

absorptive capacity of the local economy and of a successful

transition to a mixed market-oriented farming and service

economy; however, this consolidation has been accompanied by a

steady migration to other parts of the province (see table 32)

of a growing number of Ladins, especially to the cities

(Richebuono, 1982: 145).

Despite this longterm negative potential Ladins are still

in a better situation than Italophones. Geographic

concentration and separation ensure stable, albeit precarious,

linguistic boundaries and the control of an auxiliary region in

the provincial central place system. By contrast, Italophones 109

seem to be imploding as a result of assimilation and emigration.

With male-dominant sex ratio, low natality, high mortality, small household structure and less-committing residential structure under conditions of urban, concentration, the

Italophone community cannot withstand the pressures of the

Germanophone environment and is losing ground (see Appendix C, maps E and F).

4. THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRUCTURES

Changes in demographic structures were in part the responses to the transformations of techno-environmental

relations and economic organization. Since socio-economic processes substantiate the material bases of human existence, any change therein can modify group survival and the strategies collectively pursued. In multilingual societies with an entrenched ethnic division of labour, changes in socio-economic processes modify the respective position and mutual

relationships and can erode the functional specialization

subordinate groups perform to the benefit of superordinate

groups since upward mobility opens up opportunities to

individuals but closes it for groups. The only way a

subordinate language group can successfully negotiate the

transition from one set of techno-environmental relations and

division of labour to another requires the (re)creation of an

internal vertical social hierarchy that reflects the 1 10

complexities of the new economy and its relative separation from the heretofore ethnic division of labour (Sussi, 1975: 70-7).

4 1

Well into the twentieth century the South Tyrolean economy was still dominated by the primary sector. Manufacturing and service activities remained marginal and external market involvement was limited. However, when modern economic growth came to the province it was externally induced and forced upon the indigenous population in order to exclude it from its benef its. Table 33: Workforce par Economic Sector and Language Group. 1939 11n Percent 1les) 1S39 1951 GER/IAO ITALOPHONE GER/LAD ITALOPHONE Agriculture 80.5% 8 OX 87 0% 3 0% Industry 14.6% 23.8% •28.0%' -62 OX' Services 24.4% 53. IX •above' •above* Pub 11c idministratton 0.5% 17.1% 5.0% 35.0% Source: Pristinger, 1978: 29. 75.

The effects of fascist policies are clearly evinced in table 33. The ethnic division of labour had Italophones concentrated in the civil service, modern industry and tertiary sector. In the immediate post-war years the type of economic development set in motion by the fascists had accentuated the ethnic division of labour and further relegated the indigenous population to the primary sector, but this same period saw the erosion of an international capitalist economy centred on national, albeit interconnected, economies and the rise of a truly continental and global system that transcended political

Where this was not possible, among Carinthian Slovenes (Barker and Moritsch, 1984), Swiss Rhaeto-Romansch (McRae, 1983), and Venetian Ladins (Ampez, Fodom) and Trentine Germanophones (Fersina, Luserna), a process of structural decomposition of peripheral ethnies has been taking place. 1

111

boundaries and forced independent states into closer cooperative behaviour. With the opening up of national markets in the second postwar period, quantitative changes reached a critical mass and new production technology and management practices unleashed a torrent of change at a time when indigenous South

Tyroleans were not in full control of the political institutions needed to manage the process of change.

4.1 The Transformation Of Agriculture

During the fifties and sixties South Tyrolean agriculture was forced to change. European countries created an economic community (EEC) which adopted a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that favoured the consolidation of agricultural structures and the emergence of large agro-businesses that could operate along capitalist lines, mechanize production, use greater amounts of fossil fuels and chemical inputs, invest extensively in fixed capital and reduce labour inputs.

Given the three distinct eco-systems (see Cole, 1972: 170-

2) that existed in the South Tyrol, market pressures exacted different costs and opportunities in each. Gains in productivity, better land management and greater capital

investments in farming had to be made in order to compete with external producers, but this could be achieved only through greater specialization and the abandonment of subsistence production and marginal land. This meant the adoption of new

business practices and production technologies and the creation I

1 1 2

of new economic niches in regional and continental markets. And time was not on the side of latecomers since the transformation of the other sectors of the economy was pushing labour costs upward. Farmers were forced to introduce labour-saving devices and mechanize production, and once accomplished this shift was irreversible and marginal operations at the ecological limits of the environment could not survive (Cole and Wolf, 1974: 92-4;

Pristinger, 1980: 168-9).

The looming crisis was clearly identified but change was socially undesirable and culturally unacceptable (Alcock, 1970:

254-5). Given the historical experiences of indigenous South

Tyroleans the first reaction by the Provincial government to these pressures was to try to stop the erosion of traditional agrarian structures. As part of this strategy the Closed Estate laws (see page 17, footnote 6) were reintroduced in 1954, but the rural exodus was not stopped. Ad hoc investments in traditional cottage and handicraft industries were inadequate

(Alcock, 1970: 256-60), and between 1951 and 1971 the agricultural workforce dropped by half, from 62366 to 31207

(ISTAT, 1955/1973), and many peasants left the province altogether.

Only in the sixties did the Province adopt a set of policies designed to support the transformation of the agricultural sector and the reemployment of excess labour in new industries and the expanded tourist-based service sector. The position of the province as a crossroad in the new continental economy linking central Europe and northern Italy facilitated 1 13

this process of change. labia 3>: agricultural Machines and Fuel Conauapt ion in 100 Kgs Table 35: Agricultural Companies per Surface and SIM. 1938-1982 1980-1985 (in Absolute Nuabers and Percentiles) (in hectares> 1980 1970 1980 1985 0- 1 1-5 5-20 20-50 50- . . TOTAL 1936 Cos 24 4% 318% 28 5% 12 0% 3 5% 24326 MACHINES 7 180 24974 38173 44362 1981 Co s 19 9% 31 7% 29 . 5% 12 8% 8. 1% 29131 of ehich TRACTORS (52 52%) (35 04%) (36 36%) (34 27%) Sur face 0.5% 4.0% 14.9% 18. 7% 619% FUEL 39620 113502 136154 139173 1970 Co a 16.8% 31 . 7% 31.3% 14.1% 6 . 3% 27 250 19 2% 618% ASTAT: 1987a: 208 Sur face 0.4% 3.8% 14.8% 1982 Cos 14.8% 31 . 7% 32 8% 14 3% 6 4% 26857 Sur f ace 0.3% 4.0% 15.0% 19.0% 62.0% VARIATION OF COS: 1936-1961 - 2.32 • 20.12 • 23 94 • 27 75 •108.68 » 19 75 1961-1970 - 21 96 - 6 45 - 0.74 • 3 03 - 3.43 - 6 46 1970-1982 - 12.13 1.45 • 3 28 - 0 05 - 0 17 - 1.44 Sources: 1936 figures in Borgioli in Batttsti. 1946: 11-17; 1970 figures in Pristinger. 1978: 85: 1982 figures in ASTAT. 1987a: 191.

Tables 34 and 35 show the extent of farmers' dependency on

mechanized farm equipment (+518%) and on fossil fuels (+250%).

This means that they are sensitive to local and external markets

and that South Tyrolean agriculture is now closely dependent on

external capitalist pressures. This interdependence has led to

managerial consolidation of farming operations (see table 35).

Of the 2610 enterprises that ceased operation between 1961 and

1986 about 70% had less than one hectare of surface while

another 23% had less than two.

Despite rationalization about half of all farms cannot

survive without external revenues, mainly from tourism and/or

government support. This is especially true for farms located

in higher elevations who get only one third of their revenues

from farming and another third from government transfer payments

(Provincia Autonoma, 1988: 41-2). Nonetheless, government aid

(ASTAT, 1984: 73) in the form of easy credit and marketing

support and market conditions have produced a system of medium

size farms protected by the Closed Estate laws which now offer a

profitable and socially-valued professional vocation (ASTAT, 114

1984: 73; Pristinger, 1978: 87-8; Provincia Autonoma 1988: 42),

despite the fact that agriculture as a component of the

provincial economy has decline from 24% of the Gross Provincial

Product (GPP) in 1951 (Pristinger, 1978: 86) to 6.5% in 1983

(ASTAT, 1988b: 49).

4.2 The Development Of The Service Sector

The massive exodus from agriculture and the depopulation of

marginal areas was resolved only when such places found a new

economic niche in the continental economy. The creation of a

mass market for leisure pursuits favoured areas like the South

Tyrol because of their relative accessabi1ity and natural

beauty. The growing demand in central Europe and northern Italy

for such services rearranged local economic structures and

public policies by subordinating agriculture and to a lesser

extent industry to a tourism-driven economy.

Tltlt 36: Nuaber of Bad* per Type of Operation. 1960-1984 ( 1n Table 38: Number of Overnight Stays, 1950-1985 in thousands Absolute Nuabers) and Percent 1les) TOTAL IN OTHERS VARIATION TOTAL IN OTHERS FOREIGN ITALIAN TOTAL VARIATION FOREIGN ITALIAN TOTAL BEDS HOTELS BEDS HOTELS 1950* N/A N/A 1922. 1950-60 N/A N/A • 94 38 1980 N/A 41344 N/A I960-1970 N/A • 83.8 N/A 1960 62 50% 37 50% 3738. 1980-66 •112 76 • 15 40 • 79 89 1970 134385 75988 58397 1970-1976 • 53.87 • 57 25 • 49 00 1966 73.86% 26.14% 6724. 1966-71 • 57 91 • 39.04 • 53 07 1978 206507 1 19493 87014 1976-1984 < 7 85 • 28 30 - 20 09 1971 76.26% 23 74% 10293. 1971-76 • 45 89 • 20.16 • 39 78 1984 222319 153308 69011 1970-1984 - 6.12 • 15.51 • 18.17 1976 79.59% 20.4 1% 14388. 1976-81 • 35.84 • 26 98 • 34 03 1981 80.67% 19.33% 19286. 1981-85 • 1 .66 • 51.64 • 11 33 Sources: 1960 1978 figures In Acqueviva and Eisereann, 1981: 48; 19BS 73.68% 26.34% 21470 1960-85 •576.97 •303.42 • 474, 39 1984 figure* In Provincia Autonoaa, 1986. 185 Notes • twelve months over 1950-1951.

Table 37: Number of Guests. 1960-1985 (In Thousands and Sources: 1950 5< figures in Alcock. 1970: 366: Percent 1les) 1960 fIgures in Acqusviva and Eisereann. 1981: *i; 1966 1985 figures in ASTAT. 1987a: 251 FOREIGN ITALIAN TOTAL VARIATION FOREIGN ITALIAN TOTAL I960 69 501 30.40% 713. 1960-61 • 39.34 • 21.17 • 33 81 1966 72 48% 27.52% 955. 1986-71 • 29 31 • 25 34 • 28 53 197 1 73 18% 26.64% 1227. 1971-76 * 49.78 • 19 48 • 41 28 1976 78.30% 21 .70% 1734 1976-81 • 48.88 • 47 62 • 48 60 1981 7 7.45% 22 55% 2576. 1981-85 • 12 03 • 46.92 • 19 90 1965 72 37% 27 63% 3089 . 1960-85 ->350 13 -293 58 •332 94 Sources: 1980 f Igures In Acguavlva and Eisereann, 1981: 48: 1966- 1985 figures (n ASTAT. 1987a: 251.

These tables show that the growth of tourism has been

steady since the fifties, resisting the recession of the late 115

seventies and early eighties. This evolution (see table 36) has favoured the largest establishments (hotels) and since 1960 the number of guests number of guests (see table 37), especially tourists from German-speaking countries, has more than tripled and the number of overnight stays (see table 38) almost quintupled. This has contributed to the rise of the service sector which accounted for 77.5% of GPP and 46% of employment in

1981 compared to 55% and 19% in 1951 (ISTAT, 1955/1983). The tourist boom has thus made outside consumer spending essential for the local economy and now represents about a quarter of the

GPP, 20% by foreigners alone.

This expansion has not been accompanied by a greater rationalization of management organization since most service sector enterprises (see table 39) remain small, usually family- run and with few employees.

Table 39: Number of Service Companies and workforce per Size, 1951-1981 (In Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) 1951' 1971 1981 Companies Workforce Companies Workforce Companies Workforce ..-9 98.9% 74.5% 95.5% 71.7% 94.2% 87 7% 10-49 2.8% 17 2% 4.3% 22.9% 4.5% 23 5% 50--.. 0.3% 8.3% 0.3% 5.5% 0.2% 8 8% TOTAL 5908 18781 10839 35390 25A13 81503 Notes: 1951 figures classified according to 0-10 and 11-49 sizes Sources: 1951 -1971 figures In Pristinger. 1978: 99; 1981 figures 1n ASTAT, 1987a: 168 9 ^^^^^^

Thus most growth has been in the small business sector, primarily in retail trade where seasonal and part-time employment prevails, and only a few companies have reached national or international stature. In 1981 two thirds of all firms had two employees or less while only one firm in twenty employeed ten people or more. In the hotel and restaurant business, this skewed distribution is even greater with 71% of 1 16

all companies employing two workers or less compared to 3,5% employing ten workers or more (ASTAT, 1987a: 168). Such small scale activities produce flexible economic strategies for their operators but make them highly vulnerable to external economic

trends. As marginal services they tend to offer supplementary

incomes to operators and low wages to employees; consequently,

external economic trends tend to compress income levels rather

than jeopardize economic survival.

4.3 The Evolution Of The Industrial Sector

No modern industrial development emerged in the South Tyrol

till the creation of the Bolzano/Bozen Industrial Zone.

However, the Zone had developed in complementarity with northern

Italian markets. Fascist industrialization reshaped spatial and

functional hierarchies so as to marginalize the indigenous

workforce, hence the locational bases of economic relations had

to be transformed if the indigenous workforce was to avoid

Italianization (Alcock, 1970: 264-7).

For a long time, the Province refused to consider industry

as a potential outlet for excess rural labour; however, global

changes could not be held at the province's borders. By the

sixties internal dissensions in the ruling South Tyrolean

People's Party (SVP) led to a shift. Provincial leaders

responded by courting foreign capital and focusing on some of

the province's assets like its north-south crossroad location

and its largely bilingual, readily mobile and only partly 1 1 7

unionized workforce. This strategy had some success in drawing

West German capital towards traditional manufacturing activities

like food processing and handicrafts. This reinforced their

complementarity with the expanding tourist economy and bypassed

the Industrial Zone.

The guidelines for industrial development were

decentralization, small scale operations and the avoidance of

the Industrial Zone (Pristinger, 1978: 93-5) and by the early

seventies about eighty new enterprises, half of which owned by

foreigners, were created, employing about five thousand workers

(Acquaviva and Eisermann, 1981: 46).

Table 40: Industrial Eeployeent per Branch. 1951-1981 (in Table 41: Industrial Plants and workforce per Plant Size. Percent 1les) 1981 (in Absolute Numbers and Percentiles) STEEL/METAL "000 TEXTILE CONSTRUCTION OTHER .0 1-2 3-9 10-49 50-.. TOTAL 1951 28.4% 15 0% 14 6% 29.9% 12.1% Plants 0.58% 53.84% 33.67% 10 57% 1 34% 7873 1961 29.8% 12.0% 13 3% 26 0% 16 9% (In manufacturing) 11.21% 25.84% 30.96% 31.99% 49522 197 1 32.1% 11.8% 8 0% 26.5% 21 6% Workforce 0.18% 57.74% 31.49% 8.87% 1.72% 4011 1981 21.1% 15 4% 16% 32.4% 29 4% (in manufacturing) 11.80% 22.80% 26.37% 38 89% 25664

Sources: Pristinger. 1978: 92; Source: ASTAT, 1987a: 168-9. Provincia Autonoma. 1984: 173.

Table 40 shows the impact of global trends and provincial

policy. Textiles have virtually disappeared while the wood

industry (lumber and finished products) has instead weathered

the transition and, after several years of adjustment and the

introduction of modern technologies, has been able to regain a

stable place in the provincial economy. The most important

changes have affected consumer-oriented industries, including

construction. Food processing and clothing have expanded in

response to internal market demands as well as those stimulated

by the tourist boom. Similarly, tourism and rising personal

incomes have stimulated construction and related mining and

manufacturing activities, employing in 1981 almost one third of 1 18

all industrial workers compared to only one sixth in 1951. By contrast, employment in metallurgical and mechanical industries, located in the Industrial Zone, has declined.

The combination of external factors and local decisions has reduced the importance of the Bolzano-Bozen Industrial Zone. If in 1961 the Zone had 35% of all industrial plants and employed half of all workers (Pristinger, 1978: 92), twenty years later it accounted for under 16% of all plants and 25% of all workers.

Districts like the Salto-Sciliar/Salten-Schlern (18.2% of all plants), Pusteria/Puster valley (14.8%) and the Oltradige-Bassa

Atesina/Uberetsch-Suedtiroler Unterland (14%) have emerged as important industrial areas of the province (ASTAT, 1987a: 172-

3).

This industrial development is not the result of an industrial strategy. Given the intellectual and cultural predisposition of indigenous South Tyrolean leaders and the strong opposition to the Bolzano-Bozen Industrial Zone, industry has been treated as an adjunct of agriculture and the service sector. Therefore, corporate and organizational structures have remained relatively backward (see table 41). Of the almost 8000 industrial plants in existence in the mid-eighties about three quarters remain simple craft- or workshops and employ about 30% of all workers (ASTAT, 1987a: 167).

With a vulnerable industrial apparatus, organizationally weak and characterized by low efficiency and productivity, South

Tyrolean industry remains at the mercy of external pressures.

When the first energy crisis struck in the mid-seventies, 119

foreign investments dried up and many of the newly-created

plants had to close (Pristinger, 1978: 94-7); only in the

eighties did the industrial sector recover (ASTAT, 1988b: 22-3).

Provincial support was instrumental for this recovery for it

enabled many plants to upgrade their equipment, financed the

acquisition of new technology and the promotion of South

Tyrolean goods. Overall Provincial support accounted for almost

30% of all investments in industry in the 1983-87 period, 42 but

because of the small-medium size of South Tyrolean companies

almost 80% of all Provincial funding was in the form of outright

grants rather than loans or bond issues (Provincia Autonoma,

1988: 20-1). The bifurcated industrial sector, weak corporate

and organizational structures and inadequate government planning

thus hold this sector back from its full potential.

4.4 Recent Economic Trends

The development of the South Tyrolean economy in the afore•

mentioned direction continued in the seventies and early

eighties. The contribution of agriculture to Value Added

dropped from 10% in 1975 to 6.75% in 1983, but its modernization

has continued since it still accounts for over 10% of all

investments. Industry still accounts for about 25% of Value

Added but has drawn only one sixth of all investments, the bulk

42 The Provincial government has invested considerably in professional training but the lack of a South Tyrolean university deprives local industry of the spinoffs that cooperation might produce. 1 20

of which has benefitted the service sector (8% annual growth in the seventies) (ASTAT, 1984: 122-3; ibid, 1986: 49; ibid, 1988b:

63; Regione, 1982: table 35).

The size of the service sector has made the provincial economy heavily dependent on outside resources, almost 20% of the GPP in the early eighties compared to 12% ten years earlier

(ASTAT, 1984: 112; ibid, 1986: 42; Regione Trentino-Alto Adige,

1982: table 5). This dependence, especially on West Germany

(ASTAT, 1987b: 260), has brought the province within the

Deutschmark zone (Pan, 1979) and subjected it to imported inflationary pressures so that the province has had a relatively higher rate of inflation compared to neighbouring Trentino and

Italy (ASTAT, I987d: 189).

The impact of high inflation has been uneven. Those employed in economic activities closely tied to the tourist trade, hence tied to the Deutschmark zone, were protected as the value of the Mark rose against the Lira. Those employed in sectors directly linked to the Italian economy like manufacturing or Public Administration, where Italophones are overrepresented, seemingly suffered more despite the built-in indexation plan of the national wage scheme (Ghirigato, 1986:

152-3). However, given the income differentials among sectors and occupational categories, inflation has not been unduly discriminatory. In agriculture wages and incomes from self- employment have remained far below the 1975 100 base index by about one third to one half respectively. In comparison industrial wages remained above the index, while in the service 121

sector both wages and income from self-employment averaged 90-

110 of the 1975 index (ASTAT, 1984: 68, 87-9).

4.5 The End Of The Ethnic Division Of Labour

The transformation of the South Tyrolean economy has ended

the ethnic division of labour. From a vertically segmented

economic system dominated by the Italophone population in its

urban enclave, the structural relationship within and between

ethnies reflects, with the exception of agriculture, overall

economic and demographic structures.

TaDle 42: Provincial Workforce par A. Sector and Language Croup B. Language Group and Sector. 1961-1981 (1n Absolute NuiCero and Percentile*)

GERMAN ITALIAN LAOIN GERMAN ITALIAN LAOI Agr icu Uure 1961 44.78% 4 23% 37 591 91 051 4 741 4 1 VARIATION - 1981-1961 GERMAN ITALIAN LAOIN 1971 22.93% 2. 70% 20 591 91 801 4 551 3 6 1981 19.49% 1 .95% 1 1 50% 91 681 4 2 71 3 3 Agr1culture - 49 68 • 55 07 - 60 55

Industry 1961 20.89% 40.57% 33 51% 46 30% 49 60% 4 0 1971 26.B8* 36.54% 37 151 54 691 40 851 4 3 1981 25.741 29 96% 29 511 81 201 33 161 4 3 Industry • 42 24 - 26 05 • 14.46

(Mining and 1961 14.86% 26.55% 27 851 46 211 48 991 4 7 197 1 17.62* 24.60% 27 201 53 791 41 261 3 7 1981 15.80% 16 87% 19 431 60 411 33 515 4 5 (Mining and • 22 91 - 35 61 - 9.33 Manufactur ing) 1961 34. 33% 55.20% 28 601 51 70% 45 861 2 3 197 1 43.191 60.76% 42 261 54 58% 42 211 3 0 1981 54.80% 88.09% 58 991 59 751 34 521 3 9 Sarvleas • 84 53 • 20 17 • 167 85

1961 17.121 16 78% 13 801 63 061 34 101 2 7 1971 22.78% 18.73% 22 861 66 181 29 911 3 7 1981 28.98% 23.61% 29 961 68 041 25 7 71 4 3 ICoaaerce) • 95 74 • 37 10 •181.97

(Credit and 1961 0.54X 8.48% 0 261 34 651 64 32% 0 9 Insurance) 1971 1 .06% 9.24% 0 721 45 781 52 261 1 8 1981 3.54% 8.64% 7 941 50 17% 40 50% 6 8 (Cradit and •661 94 •231 36 • 3900.0 Insurance) Pub 1 ic 1961 3.49% 20.301 3 311 23 391 75 33% 1 2 Adninistrat ion 1971 13.27% 16.631 3 701 25 811 72 461 1 6 1981 3. 38% 12.701 2 621 35 301 62 03% 1 8 (PublIc AdaintttratIon) •. ' '6 7 - 39' 06 - 2.23 1961 99626 54959 5426 82 271 34 331 3 3 1971 95705 52605 551 1 62 161 34 161 3 5 1981 115157 53542 7079 64 531 30 001 3 9 TOTAL • 15 59 - 2 58 • 11.48

Source: ISTAT. 1964/1973/1983.

Table 42 shows a marked expansion of the total Germanophone

(+16%) and Ladin (30%) workforce, compared to only a 2.6% gain among Italophones. This has enabled both groups to reestablish 1 22

a comparable presence in all those sectors and branches of the economy from which they had been excluded. Agriculture now

represents a smaller component of the workforce, although among

Germanophones it still accounts for about one job in five compared to one in nine for Ladins and one in fifty for

Italophones. In the service sector the greatest gains were made

by Ladins (+168%) compared to Germanophones (+84.5%) and

Italophones (+20.2%), but in the major branches like credit and

insurance all three ethnies have made substantial advances, with

Germanophones and Ladins gaining in transportation and

communications but only Germanophones making modest gains in the

civil service (+11.67%). Except for credit and insurance and

trade Italophones have lost ground both in absolute and

proportional terms in all branches and sectors of the economy,

especially in manufacturing (-35.61%) and public administration

(-39%).

The demise of the ethnic division of labour has been

achieved in less than two generation, and the transition has

penalized the Italophone population and deprived it ' of its

commanding position and has renewed Germanophone ascendancy.

It might be difficult to translate empirical data into

information about subjective socio-cultural phenomena like class

identity because class differentiation and consciousness are as

much a self-evaluating process based on prevailing social values

and cultural mores, but it is possible to extrapolate tentative

explanations about the evolution of social hierarchies from the

observation of data of occupational categories over a given 123

period of time (Pristinger, 1978: 104-7). Data of this sort can serve as indicators of social differentiation, ergo of its impact on the nature of inter-ethnic relations in the South

Tyrol. •

The transformation of the economy has had profound consequences for the internal social hierarchy of each ethny and for their mutual relationship in the overall social strati f icat ion.

Table 43: Workforce per Language Group and Occupational Category. 1961-1961 (in Absolute Nuabers and Percentiles)

A B C 0 E TOTAL GERMAN 1961 0.971 9.831 26.431 47.64% 15.93% 99826 1971 2.03% 15.771 24 461 48.231 9.511 95705 1961 3.891 22 301 20.061 48.091 5.661 115157

ITALIAN 1961 1.531 25.941 10.491 58.881 3.121 54959 1971 2.001 34 641 11.661 48.691 2.991 52605 1981 4 581 37 711 11.461 43.671 2.581 53542

LADIN 1961 0 441 6 801 30.171 46.531 16.061 5426 1971 2.901 13.641 26.541 46.431 8.491 5511 1981 4.231 22.951 28 711 38.091 6 021 7049

Notes: ' k = Entrepreneur* and Profeeslonels; B = Manager8 and White Collar Workers; C = Self-cap loved; 0 = Blue Collar Workers; E = Fae.1 ly Hands.

Source: ISTAT, 1384/1W3/1Q83.

Provided we keep in mind the peripherality of the South

Tyrolean economy in the European context, the above table indicates a general expansion of those occupational categories that are more socially-valued in a capitalist economy. However, the rise was ten-fold among Ladin entrepreneurs/professionals but only four- and two-fold among Germanophones and Italophones respectively. Similarly, among Ladins the number of managers/white-collar workers more than tripled compared to 192% among Germanophones and 41% among Italophones. Conversely, the absolute number of self-employed people remained relatively stable among Italophones and Germanophones but increased by almost a quarter among Ladins; however, in proportional terms this occupational group has substantially declined among

Germanophones and to a lesser extent among Ladins. No such 124

contrast exists in the family-hands category where the data show

a marked decline in both proportional and absolute terms. Among

blue-collar workers Italophones lost roughly one quarter in

absolute numbers and were proportionately overtaken by

Germanophones in the twenty-year period under consideration.

Although proportionately unchanged in relation to the entire

workforce the number of blue-collar Germanophones has in fact

increased by about 15% compared to a slight regression among

Ladins. These data show that a convergence has taken place

among all three ethnies who now increasingly mirror each other.

These changes not only modified the internal social

hierarchies of each ethny but also affected their place in the overall social hierarchy of the province.

Table 44 : Workforce per Occupational Category and Language Group. ( 1n Absolute Nuabers and Percent 1 lee 1

• 'A B C 0 E TOTAL SEAMAN 1961 52.47* 37.501 76 031 57.7 11 85.911 62.221 1971 61.251 44.201 75.161 62 051 81.611 82.161 I9S1 61.961 54.081 73.881 67 991 78.351 65.521

ITALIAN 1961 45.731 80 791 17.061 39.181 9. 361 33.391 1971 33.261 53.371 19 . 7 31 34.431 14.101 34 161 1961 33.911 42.511 19.631 28.711 16.551 30 361

LADIN 1961 1 301 1.571 4.851 3.061 4.711 3 391 1871 5.041 2 201 5.051 3 441 4 301 3 561 1961 4. 131 3 411 6.491 3 301 5. 101 4.021

TOTAL 1961 1839 25454 33751 82568 18471 160103 1971 3172 34136 31151 74385 11 124 153970 1981 7230 47497 31260 81448 8313 I7S748

Notes: for details see table 43.

Source: ISTAT 1904/1973/1983.

Table 44 shows that the old ethnic segmentation has disappeared in the dominant occupational categories, but

Germanophones retain a proportionately greater hold over self-

employment and family-hands. The only category in which

Italophones are still proportionately overrepresented is that of managers/white-collar work, but we can expect this situation to

decline as ethnic quotas in public sector employment 125

redistribute job opportunities.

rttit 45 torl'orct par L«nQU*04> Grouo , Oeeuo.t

A 8 C 0 E TOTAL •dUCULTUHC

1.6 1 68 661 47 70% 90 69% 90 90% 92 38% • 1 04% 1*7 t 92 10* 73 8 3% 91 34% 91 02% 94 55% 01 60% last •6 95% 61 01% 93 041 90 56% 96 17* 92 36% 4 74% i TALI AN 100 l 29 62% 4 1 22% 4 40% 4 97% 3 83% is; i 3 24 10% 4 00% 6 06% 2 34% 4 55% 1181 to 00% 10 47% 2 80% 6 72% 2 02% 4 30%

L-OIN 196 1 4 79% 3 12% 4 60% 4 19% 197 1 3 94% 1 08% 4 84% 2 32% 1 07% 3 63% 198 1 1 OS* 0 42% 4 18% 2 ro% 1 61% 3 34%

INDUSTRY

CEftUAN 1961 1% 11% 28 69% 65 08% 44 10% 60 8 7\ 46 30% 19M 61 86% 45 29% 60 61% 54 94% 61 47% 54 69% 1981 54 27% 48 77% 64 7 7% 84 5 3% 72 44% 92 03%

[TALI AN 196 1 S3 80% 68 69% 27 64% 52 32% 30 7 2% 49 60% 1971 12 23% 51 94% 32 52% 40 64% 31 15% 40 95% 1981 4] 96% 48 06% 27 67% 32 23% 20 66% 33 61%

t.»OlN 1961 06% 2 3i% 7 23% 3 41% 8 40% 4 04% 197 1 s 64% 2 18% 6 81% 4 18% 7 13* 4 35% 1981 1 7 7% 8 83% 7 58% 3 24% 6 79% 4 36%

SERVICES

G£MUN 1901 4 308?* 38 7J% 48 68% 56 62% 80 80% »1 70% 197 1 49 97% 43 4 7% 48 85% 81 69% 65 7 7% 54 58% 198 1 8 1 61% 44 66% 47 50% 55 43% 7 1 30% 60 64*

HAL UN 1«6 1 44 27% 59 66% 37 90% 40 74% 35 22% • 5 68% 197 1 34 64% 44 15% 38 38% 35 27% 28 75% 42 21% 1961 33 60% 42 4 8% 34 03% 30 . 10% 22 37% 35 15%

LADIN 1961 I 4 1% 1 4«% 3 13% 2 .98% 3 90% 2 34% 1971 4 85% 2 22% 4 62% 2 .96% 5 32% 3 08% 1981 4 30% 2 66% 6 4 7% 3 47% 4 01% 4 01%

Nolftfj: for 0*ta 1 it • *>• t«D•• 43.

Sourc*: ISTAT. 964/ 973/1983

Table 45 confirms the final demise of the old ethnic

division of labour and, with the exception of agriculture, the

internal stratificational convergence of all three ethnies. In

agriculture the substantial presence of Italophones in the

entrepreneurs/professionals and managers/white collar categories

has been reduced from 30% and 40% respectively to 10% and all

dominant positions are now in the hands of Germanophones. In

the industrial sector the structural realignment has not been as

obvious, partly because of inadequate Provincial support. Hence

among entrepreneurs/professionals the proportion of

Germanophones dropped below average. Unlike local firms owned

and/or managed by Germanophones and/or foreigners, many firms

controlled by Italophones are branch plants or have access to

national financial and marketing networks and could survive the

recessions of the seventies and the early eighties. Among blue- 1 26

collar workers the realignment has instead been accomplished.

Similarly, convergence and Germanophone ascendancy have been complete in the service sector.

Despite these changes the social hierarchy has not been radically transformed since there remains a large proportion of self-employed people in both agriculture and the service sector whose existence tends to stabilize the social structure and diffuse social tensions. In both sectors modernization has not weakened traditional social relations (Katzenstein in Esman,

1977: 295-6). This has meant the defusion of social tensions, especially among indigenous South Tyroleans, during the period of transition from a traditional agrarian society to a service- based economy. However, the longterm impact of socio-economic change has reduced the socio-cultural gap in the population as a whole since over two thirds of all South Tyroleans now see themselves as middle class (Dall'O' et al., 1988: 93-6), and tend to articulate personal and collective interests through professional associations (Dall'O' et al., 1988: 118). The existence of a large middle class, protective of its social autonomy, if not jealous of its social status, has thus reinforced the defusion of social conflict within the context of more personalized social relations and issue-oriented labour

relations.

The spatial impact of this realignment also confirms

renewed Germanophone ascendancy and converging social hierarchies. 1 27

Table 46: eorhforce per Language Group and Occupational Category in Selected Areas. 196 - 1981 (in Percent jles)

A i C 0 E TOTAL URBAN CENTRES

GERMAN 1961 41 361 27 701 48 231 28 281 60 631 32 081 I9M 43 341 29 591 43 621 30 871 54 7 31 33 461 1961 45 511 36 691 4 1 041 34 721 52 611 37 401

ITALIAN 1961 57 931 7 1 841 51 3 71 7 1 311 39 021 86 901 1971 55 1 IX 69 621 55 741 68 731 At 7 31 65 971 1981 53 All 62 371 SB 121 64 621 46 691 61 791

ADIGE-ETSCH

GERMAN 1961 35 161 33 161 "0 041 23 651 40 381 29 821 197! 45 B7t 33 401 41 541 24 481 48 371 31 361 1961 51 811 40 641 48 761 32 3. . 57 531 39 251

ITALIAN 1961 63 7 31 66 451 59, 891 76 171 59 621 70 Oil 1971 53 211 65 801 580261 75 351 51 631 68 351 1981 47 891 56 591 51 081 67 331 42 241 60 351

LADIN AREA

LADIN 1961 41 031 65 381 87 7 71 86 911 93 291 86 341 1971 81 981 78 131 94 121 87 651 as 9 31 87 371 1981 86 081 69 491 94 121 91 241 84 251 91 031

Notes: for details see table 43 and Appendi* A .

Source: ISTAT, 1964/19 7 3/1983

From table 46 we can see that in Ladin municipalities,

Ladins have accentuated their control of all occupational categories, especially entrepreneurial/professional and managerial/white collar positions, hence the achievement of a more balanced internal division of labour now guarantees them an auxiliary region in the provincial economy. Changes in the last twenty-five years have strenghtened the Ladin community and enabled it to achieve greater internal social differentiation and maintain its geographic cohesion. They face the problem of a certain urban drift (see table 32), but they could stop and reverse it only if a stronger Ladin central place system was created, preferably guaranteed by separate politico-territorial institutions. Under these circumstances, they could retain potential migrants, especially those trained entrepreneurial, managerial and professional cadres tempted or pushed to go elsewhere in the province.

Unlike Ladins who inhabit an area of the province that does not challenge the Germanophone hold, the end of the ethnic division of labour at sectoral and occupational levels has meant 1 28

the gradual loss of Italophone control over the geographic context in which they could control socio-economic processes.

In a modern capitalist economy vertical functional

specialization along ethnic lines is untenable without horizontal territorial segregation. Ladins could do so because

of their geographic separation and economic marginality;

Italophones cannot do so because of their geographic penetration

by the Germanophone milieu and the economic centrality of their

places of settlement.

The reassertion of Germanophone predominance inevitably has

had an uneven spatial impact. Since Bolzano-Bozen has an

Italophone majority that cannot be dislodged or weakened from

within the city, the Provincial government has till recently

pursued policies designed to bypass it, but as the seat of

government it had to locate therein its growing administrative

apparati. This has ensured a steady flow of Germanophones

towards the city and the erosion of the Italophone majority.

The appearance and diffusion of transportation by motor car and

rail has made commuting to and from work easier and separated

place of residence from that of work (Atz, 1986). The effect is

that the functional region around the provincial capital and the

capital itself are subjected to a process of re-Germanization

that does not solely depend on residential re-Germanization but

on the subordination of the vital centre to its rural periphery.

In the longterm this can only be the prelude to the re-

Germanization of the vital centre itself. 1 29

V. CONCLUSION

In our original observations we stated that, unlike ethnies defined by genotype, religion or socio-cultural traits, the existence and survival of ethno-linguistic groups depend on the structural autonomy of those functional institutions and domains that ensure language acquisition, use and retention, i.e. on the spatio-functional separation of language groups from exoglossic social and statist systems. This separation is essential for such groups to develop and maintain those structural (demographic, economic, cultural, political) conditions that entail control over a vital centre and its complementary region because it is in hierarchically but spatially diffused functional institutions that ethno-linguistic characteristics are reproduced.

As a social phenomenon, the structural separation of language groups has become a fact of life in the last two centuries because of the glottophagic imperatives of capitalist relations of production and statist institutions. In the South

Tyrol (and the historic Tyrol) they subordinated local populations to the full weight of external politico-bureaucratic institutions and economic processes and forced them to pursue political strategies designed to achieve a certain degree of spatio-functional autonomy. Under the fascist regime this subordination produced a bifurcated spatio-functional order that, under conditions of democratic rule and political autonomy, enabled the indigenous population to reassert its control over the province, but in circumstances that reversed 1 30

the hierarchical relationship between centre and periphery.

This still proves that ethno-linguistic groups need spatio- functional separation but that in the short- and medium-term this can accomplished without control of the vital centre. If further proof was needed, the South Tyrolean case also shows that even if separation is precarious, as is the case of the

Ladin population, it can still guarantee better survival opportunities than those situations were a language group is structurally integrated into a larger exoglossic system.

The structural weakness of the Italophone community has in fact been recognized and has led some observers (Acquaviva and

Eisermann, 1981: 101-5; Gambino, 1988) to call for the partition of the South Tyrol, the detachment of the still Italianized area and Italian disengagement from the rest of the province.

However unrealistic these proposals might be under present local, national and international circumstances, they are the only logical conclusions drawn from the South Tyrolean case.

The only alternative that might be envisaged would require the reconstitution of a single, decentralized pan-Tyrolean polity that was detached from both Italy and Austria. Under such circumstances, the city of Bolzano-Bozen would no longer be essential for Germanophone spatio-functional autonomy. As part of a much smaller provincial unit, it could preserve certain central functions for an area that would be peripheral to both

Trentine and German-Tyrolean communities. Its peripehrality might cause a certain demographic decline since certain central functions would move to the Trentine and North Tyrolean 131

capitals; however, it would likely become the area where the ethno-linguistic boundary could stabilize and where personal ethno-linguistic rights might remain operative. However, such a solution is impossible under present political conditions where the nation-state remains the dominant model of political organization. Only in the context of a united federal Europe would this solution be ever likely to prevail. 1 32

1• LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TOPONYMS AND TERMS (IN ALPHABETICAL

ORDER)

AdiueEtf.cn Corr irjor l Geogr «*ph ic Area) • Municipalities of Auer Or a . Bronzo lo-Sranzol 1 , La ivet -Leifers. Neuraarkt Egna, NL-NS - Ne« Left Salorno-Sa lurn and Vadena•Pfatten.

QS2 - Austrian Central Bureau of Statistics. x A Ho Ajiiflfl (In Italian) (Geographic Area) - Upper Adige (In English), Ooaraiach (in Geraan). Northern part of Italian Region PDU • Independents' Party. of Trent i no - Alto Adige, province of Bolnno 6o;«n PSIUP • Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian unity. AS • Alternative List for Another South Tyrol. B • Rural. A_tan - Assoc iat loni s) . Reoub1 leans • PR!. Italian Republican Party ASTAT - (Provincial) Bureau of Statistics. Efi (Language Groups) - Rhaeto-Roaansch. Aufbat, - Reconstruction. 8ura) Ar«M (Geographic Area) - ill aun ic ipa 111 ies other than Urban Centres. BQlzagg (Geographic Arsa) - Bozen (in Geraan), Bulsan or Balsan (in Ladin). Province and city SyavDol BZ. See also Alto Adige. S (Language group) - Slovene.

Bo2en - see Bolzano SOPS • SociaIdeeocratic Party of the South Tyrol,

Bulean • See Bolzano. SFP - Social Progress Party).

Soclaldeaocrats - PSDI, Italian SoclaIdeaocratic Party. B_Z - tee Bolzano.

Social isi, s - PSI. Italian Socialist Psrty. £ • circa.

SVP - South Tyrolean People's Party. C 1 " IP, 1 flO Tyrj ] (Geographic Area) • Southern and Central part of historic land of Tyrol, Italian Region of Trentino-A1 to THP * Tyrolean Hoaeland Party. Adige.

Tor (Geographic Area) Badia (in Italian). Thurn (in Coaaun lsta • PCI. Italian Coiauntit Party. Geraan). Ladin Valley. Chr 1stian Qanocrats • DC, Christian Deaocracy. Trent (Geographic Area) - Trento (in Italian), Trient (in Geraan). Province and City. Syabol TN. CQ' I - Coapanies.

lh - see Trent. Q£ - Proletarian Democracy.

Transalpine Tvro 1 (Geographic Area) Northern Part of tilA (Geographic Area) • Fasse in Italian. Ladin Valley in historic land of the Tyrol. Austrian Province (Land) of the Trent Pro* ince. Tyrol.

Q (Language groups) - Geraanic Trent Ino (Geograph tc Area) Southern Part of Italian Region of Trentino-A1 to Adige. Province of Trent See also Q (speahert) - Geraanopnones. Ital ien Tyro 1.

Geraan Tvro 1 (Geographic Area) - Deutscn Tirol (in Geraan), U - Urban. Tirolo tedasco (In Italian). Northern and Central part of the h1st or ic land of the Tyro 1. Austr ian Prov ince (Land) of the Upper Adige - see Alto Adige. Tyrol and Italian Province of Bo Izano-Bozen.

Urban Centres (Geographic Area) - Municipalities of GJB (Language groups) - Gal lo-Roaance. Bolzano-Bozen. Brixen-Bressenone. ' Bruneck-Brunico, Laives- Leifers and NMerano-Meran. flherde, jna (Geograpnic Area) - Gardens (in Italian), Groeden (in Geraan). Ladin Valley in Bo Izano-Bozen Province WQH - (South Tyrolean) Patriotic League.

X (speakers) - Italophones.

IB (Language groups) • I ta lo-Roaance.

IS - South Tyrolean Independents -

ISTAT - (Italian) Bureau of Statistics.

Italian Tvrol (Geographic Area) - Welsh Tirol (in Geraan). Tirolo italiano (in Italian). Southern part of Cisalpine Tyrol. ProvInce of Trent.

t (speakers) • Lad ins.

t- iberals • PL I, Italian Liberal Party.

Neo-fascials - US I ON. Ital ten Social Voveaent-National Right

fit/A - Not available. 133

APPENDIX A

URBAN CENTRES: ADIGE-ETSCH CORRIDOR: LADIN AREA:

Bolzano-Bozen Auer-Ora Corvara

Merano-Meran Bronzolo-Branzoll La Pli de Mareo

Br ixen-Bressanone Laives-Leifers La Val

Bruneck-Brunico Neumorkt-Egna S.Cri st ina

La ives-Le i fers Salorno-Salurn San Linert

Vadena-Pfatten S.Martin de Tor

Sel va

Urt i jei

PROVINCE: RURAL AREAS:

1 i 6 Munic ipalities I I I Munic ipali t ies 2. APPENDIX B

GERMAN PARTIES: ITALIAN IDEOLOGICAL GROUPINGS

SVP (1948-1983) LEFT: Communists (1948-1983)

South Tyrolean People's Party Socialists (1948-1960)

SDPS (1948) PSIUP (1964)

Social Democratic of the DP (1978-1983)

South Tyrol New Left (1978)

IS (1952) Alternative List (1983)

South Tyrolean Independents LEFT OP CENTRE:

TUP (1964) Socialists (1964-1983)

Tyrolean Homeland Party Socialdemocrats (1948-1983)

SFP (1968-1978) Republicans (1960-1983)

Social Progress Party CENTRE:

SPS (1973-1983) Christian Democrats (1948-19

Social Democratic Party RIGHTS:

PDU (1973-1983) Neo-fascists (1948-1983)

Independents' Party Monarchists (1956)

NS (1978) OTHER:

New Left Autonomist Parties

WdH (1983) Liberals Patriotic League

AS (1983)

Alternative List for

Another South Tyrol

Nel Left and Alternative List parties are inter-ethnic parties.

Germanophone and Italophone votes were calculated by dividing tot party vote in each administrative district of the province accord to 1981 and 1986 Population data per Language Group and adding results. 134

4. APPENDIX C

MAPS 1. GEOGRAPHIC BOUNDARIES

Legend: — State boundaries - - - - - Orographic Region of the Alps xxxxxxxxx Hydrographic Divide

2. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF LANGUAGES IN THE ALPS, 1914-1981 1 35

Legend: GR = Gallo-Romance languages G = Germanic languages IR = Italo-Romance languages S = Slovene RR = Rhaeto-Romansch languages E»1961 137

Legend:

BZ - City of Bol2ano-Bo2en TN - City of Trent

xxxxxxxxx Hydrographic Divide Provincial Boundaries • South Tyrolean Districts - - - - - Old Intra-Tyrolean Boundary

G - Germanic Languages IR - Italo-Romance Languages RR - Rhaeto-Romansch Languages

10-20% Proportion of Italophone Population 50/90% Italophone and Ladin Majority

South Tyrolean Districts: 1. Vinschgau-Venosta 2. Burgrafenamt-Burgraviato 3. Merano-Meran 4. Suedtiroler Unterland- Bassa Atesina 5. Bol2ano-Bozen 6. Salten Schlern-Salto Sciliar 7. Wipptal-Alto Isarco 8. Eisack-Isarco 9. Puster-Pusteria 1 38

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