Restoring (Old) Questions of Sovereignty under the Cover of Minority Protection?

What is it about?

This paper reports upon the possibility for the South Tyrolean minority population to get the Austrian citizenship in addition to the Italian one. Debates around autonomy, independence, self-determination are nothing new in South Tyrol, as the German and Ladin speaking minorities have fought for many decades for the protection of their culture and the right to use their languages._x000D_ Currently especially populist, right wing, conservative actors, determine the debates about the so-called dual passport for South Tyroleans. We found out that local media reflect this debate in a rather one-sided way. Specifically, the discourse of pro-dual passport actors is disseminated rather than critical voices. In this regard, it is in particular interesting to note, that the majority of the population is not very interested in Austrian citizenship. The potential for conflict is however high because it concerns sovereignty issues._x000D_

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