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Following the research agenda introduced by Will Kymlicka (1995), this qualitative study offers an interpretation of how the integration of immigrants is constructed by the national minorities of Québec and South Tyrol, two groups that... more
Following the research agenda introduced by Will Kymlicka (1995), this qualitative study offers an interpretation of how the integration of immigrants is constructed by the national minorities of Québec and South Tyrol, two groups that are constantly undergoing a process of redefinition of their collective identities based on a differentiation from the Others who do not belong to the in-group. Immigrants today have become the most significant Others for these groups, as the sense of belonging that they are expected to join is inherently fragmented since they are not part to the original compromises that are specific of these sub-national polities. Therefore, the question this study aims to answer is how the national minorities redraw the boundaries of their identity in relation to the phenomenon of immigration, and how do they practically accommodate for this change. The hypotheses to be tested are whether the national minority groups of Québec and South Tyrol: H1. engage in a process of reconstruction of their identity by trying to construct a definition that allows newcomers to assimilate in their group; H2. adopt practical policy measures to assimilate newcomers in their group. The two hypotheses are tested respectively: H1. by conducting an analysis of the political narrative of the main parties, their electoral appeals and speeches; H2. by analysing the integration policies in the field of education, language, and social policy. The comparison between Québec and South Tyrol has the potential to provide a basic understanding of the impact of immigration in two sub-national polities that are very different, but still adopt similar political narratives and policy strategies with regard to the integration of newcomers.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Research question ________________________________________________________________________ 11
2. Literature _______________________________________________________________________________ 13
3. Argument and hypotheses __________________________________________________________________ 15
4. Research method _________________________________________________________________________ 16
5. Organization ____________________________________________________________________________ 18
Chapter 1Identity politics in two sub-national divided polities:the framework and the differences
1.1 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 23
1.2 Sub-national polities: multinational claims ____________________________________________________ 24
1.3 Identity politics: a tale of fragmentation and ethnic competition ___________________________________ 27
1.4 Two polities: within a common framework, several specificities ___________________________________ 34
1.4.1 Politics and history 34
1.4.2 Identity politics 36
1.4.3 The reality of immigration 38
1.5 Summary ______________________________________________________________________________ 45
Chapter 2The political narrative of immigration:collective perceptions between hope and anxiety
2.1 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 47
2.2 Immigration as a nation-building tool ________________________________________________________ 48
2.3 The optimistic view: civic nationalism beyond ethnic politics _____________________________________ 51
2.4 The reality of immigration: identity anxiety ___________________________________________________ 54
2.5 Summary ______________________________________________________________________________ 63
Chapter 3Integration policies:between assimilation and marginalization
3.1 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 67
3.2 Principles of policy-making in sub-national divided polities ______________________________________ 68
3.3 The strategic importance of managing immigration in sub-national contexts __________________________ 69
3.4 Immigrants' selection: admission policy ______________________________________________________ 72
3.5 Immigrants' integration: adaptation policies ___________________________________________________ 76
3.6 Strategies of inclusion and exclusion ________________________________________________________ 78
3.6.1 Assimilation 80
3.6.2 Marginalization 83
3.7 Summary ______________________________________________________________________________ 86
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Chapter 4Integration policies:the areas of education and language
4.1 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 89
4.2 Assimilationist strategies: the policy of education and language ___________________________________ 90
4.3 From assimilation to marginalization: a cultural backlash ________________________________________ 102
4.4 Adjusting public policies: immigrant voices and the accommodation crisis ___________________________ 106
4.5 Summary ______________________________________________________________________________ 111
Conclusion
Bibliography
1. Books and papers _________________________________________________________________________ 123
2. Policy documents and other primary sources ___________________________________________________ 131
3. Newspapers articles _______________________________________________________________________ 132
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List of the Figures
Figure 1. Migratory trend in Québec: 1945 - 2011 .......................................................................................... 39Figure 2. Migratory trend in South Tyrol: 1960 – 2010 ................................................................................... 39Figure 3. Most striking similarities and differences ......................................................................................... 42Figure 4. Extended list of similarities and differences ..................................................................................... 43Figure 5. Demographic composition of Québec and South Tyrol .................................................................... 44Figure 6: Demographic composition of Québec 1971 and South Tyrol 2009 ................................................ ..44Figure 7: Native groups' tensions towards immigrants ..................................................................................... 78Figure 8: Integration policy in sub-national divided polities ......................................................................... 79Figure 9: Immigrants’ education choices in South Tyrol ................................................................................ 94Figure 10. Immigrants' education choices in Québec (school year 2003/2004) ............................................... 94Figure 11. Francophone's group educational language choice in Québec (school year 2006-2007) ................ 95Figure 12. Immigrant children's choice in South Tyrol divided by level (school year 2009-2010) .................. 99Figure 13: Instances of policy measures ......................................................................................................... 110Figure 14: Strategies enacted: language and policies ..................................................................................... 111
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Acknowledgments
There is an extent to which this research began in 2009, when I started working on theissue of minority nationalism with the supervision of Professor Peter Wagner. Moreprecisely, the six-month period of exchange at Trinity College Ireland between Januaryand June 2009 ideally represents the moment when this work took its originalinspiration. Only in 2010, however, I developed a clearer research project on theinteraction between national minorities and immigrant groups. To this aim, I was greatlyinfluenced by Professor Vincent Della Sala from the University of Trento, whoaddressed me on this specific focus and followed my progress through a long period of research that lasted one year and a half. I owe my gratitude to him and to ProfessorAvigail Eisenberg from the University of Victoria, who helped me through my period of research in Canada.If this dissertation was completed in its present form it was also thanks to publicfunding: the study benefited of three grants that made it possible to develop some ideas,while carrying out field research in a variety of places. In 2010, financed by ascholarship from the School of International Studies, I had the chance to put the basis of this study participating to the international conference “Towards CriticalMulticulturalism: Dialogues Between/ Among Canadian Diasporas” (October 7-9).Between January and May 2011 I worked at the University of Victoria through theCELAB Programme, that was financed by the Government of Canada and the European
8Commission, and that gave me the opportunity to get in contact with many Canadianpolitical theorists and develop a specific perspective on the topic of research. Finally,the December 2011 grant from the Forum Trentino per la Pace e i Diritti Umani allowedme to carry on further field research, and represents a further opportunity to continuewith this work in the next few months.Indeed, the School of International Studies and at the University of Victoria provided anexcellent environment for such a research. I consider myself very privileged for havinghad the chance to develop my ideas in these contexts. In particular, I am grateful to Dr.Catherine Riley from the University of Trento for her commitment in following andmotivating master's students; and to my fellow students who, both at Trento andVictoria, made me feel part of two exceptional communities. All these connectionsmade this work much easier and interesting to do. However, although the ideas reportedin this work are the synthesis of the interactions with many individuals, responsibilityfor errors lies solely with me.
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Introduction
“The phenomenon of large-scale immigration presents a challenge to traditional models of the nation-state, creating minority nationalisms that are typically felt to be inherently antagonistic to immigrants andto the majority nationalism. Is it acceptable for a national minority to impose integration requirements onimmigrants that are more stringent than those imposed by the majority culture?”
Kymlicka, W. (2001), 'Immigrant Integration and Minority Nationalism', M. Keating and J. McGarry (eds.),
Minority Nationalism and the Changing International Order
, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 61.
1. Research question
Immigration is an enormously important issue in today’s world of cultural clashes andthe free movement of peoples. The time we live in has been defined the “age of migration” (Castels and Miller, 1993): international migration from developingcountries, in particular, is considered an essential part of globalization, as it affectsmany places around the world, from a “major metropolis of Canada” like Montreal(Germain, 2011: 6) to a “small peripheral town like Bolzano” (Carlá, 2007: 306).International migration, in this sense, constitutes a defining feature of the first decade of the twenty-first century and indeed a fundamental object of research for social studies.The purpose of the research is to propose an interpretation of the normative issues raisedby immigration in Québec and South Tyrol and, more specifically, of how groups of these polities are handling ethnocultural diversity.
12A fundamental source of inspiration for this research comes from the original distinctionmade by Will Kymlicka (1995) between the demands of immigrant communities andthose of national minorities. Starting from such a basic distinction, that has been used todistinguish a set of problems related to political demands of cultural recognition, thisqualitative research intends to provide a normative interpretation of how themultinational claims of groups of sub-national polities interact with the polyethnicclaims of immigrants.The case-studies of Québec and South Tyrol were chosen for their long story of minority nationalism and for the complex co-existence of two groups, the nationalgroup and the national minority
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. The two polities, in fact, are characterized by theexistence of two “parallel societies” (Vieytez and Kallonen, 2003: 277; referring toSouth Tyrol), or “two solitudes” (Taylor and Laforest, 1993; referring to Québec). Inthese two structurally multicultural contexts, the sense of belonging that newcomers areexpected to join is inherently fragmented. The presence of people who do not feel partof the two historic ethnic groups challenges agreements and equilibria reached overtime, which were requested by members of the old minorities to “facilitate the inclusion
1 Historically, Québec and South Tyrol represent two of the oldest minority nationalist struggles in theWestern world. Today, the cleavage between Anglophones and Francophones in Québec and Italianand German communities in South Tyrol still defines several aspects of public life in these polities.Hence, many scholars have discussed these two case-studies from a sociological, political, andhistorical perspective already since the 1970s up to today. There have been several contributions onthis topic and its most recent developments during the last few years. On the case of Québec, the mostrecent publications that have been considered for this study are: McRoberts, 1988 and 2004; Dion,1991; Taylor and Laforest, 1993; Legault, 1992; Levine, 1997; Carens, 1995; Kymlicka, 1994 and2001; Stevenson, 1999; Keating, 2001; Arel, 2001; Bélanger, 2001; Labelle, 2003; MacLure, 2003;Salée, 2003 and 2005; Karmis, 2004; Gagnon and Iacovino, 2007; Lamarre, 2008. Similarly, on thecase of South Tyrol: Alcock, 1994, 2001 and 2005; Schmidtke, 1996; Keating and McGarry, 2001;Schneckener, 2002; Steininger, 2003; Vieytez and Kallonen, 2003; Carlà, 2007; Lantschner, 2008;Wolff, 2008 and 2009; Fait, 2010.

13of minorities within the State and enable minorities to maintain their own identity andcharacteristics, thereby promoting the good governance and integrity of the State” (TheLund Recommendations on the Effective Participation of National Minorities in PublicLife, 1999). In this sense, the “arrival of immigrants, who are not part to the originalconfrontation and the relevant system of legal compromises, is bound to have an impacton traditional collective identities” (Voltmer, 2007: 217). This research takes off byasking how this development is likely to be, when translated in the political perceptionsand public policies of the groups – and particularly the national minority.
2. Literature
Immigration and national minorities have surged to the top of the political agenda of most European governments over the last fifteen years, and they represent twofundamental topics for social research. Nevertheless, there have been few and dispersedstudies on the interaction between the two. Will Kymlicka was among the first whoproposed a study of the linkage between immigrants' and national minorities' culturalclaims. The problem he offered to the political agenda of divided polities was whether“the claims of immigrants [are] in conflict with the aspirations of national minorities,and [whether] they [are] compatible or even mutually reinforcing” (2001: 65). Thequestion remains largely unanswered.In spite of Kymlicka's appeal for a new research agenda, the over-whelming literatureon these two phenomena has not addressed their interaction. Studies have remained uni-
14dimensional, analyzing the two cultural demands in isolation from each other. To myknowledge, the only authors who have written specifically on the interaction betweenthe cultural demands of immigrants and those of national minority groups in the last fewyears have been Hepburn (2009), Zapata-Barrero (2009) and, very recently, Adam(2011) and Soroka and Banting (2012). In fact, while this is without a doubt one of themost interesting and cutting-edge field of research that emerged in the last decade, it hasvery rarely undertaken in any meaningful way. This is due to two sets of problems.First, recent research (see: Ethnopolitics, 2011) has focused on cases of deeply dividedsocieties such as Bosnia, Northern Ireland and South Africa. This is very interesting, butof marginal importance for sub-national societies that are characterized by the complexco-existence of two groups that are slowly turning their historical ethnically basedanimosity into a societal reconciliation. Second, those studies examining European sub-national societies have taken place in a vastly un-systematic manner: while most of theresearches have rather taken place in Québec, studies on Europe are still few and largelyisolated. In this sense, comparing Québec – a polity that has been largely investigated –with South Tyrol – where public debates on the integration of immigrants are nearlyabsent – represent a potentially very useful study. In fact, this research drawssignificantly from the studies of Canadian political theorists as Avigail Eisenberg,Joseph Carens, Alain Gagnon, Will Kymlicka, Charles Taylor, James Tully, DanielSalée, and Daniel Weinstock, that have extensively studied how identity – particularlygroup identity – may be contested and used instrumentally for collective politicalclaims.
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3. Argument and hypotheses
Questioning the link between the claims of national minorities and those of immigrantsis a particularly delicate endeavour: while some scholars argue that immigration has thepotential to dilute traditional rivalries, dissociating ethnicity from language and religionboth in Québec (Breton, 1988; Liseé, 2001 and 2005; MacLure, 2003; Rublé, 2005;Oakes and Warren, 2007; Blad and Couton, 2009) and in South Tyrol (Medda-Windischer, 2011), others point to the fact that it is potentially destabilizing (Giddens,1985; Kymlicka, 2001). Following this latter approach, the study argues that identitypolitics are particularly resilient in contexts where communities have long histories of being defensive about their identity. The main hypothesis is that in Québec and in SouthTyrol there has been a pronounced tendency for the groups to adopt a defensive attitudetowards immigrants, so that newcomers are caught in the tension between assimilationin the national minority group and being excluded from the polity. This hypothesisshould emerge with particular regard to the national minority, more inclined to reactiveand defensive attitudes as it may feel that immigration naturally favours the nationalmajority group.The main hypothesis is discussed through a two-level analysis, focusing first on thenarrative adopted by political parties and all the relevant stakeholders and, subsequently,on all the local and regional policies that show how sub-national groups practicallyaffect the way immigrants are integrated in the society. These policies allow groups “toemphasize their claims to nationhood or ‘distinct society’ by setting their own terms”(Hepburn, 2009: 520), manifesting their power to acquire control over “the terms of
16integration (e.g. via policy powers in education and language)” (Barker, 2010: 15; also:Kymlicka, 2001: 76). Public policies, in fact, substantially accommodate for thesesocietal and cultural changes. This refers to a “pragmatic problem: namely, how shouldpublic institutions respond to laws and policies that currently invite groups to arguetheir cases in terms of how an aspect of their identity generates a claim to distributeresources, entitlements, power, or opportunities one way rather than another”(Eisenberg, 2009: 11). In the case of integration policies, the issue becomes particularlyimportant: “As immigration alters the composition of regional populations, it raisesimportant questions for the future survival of regional cultures and challenges regionalactors to develop new understandings of regional membership” (Hepburn, 2011: 505).Such a two-level analysis has the potential to show how national minorities practicallydeal with immigration, affecting immigrants' sense of belonging in a manner consistentwith the minority's identity and political project.
4. Research method
The potentially clashing cultural demands of immigrants and national minorities areexamined through the comparison of two case-studies: Québec and South Tyrol. Thepurpose of this study is to analyze cultural interactions taking into account thespecificities of these contexts, as every community possesses a distinct “politicalculture” (Carens, 2000: 7) according to which values and judgements are attributed. Thequestion is how, in spite of the different political cultures of Québec and South Tyrol,their groups – and specifically the national minorities, the Francophone and the German
17communities – are heading in the same direction with regard to the perception and thetreatment of immigrant groups. In social research, this method of inquiry called “themost different systems design” (Anckar, 2008) is used to show the causal logic of phenomena without putting any specific emphasis on systemic factors (Przeworski andTeune, 1970). Using this approach, the research aims to evidence either similar patternsor significant differences in the way national minorities deal with immigrant groups.In this sense, the scope of the study is to highlight risks and potentials, while providingstrategies of inclusion for those European sub-national polities that are struggling withsimilar issues. The focus, drawing from one of the very first researches in this field(Carens, 1995: 112), is on normative conceptions of membership and community thatgovern the process of integrating immigrants and that inform particular policies. Ingeneral, this analytic method aims at providing a normative interpretation of the mainsocial and political issues that may emerge from a comparison of the two case-studies.As a matter of fact, a comparative design stressing either similar patterns or significantdifferences in the way national minorities deal with immigrant groups can be relevant tothis aim and would fill a chasm in the literature, as it has remained relatively neglectedin this field of research.Such an approach requires qualitative methods that have the flexibility and the in-depthunderstanding required to highlight issues that could difficultly understood with theonly help of quantitative methods. This is the reason why the study is primarilyqualitative in its design, relying mainly on interviews and document analysis (both
18secondary sources and policy drafts). Quantitative data, such as statistics referring tohistorical trends of migration and data on immigrants' provenience, are used only in theappendix to provide a broader picture of the situation.
5. Organization
The research is divided into four main chapters. The first chapter explains in detail thereasons behind the comparison. To this aim, Québec and South Tyrol are described assub-national polities where two groups
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, the national minority and the national group,co-exist and have based their relationship on a narrative of rivalry and identity politics.In fact, even more specifically Québec and South Tyrol may be described as two sub-national divided polities. This basic understanding provides the general framework forthe research, and a strong basis for comparison. However, within this framework, thereare considerable differences between the two polities and their groups. Thesedifferences are distinguished with reference to three main dimensions: the generalpolitical status of Québec and South Tyrol; the nature of the ethnic rivalry among thegroups; and the reality of immigration on the ground. The picture that emerges fromChapter 1, in sum, is that of two polities that share a similar framework, but exhibit verydifferent variables in it. This makes it interesting to question whether similar dynamicsare at work with regard to the treatment of immigration.
2 There is a third group both in Québec and in South Tyrol: respectively, the First Nation Aboriginalpeople and the Ladin people. These groups are not considered by this study for two reasons: first, theyare relatively independent from the polities as they are hereby discussed, having their own space thatis autonomously administered; second, their claims are historically differentiated from those of thenational minority and the national group. Therefore, explicit references to these groups would havebeen misleading for the scope of this study.
