Abstract
South Tyrol’s consociational democracy has stabilized and developed positively in recent years. Nevertheless, there are risks and threats that must be recognized early on in order not to risk a regression of this positive development. Such risks and threats can suddenly erupt, despite conspicuous ethnic calm and stable relations between language groups. Potential crisis factors can come from outside (Europe; Italy/Austria) and/or from within (South Tyrol) and weaken or even destroy the consociational model. These are international, institutional, and social factors. The greatest danger comes from nationalism, which is combined with the return of the strong state to the detriment of the EU. As a result, there is a threat that “institutional equality” will be disrupted either from outside or within which will affect this equality and damage the consociational model. The consequence would result in an exit option of the language groups from the South Tyrolean consociational democracy. It would therefore be advantageous to introduce an early warning system, a crisis monitoring system, to anticipate negative developments.