The Südtiroler Volkspartei
In: From protest to power: autonomist parties and the challenges of representation, S. 171-193
"The Südtiroler Volkspartei (SVP) ranks among the most successful autonomist parties in Europe (Holzer 1991; Holzer and Schwegler 1998; Pallaver 2005a; Pallaver 2006; Pallaver 2007a). Since its creation in 1945, it has occupied a hegemonic position in the province of Bolzano, where it has governed with an absolute majority since the first elections to the Provincial Assembly held in 1948. Also represented at the state-level since 1948, the SVP has often been a loyal ally for successive centre and centre-left governments. Since the mid 1990s, as different state-wide parties have struggled to command governing majorities within the Italian parliament, the SVP has been courted as a potential coalition partner by those on the left as well as on the right. At the European level, with one representative in the European Parliament since 1979, the SVP operates with the self-confidence of a national, rather than a regional, party. This chapter outlines and explains this successful lifespan, and identifies the ways in which the party's organisation and pursuit of goals has evolved as a result of different achievements at different territorial levels. It is argued that, contrary to other autonomist parties examined in this volume, organisational and goal change has been less due to crossing different thresholds - as these were achieved very early on in its lifetime - than due to other external factors, such as changes in the electoral system and the party competitive context. Moreover, with the party's autonomist goals largely achieved by the 1990s, the party has more recently focused on other, non-territorial, issues relating to the day-to-day governance of South Tyrol. To date, however, this shift from autonomist to domestic politics has not threatened the SVP's dominance of South Tyrol's political institutions, nor its monopoly on the representation of the province's interests within state and European arenas." (author's abstract)