Political accommodation and functional interaction along the northern italian borderlands

Abstract

Borderlands are places where large–scale and small–scale politics interact. Relationships between national states at the largescale affect local relations at the smallscale. Likewise, activities at the small–scale redound to the larger scale. While the politics of boundaries and borderland regions is often viewed at the scale of the national states, we argue that politics at the borderland needs to be examined in two other ways: in terms of relations between regions across national boundaries (small–scale) and in the relations between the borderland region itself and the national state (cross–scale). This article examines the nature of ‘cross–scale’ and “small–scale” political relations in the northern Italian borderlands. This is explored through (1) the degree of autonomy granted by the Italian government towards regions and cultural minorities on the border, and (2) the nature and extent of contacts and shared projects with neighboring regions across the boundary. Two conclusions are drawn. First, that the nature of cross–scale concessions to regional autonomy depends on the strength of the minority groups involved. Second, that the extent of small–scale contact and collaboration across the boundary depends on pre–existing economic interrelationships and cultural ties.