Explaining the Immigrant Integration Policies of National Minority Regions: A Comparative Case Study of Catalonia and South Tyrol

In multi-level states, immigrant integration policy tends to fall into the jurisdiction of the regional level. In minority regions such as Quebec, Scotland, Catalonia, or South Tyrol, this implies that minority nationalists are responsible for deciding on how to integrate newcomers into a host society that is itself ethnonationally heterogeneous. This paper seeks to build an explanation for the integration policies of minority regions in multinational states. Through qualitative comparative case studies of integration policies in South Tyrol and Catalonia, I trace policy differences between two otherwise similar minority regions back to the way regional political parties have since the mid 1990s dealt with the immigration/integration issue in a two-dimensional competition space constituted by a left/right and an ethnonational (aka territorial) dimension. The analysis draws on interviews with academic experts, administrative, and political elites conducted during field research in both regions as well as qualitative content analysis of parliamentary debates, party manifestos and policy documents.