Non-Territorial Autonomy during and after Communism: In the Wrong or Right Place? (original) (raw)
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Non-Territorial Autonomy and Political Community in Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe
The last two decades have seen the adoption of laws on non-territorial autonomy (NTA) by several states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), as well as debates on the applicability of this concept to other countries of the region. This development has in turn elicited a growing interest from international organisations in the potential of NTA as a modality of minority rights provision in the New Europe. In spite of this interest, relatively little is known about the practical implementation of NTA within this setting and its reception by ethnonational minorities and majorities alike. This article offers a preliminary comparative analysis of debates and practices around NTA in four countries-Hungary, Romania Estonia and Russia-and seeks to link these cases to broader Central and East European-focused debates on state and nation-building, democratisation and participation in public life. By way of conclusion, it makes a case for further research on NTA 'from the ground up', focusing more squarely on the everyday practice of autonomy from a minority perspective and how this might inform and deepen understandings of minority agency within current processes of political community building in CEE and-ultimately-beyond.
Bilkent University , 2016
The traditional understanding of self-determination vis-à-vis territory is problematic in addressing the needs of dispersed and/or migrant populations, and alternative arrangements of self-determination must be examined. The Non-territorial autonomy model has acquired a significant level of attention in the last two decades as an alternative to territoriality This dissertation examines the prevailing international practice of self-determination through territorial statehood or territorial autonomy in relation to diffused ethno-national communities. It problematizes the conventional understanding of territoriality for not being suitable for dispersed minority communities. It uses the Roma population of Europe as a case study to highlight the shortcomings of the territorial model in solving the self-determination issues faced by dispersed minority communities. The dissertation suggests that non-territorial autonomy model proposed by Karl Renner and Otto Bauer function to de-territorialize minority rights and serve as an alternative solution to the complications faced by dispersed communities. Non-territorial autonomy offers a novel way to interpret and understand the concept of self-determination.
Jahrbuch für Ostrecht, 2019
From the early 1990s onwards, a considerable number of Central and South Eastern European countries referred to the notion of non-territorial autonomy in their legislation and policies for their domestic minorities, which model is designed to include those who belong to certain groups irrespective of their place of residence and population size. Consequently, it requires at least one institution at a national or lower level that seeks to unite, organize and represent potential group members, established either in public or private law. In one group of cases, namely in Estonia, Hungary, and some of the former Yugoslav republics – Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia –, voluntarily registered minority voters are granted the right to establish minority councils or self-governments by direct or indirect elections at various levels. Therefore, this kind of institutional setting almost inevitably raises questions and dilemmas, both in theory and in practice, about community boundaries or, more precisely, about who belongs to the given minority and who does not, and, secondly, how this should be appraised. Thus, it is of crucial importance to understand on the one hand how the relevant laws and policies tackle and conceptualize identities: whether there are definitions and/or enumeration of groups, whether they are based on subjectivity or more on objective elements, and how criteria for both recognition and membership as well as institutional barriers to entry in the autonomous arrangements are established either by the groups themselves or by state authorities. On the other hand, there needs to be a closer look at how both minority members and minority representatives perceive and use their own autonomy-promoting organizations in reality, as well as how they negotiate and find solutions in terms of who should be included, who should represent and whom in this context. Furthermore, groups may adopt different strategies and achieve different outcomes, especially in light of potential intragroup rivalries, the increasing spiral of ethnic outbidding or the growth of (electoral) abuses, commonly known as “ethnobusiness”. To address these issues, the paper, from a theoretical perspective but based on electoral laws and statistics, country experiences and interviews with minority leaders aims to explore, in a comparative manner, the general patterns of non-territorial autonomies in the five countries concerned, in terms of how these regimes conceptualize identities and how they affect group strategies.
The question of how to accommodate ethno-cultural diversity within liberal democratic states is one that has acquired a growing salience across Europe during the course of the past five decades. Political theory long adhered to the view that liberal democracy was something to be realised within the framework of a unitary nation-state based on a single undifferentiated political community of individuals. Although the civic/liberal vision of the nation was supposedly 'ethno-culturally neutral' , the classic nation-state model also carried an implicit presumption of cultural homogeneity, whereby a single official language and overarching societal culture formed the basis for meaningful participation by all in public life. 1 This model reflected the experience of western European states -most notably France -where 'relatively strong, centralized monarchies emerged in pre-modern times, constituting sturdy political-cultural molds within which state-wide national identities eventually gelled, under the impact of homogenizing forces such as economic development and commercial integration, the bureaucratization of the state, the growth of public education, and the development of print media, electoral politics and the mass media' . 2 This model of the culturally homogenous liberal democratic nation-state has, however, never been anything more than an ideal type, and its core assumptions have since the start of the twentieth century been challenged both theoretically and in practice by a more liberal pluralist vision which asserts the importance of public recognition and accommodation of ethno-cultural diversity within democratic societies. Advocates of liberal pluralism draw attention to the structural disadvantages faced by bearers of minority languages and cultures within the context of unitary nation states. Individual rights of non-discrimination, it is argued, cannot suffice to address these disadvantages. The notion of a single political community of equal citizens thus needs to be supplemented by the granting of additional specific national minority rights that can only be exercised collectively -for example, to cultural and educational facilities and to language use in the public sphere.
Protecting Minorities on a Non-Territorial Basis—Recent International Developments
Beijing Law Review, 2012
The protection of minorities by way of non-territorial arrangements, also called cultural autonomy, is receiving increased attention in theory and practice. While federalism and decentralisation often afford indirect protection of minorities on a territorial basis-be it by way of autonomy to state or local governments-Dispersed minorities often fall through the territorial "cracks". Cultural autonomy can potentially play a vital role to grant protection to minorities that do not have a territorial base of their own. This article, which reflects on recent international developments to protect minorities by way of non-territorial arrangements, shows how the theory and practice of cultural autonomy have gained legitimacy in countries such as Estonia, Slovenia, Kosovo and Finland. Finally, potential lessons are identified for potential application in other emerging democracies.
2017
First volume of a planned series of five, the European Centre for Minority Issues, together with its international partners, published a volume that tries to provide an overall view on Non-Territorial Autonomies (hereinafter: NTAs). Academic literature has rather favoured territorial arrangements vis-à-vis NTAs so far, despite the fact that non-territorial solutions to majority-minority conflicts can be more attractive to ‘nation’ or even to ‘civic’ states. Consequently, NTAs occur much more frequently as practical arrangements albeit they do not necessarily overshadow certain territorial ambitions. The example of Macedonia for instance seems to confirm this statement, where the inter-ethnic conflict was ended by the conclusion of a political document among the major political parties, the so-called Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001, within which the political actors refused to accept any territorial claims to the problem. Yet, the contemporary ambitions of certain minority communit...