Ethnic Mobilization in south Tyrol: A primordial identity in crisis

Abstract

South Tyrol and the German minority are portrayed as one of the most successful forms of ethnic mobilization in Western Europe. Its distinct historic roots and the related symbolic codes of collective identity formation can be seen as a classical example for territorially‐based minority politics. On the basis of a constructivist approach the thesis is developed that the primordial collective identity, dominant in South Tyrol, has generated very particular patterns of ethnic mobilization and conflict. On the one hand, it has secured the intransigent protest of the German population fighting an enforced Italianization ‘ over decades. On the other hand, however, this firm of collective identity is simultaneously fostering the recent crisis of ethnic politics in South Tyrol. The more general argument is made that in highly modem, European‐oriented society a primordial understanding of ethnic loyalty is no longer able to provide stable patterns of social integration and political loyalty. In this respect, the South Tyrolean case is interpreted as an example of how primordial patterns of collective identity and related political mobilization tend to lose their firm base in highly modern society.