Talk:South Tyrolean People's Party

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Party's ideology and factions

This is a note for Mai-Sachme, whom I thank a lot for the corrections he has just made to the article.

The SVP is such an interesting and diverse party! It would be great if you will update the entire article, highlighting and explaining the catch-all nature of the party. By the way, a similar effort should be devoted also to other South Tyrolean parties such as The Libertarians, South Tyrolean Freedom, the Greens, Citizens' Union and Ladins Political Movement, not to forget historical parties such as the Freedom Party of South Tyrol, the Party of Independents, the Democratic Party of South Tyrol, the Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol, the Social Progressive Party of South Tyrol, the South Tyrolean Homeland Federation and the Tyrolean Homeland Party. Would you like to do all this?

Concerning the SVP, is it correct to say that Thomas Widmann is a member of the "Wirtschaft" faction? Are Martha Stocker and Paola Bioc Gasser members of any faction? Is the latter a Ladin? Is it correct to add in the infobox "liberalism"? I will do some little changes to the article according to what I understood from your remarks, but please correct them if they're wrong. And, as said, I hope to see you editing all the articles about South Tyrolean parties. Chi meglio di te?

--Checco (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, thanks for the invitation, I'll do my best, but I'm not a political scientist. Generally, I try to add information based on scientific literature, so I'll have to look if I find at least one good journal article regarding the SVP's ideology. As you said, the SVP is an interesting and diverse party, but also rather complex and changing over time (e.g. a characterization as "christian democratic" might have worked out for the first 30 years of its existance, now it's a bit of an over-simplification, just look at its current president Richard Theiner).

Regarding your questions:

Widmann: Yes, he's a member of the "Wirtschaft" faction. But this doesn't make him a right-winger. Right-wingers in South Tyrol usually dedicate themselves to "Volkstumspolitik" (well, let's say ethno-cultural agendas), I've never heard a word of Widmann regarding these topics.

Martha Stocker: Women.

Paola Bioc Gasser: Ladins.

Infobox: As I said, I'll have to see if I find a good article. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 11:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mai-Sachme: thanks for your kind answer. Thomas Widmann can be considered to be on the right of the party because of his support for economic liberalism and business – am I wrong? – but, you're right, he's not definitely a hard-right politician as Roland Atz. Concerning Richard Theiner, I will be interested in seeing how his centre-left ideology will influence the party. I look forward to seeing what you will be able to do. Take care, --Checco (talk) 05:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Color coding

In the infobox you can't see how many seats the party has in the regional parliament, because the text is black on the black background of the graphic. Is it possible to make that number visible, changing the font of "18" to white?81.217.55.235 (talk) 13:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you but I don't know how to do it. --Checco (talk) 07:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seats in the Chamber of Deputies

In order to avoid further "corrections": The Template:Infobox political party counts the members of a political party in a given parliament. Mauro Ottobre was elected due to a political alliance between the Trentino Tyrolean Autonomist Party and the South Tyrolean People's Party, but is neither South Tyrolean nor member of the SVP, hence it's, at least, misleading to treat him as a representative of this party. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 11:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ideologies again

I guess, the main problem in the entire seesaw remains always the same: the SVP is a remarkably unideological outfit (at least nowadays and for Italian standards...), apart its commitment for autonomy. Concrete political measures (regarding economics, social policies etc.) can rarely, if ever, be traced back to a distinctive ideological background within the classical left/right polarity. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 08:27, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, in fact the SVP is a catch-all party.

However, apart from regionalism and autonomism, the party's main ideology is Christian democracy, a fact reflected also by its observer status within the EPP, but there are recognizable internal factions and ideological minorities too, e.g. the Arbeitnehmer who are clearly social-democratic (no wonder that some members of the faction have pushed toward stronger alliances with the centre-left in Rome and some others have, from time to time, left the SVP in order to join more leftish parties).

The former, established version of the "ideology" camp in the infobox was the following:

Regionalism
Autonomism
Christian democracy
Internal factions:
• Agrarian interests (Landwirtschaft)
• Economic liberalism (Wirtschaft)
• Social democracy (Arbeitnehmer)

In my view, that was a sensible and balanced description of the party's ideology and quite a good summary of the article's contents.

Maybe we could delete the reference to Landwirtschaft, Wirtschaft and the Arbeitnehmer, but how can we deny that the party has a Christian inspiration and includes social democrats, economic liberals and people supporting agrarian interests? --Checco (talk) 14:25, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From what I have read, SVP is best described as a catch-all party without a clear ideology. It is rather defined by the linguistic/ethnic divide than an ideologic one.

However, there are several reliable sources that describe SVP as mainly Christian democratic, including V. Hloušek & L. Kopecek (Origin, Ideology and Transformation of Political Parties, 2010, p. 204) who are very often cited as a reference of European parties' ideologies on Wikipedia (more accurately they describe SVP as "Christian democratic and conservative"). The SVP is mentioned in R. Leonardi & P. Albert's chapter on Christian democracy in Italy in St. Van Hecke & E. Gerard (eds.) Christian Democratic Parties in Europe Since the End of the Cold War (2004 (a quite comprehensive work about modern Christian democratic parties in Europe) on p. 122) as a party founded by German-speaking Christian democrats. Günther Pallaver (who is certainly one of the most cited authors about political parties in South Tyrol) reports that SVP and Democrazia Cristiana shared a common ideological basis and that SVP has long described itself as "based on Catholic-social principles" (South Tyrol's Consociational Democracy, 2008, p. 305) which is typical for Christian democratic parties in Catholic countries. Therefore it would be appropriate, in my view, to include Christian democracy in the infobox.

As I like infoboxes as concise as possible, I am generally against listing all ideologies of internal factions in the ideology field of the infobox. Moreover the ideology labels of the three factions representing socio-economic groups are unsourced so far. In my opinion "Agrarianism" is no real ideology anyway and is not described in this sense in the article on Agrarianism either. Farmers and rural voters or politicians may have any ideology from communist to green to liberal to conservative to fascist. I am even more suspiscious on the "economic liberalism" claim which lacks a reference (and is tagged as such for some months). It seems to be based on the simple equation of entrepreneurs=economic liberals which I strongly doubt. In continental Europe, namely in Italy and the German-speaking countries (and South Tyrol is at the junction of both political cultures) there is a long tradition of Christian democratic/Christian social entrepreneurs who have a positive attitude to a certain degree of state intervention, welfare and social balance. Many small and medium-sized entreprises (and most entrepreneurs in S.Tyrol belong to this group) do not necessarily see economic liberalism as beneficial to them. Therefore I doubt that the "Wirtschaft" faction is appropriately described as economically liberal, as long as I don't see a reference for this claim. As for social democracy, according to Pallaver (Südtirols politische Parteien/I partiti politici in Alto Adige, 2007) social democrats have always been a minority even in the "Arbeitnehmer" wing, with most of its members being Chrstian-socials. Moreover it lost its most outspoken social democrats with the resignation of Hubert Frasnelli and Sepp Kusstatscher in 1999. --RJFF (talk) 19:15, 14 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

as a party founded by German-speaking Christian democrats... that SVP has long described itself... That is correct: founded by, has long described itself. But some things might have happened in between, don't you think? :-)

I am generally against listing all ideologies of internal factions... This point explains perfectly why the German language Wikipedia is generally quite uncomfortable with using infoboxes for qualitative assessments. The world out there is quite complex, but for the infobox it must be stupid simple? I am strongly against over-simplifications, just in order to put the infobox in a good shape...

Agrarianism: Agreed.

There are certainly liberal members of the SVP, but I also think that it is not correct to describe the Wirtschaft faction in its entirety as liberal.

Social democracy: I agree about that one, it's an over-simplification to describe the Arbeitnehmer in its entirety as social democrats.

Moreover it lost its most outspoken social democrats ya, but Pallaver's paper is from 2007, and between 2009 and 2014 de:Richard Theiner was the party's president. A man, who considers Helmut Schmidt his political guide...

As I said: We have two options. Either we create our own reality and call the SVP simply a Christian democratic and conservative party, or we try to nail a pudding to a wall. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 11:52, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I know too little about Theiner's political positions to make any remarks about them. But Helmut Schmidt is humorously known in Germany as "the best CDU chancellor the SPD ever had". He is one of the most conservative SPD leaders. Citing him as a model usually speaks for a centrist position rather than for a genuinely social democratic one. --RJFF (talk) 15:40, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Some things might have happened in between" – Of course. But when has the SVP stopped its avowal of a "Catholic-social" or "Christian-social" identity? When has it left the Christian-democratic party family (mainly embodied by the EPP)? The Democrazia Cristiana was a catch-all party too, with leftist, liberal and conservative members. But still, it is usually described as a predominantly Christian democratic party. In my understanding, the SVP and the former DC are indeed quite similar in their embracement of different ideologies and socio-economic groups, which results in their political dominance. --RJFF (talk) 15:54, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Schmidt was certainly not a left-winger in his party, but calling him a "CDU chancellor" is more a bon mot than an analytically correct statement.

Here is the SVP's programmatic outline. I can't find the word katholisch there. Its ideological self-definition is presented on page 5, roughly translated: The SVP avows itself to Christian-humanistic ideals. [...] The SVP is also open for social democrats [...] and liberals [...].

Describing a party as predominantly Christian-democratic in a text is something else than writing just the two words Christian-democratic in the infobox. I regard the second option as plain original research, since every in-depth analysis states, that the SVP is clearly more than that. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 16:17, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We should not base the choice of ideology labels in the infobox on the SVP's basic programme, because (1) it should principally be based on third party sources, not self-statements of the respective party; (2) it was adopted in 1993 and may be outdated; (3) it does not describe the party's ideology but the party's claim to be open to members who adher to different ideologies (the ideologic orientation of some individual members is not necessarily the ideology of the party as a whole, not even of one of the internal factions); (4) it is a claim, ambition or hope ("the SVP is open to..."), not a statement of fact (a party may be open to social democrats, but in fact have no social-democratic members, because no social democrat has in fact followed the invitation to join). As a last point, the basic programme does not use the word "liberal", but "freiheitlich" and I suppose you all remember our discussion about the difficulties in translating this term. (Of course the sentence about Schmidt is a bon mot, I have never claimed different.)--RJFF (talk) 12:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reinhold Perkmann (former head of the Arbeitnehmer) verbatim in 2006: Die Arbeitnehmer sind die Sozialdemokraten in der SVP. And let's see, what the tell about their ideological basis themselves: Die Bewegung trägt sozialdemokratische und christlich-soziale Traditionen der ArbeitnehmerInnenbewegung weiter und gibt ihnen ein modernes Gesicht. Can we eventually close the discussion about the social democrats now?

Uhm, it's not me, who tries to put some random ideology labels into the infobox, it's you. And it's you, who asked me verbatim when has the SVP stopped its avowal of a "Catholic-social" or "Christian-social" identity, hence my citation of the party's programme. And it's also you, who (pardon me) follows a simplistic and completely unsourced approach.

I repeat: Calling the SVP simply Christian-democratic and nothing else in the infobox (what no reliable source does), is plain original research. I'm pretty fine with just the two words Regionalism and Autonomism. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 17:16, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The SVP is predonominantly Christian-democratic (on this I agree with RJFF's arguments), but, as stated also in the party program, it has also social-democratic and liberal members (on Theiner and Schmidt I agree with Mai-Sachme). I would also add "agrarianism" because, despite the term's vagueness, the party is more agrarian than most Nordic agrarian parties, but I understand that this is a problem for both RJFF and Mai-Sachme. As a compromise, I would only add "Christian democracy (majority), social democracy (minority) and liberalism (minority)". --Checco (talk) 09:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Checco that we should mention the internal minorities in the Infobox, as although the SVP is clearly Christian-inspired, it is not wholly a Christian-democratic party in any sense. Re-adding the minorities in the Infobox will reinforce to the reader that the SVP 'catch-all' political party with a broader ideological base than one would expect from a long-term EPP affiliate party. I also agree with Mai-Sachme in the need to describe the SVP as more than a straightforward Christian democrat/conservative party.--Autospark (talk) 11:44, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I still have not seen a source describing the present-day SVP as an (at least in parts) liberal party. Pallaver characterises Erich Amonn (1896–1970) and Josef Raffeiner (1895–1974) as liberal, but both are long dead. He writes that the early SVP was dominated by an urban-liberal wing, but it lost its influence after 1957 (!). This is not a verification that the present-day SVP (or one of its internal factions) still may be characterised as liberal. As stated in the party programme, the SVP wishes to have social-democratic and freiheitliche ("liberal", if you like) members; because the SVP aims (or aimed) to be a dominant catch-all party without serious competition (be it social-democratic, freiheitlich or green) for the German and Ladin-speaking electorate. The programme (adopted in 1993) cannot be a verification of the party actually having these members. This programme is totally unideologic and undecided: it claims to support business and workers, industry, farmers and environment, women and youth, urbanites and countryside, tradition and progress, German national identity, close links to Austria and South Tyrol's status quo as part of Italy. Pretty much anyone (apart from extremists) could sign it. --RJFF (talk) 12:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the programme is totally unideologic which (unsurprisingly) results in a party being totally unideologic. The SVP's common ground is autonomistic regionalism. That's exactly what I said. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 17:16, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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