"Sustaining Territorial Pluralism: The Political Economy of Institutional Change." In Territorial Pluralism: Managing Difference in Multinational States, edited by Karlo Basta, John McGarry and Richard Simeon. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015. (original) (raw)

State Integration vs. Minority Protection through Regional Self-Determination

International Journal on Minority and Group Rights

In this contribution, Åland’s autonomy as a model for the protection of territorial minorities is analysed and evaluated. The geopolitical background is today’s Europe with, in general, quite strong state integration tendencies. The focus is on Åland’s autonomy’s ability to successfully deliver on the original promises regarding the greatest possible regional self-determination and language protection given at its inception in 1921 by the League of Nations and the Finnish state. Comparisons are made with similar European and Nordic autonomies. The conclusion is that Åland’s position in international law and in the Finnish Constitution remains, thanks primary to its historical origin, relatively strong. However, two negative factors are identified: the severely limited de facto home rule, and the asymmetric partnership between the autonomy and the state. The contribution concludes with a number of lessons learned regarding the legal and political conditions for well-functioning and l...

Understanding Theoretical Perspective of the Best Implementation of Regional Autonomy

2020

In a new country, development is a new "ideology." In simple language, it means "planned revolution". Inevitably, these countries realize that they are increasingly lived behind, especially in economic terms, compared to developed countries. Countries in Western Europe and North America have relatively higher living standards, political stability, and extraordinary technological growth. The situation was enjoyed after they experienced evolution which took quite a long time. Until the 19 th century, European civilization experienced at least three to four gradual evolution, these are primitive, agrarian, mercantilism, and industrial societies. When these countries entered the mercantilism century, around the 16th century, these new countries were still in the colonialist era. As it is known, the era of trade (mercantilism) created sailors who dared to sail the oceans to find a new country where they could obtain cheap merchandise European Journal of Molecular & Cl...

Regional National Autonomy under Challenge: Law, Practice and Recommendations

International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 2009

Regional national autonomy is claimed to be the "basic policy" of the Chinese Communist Party and a "basic political system" of the State to solve the minority nationalities' issues in China. Within the framework of "basic law", the Regional National Autonomy Law, the rights of the minority nationalities to administer their internal affairs shall be guaranteed. The present severe challenges to this system can be observed through its malfunctions in ethnic conflict solution, the maintenance of cultural diversity and the due regards of the interests of minorities in the quick the economic development. By developing its research methodology based on reviewing previous studies in this field, this article tries to describe this system in law and in practice through four essential elements, which include territory, group, organs of self-government and autonomous power of regional national autonomy. Taking into account the problems of implementation of law...

Regional Autonomy : Sytematic Literature Review

POLICY, LAW, NOTARY AND REGULATORY ISSUES (POLRI), 2022

Regional autonomy refers to the authority that regulates the community's interests or acts as a regulator in areas where the federal government empowers local governments to manage their own government. This research technique utilizes five book sources in order to learn about regional autonomy, its various forms, and legal foundations. Community engagement in governance, particularly at the village level, is one of the foundations of regional autonomy that requires attention in this regard. Concerning the village government system's role in development implementation, many village development initiatives have been conceived and determined primarily on considerations and techniques from above, without involving the community being developed.

Creating Federal Regions - Minority Protection versus Sustainability

2012

One of the major challenges that face emerging federations is to create federal regions that could constitute the basis for second tier governments and representation in the second chamber of parliament. Young federations usually do not have agreed historical regions that should form the basis of regional government. In contrast to the older, more established federations, * BA Law, LL.B, LL.D, Member of the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia. He is a Visiting Fellow of the Law Faculty of the University of Western Australia. He is an inaugural Fellow of the Western Australian Institute of Dispute Management under the auspices of the Murdoch University and admitted as a legal practitioner in Australia and South Africa. He was closely involved during the constitutional negotiations in South Africa from 1990-1996. He recently acted as a foreign expert in the Forum of Federation’s leadership training project in Ethiopia on federalism and intergovernmental relations. The a...

Local autonomy and interregional equality

Social Choice and Welfare, 2007

This paper shows how two important interregional transfer schemes, the foundation grant and the power equalization grant, can be seen as two different interpretations of equal opportunity ethics. It provides characterizations of both transfer schemes by the use of basic liberal egalitarian principles. Both the foundation grant and the power equalization grant scheme make use of specific reference levels. The paper also shows how reasonable requirements on the transfer schemes restrict the set of possible reference levels.

Decentralization and the Fate of Minorities

2003

This paper analyses the welfare effects of a change from centralized to decentralized political authority. The potential disadvantage with decentralization in our model is that local dominant groups with rather "extreme" preferences may win the vote and implement policies that harm the well-being of local minorities. When the national median voter represents a "moderate" position, centralization can be seen as a way of protecting the interests of local minorities. Our main result is that the centralized solution may welfare dominate decentralization even in the absence of scale economics and interregional spillovers. We also demonstrate that increased segregation, increased mobility, and increased heterogeneity in preferences, factors that are normally considered to be arguments in favor of decentralization, may reduce the attractiveness of the decentralized solution from a welfare perspective. Finally, we show that when the national median voter is an "extreme" type, decentralization may represent a way of protecting local minority interests.

Non-Territorial Autonomy during and after Communism: In the Wrong or Right Place?

Paradoxically, the concept of non-territorial autonomy (NTA) is in relatively high demand in post-Communist countries, although it is at the same time an environment that seems hostile to it. Marxism-Leninism had rejected the idea of NTA for decades. Most countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union continue to seek to keep minorities under control. Some countries are under authoritarian rule or have institutional designs that are unfriendly to civil society activities and all forms of self-governance. Nevertheless, several national legislations contain the notions of non-territorial cultural autonomy and some countries have institutional arrangements including elements of NTA. The NTA concept is increasingly welcomed by governments, academia and minority activists. The author seeks to explain this contradiction. First, the author considers that the vision of ethnic groups as internally coherent social entities is not alien to all currents of Marxism. The Soviet and other Communist regimes resorted in practice to discourse and even institutional arrangements resembling NTA. Second, NTA turns out to be part of symbolic rather than instrumental policies that provide for ideological control over minorities. Third, in several cases (like the Baltic states), the concept of NTA fit their respective restitutional framework or return to the pre-Communist ‘golden age’.