Nonterritorial Autonomy and Minority (Dis)Empowerment: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

This review article outlines the literature on nonterritorial autonomy (NTA) from the renewed interest in the concept in the mid-2000s until today. First, the article provides a brief overview of the meaning of NTA and the rationale behind it, highlighting how, in academic literature, NTA oscillates between positions that treat it as an attractive option and a highly impractical system (difficult to realize in practice or even pin down conceptually). Second, the article looks at trends in the existing literature, which has approached NTA with various emphases: the functions it fulfils (or has fulfilled); its (at times) supplementary role vis-à-vis territorial autonomy; and the dynamics that have led to its introduction in some countries, with attendant implications. Third, the article outlines some of NTA’s complexities, suggesting future areas of research, with reference to the interaction of territoriality and nonterritoriality, collective rights and participation, and potentially negative consequences of NTA regimes.

‘Living the Same Full Life’? A Critical Assessment of Non-Territorial Autonomy Practice in the Vojvodina and Sápmi Contexts

“…Surveying the field of NTA scholarship back in 2010, Osipov (2010, p. 30) pointed to a preponderance of legal and political philosophical approaches, encouraging a normative 'focus on what could and should be done rather than on analyzing and describing what, in fact, exists '. A subsequent shift towards studying the actual practice of NTA in different contexts (Prina, 2020) has cast critical light on key assumptions of the original NTA model relating to deterritorialisation, political participation and group identity, themes which I examine here through an exploratory analysis of two cases: the Hungarian autonomy established in Vojvodina under Serbia's 2009 Law on National Minority Councils and the Sámi NTA arrangements operational in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The paper brings together findings from two research projects: the first, carried out in 2014-2018, investigated the contemporary politics of NTA in six countries of CEE (including Serbia), with a particular focus on semi-structured elite interviews exploring the perspectives and experiences of minority political actors 2 ; the second, from 2021 to 2022, explored current practices relating to protection and promotion of the Scottish Gaelic and Sámi languages, through a series of webinars uniting academics and practitioners from the two settings.…”

Introduction: Realising Linguistic, Cultural and Educational Rights Through Non-Territorial Autonomy

“…Today, the NTA label is applied to a broad spectrum of arrangements across the world. Particularly noteworthy has been its widespread adoption in Central and Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans during the period following the collapse of communism, which has helped to inspire a renaissance of scholarly interest in the concept since the start of the 1990s (Prina, 2020;Smith, 2020). This is epitomised not least by the work of ENTAN: since its establishment in 2019, the Network has brought together more than 100 experts from 36 countries, who continue to advance the state of the art in NTA research.…”

“…These issues, it need hardly be added, are not merely confined to the post-communist world, but have wider relevance across all the regions considered in this volume. One especially novel and interesting feature of the collection is the consideration given to the role of external 'kin-states' and the important implications (often in the form of 'collateral damage' [Prina, 2020]) this carries for the practice of NTA and the overall situation of minorities in different contexts. This is a theme addressed by David J. Smith and Andreea Udrea in relation to Hungarian minority autonomy in Serbia and Romania respectively, Martin Klatt in his consideration of the Danish-German borderland, and to some extent by Oskar Mulej in his analysis of Sudeten German NTA proposals in 1930s Czechoslovakia.…”

“…Indeed, the application of NTA in diverse historical and contemporary contexts invites closer consideration precisely because of its promise to provide answers to recent challenges (Dodovski, 2021). This volume comes in the wake of an expanding body of scholarship which appraises NTA not only as a facet of autonomy but also as a field of study in its own right (Prina, 2020). We hope that it may also foster further interest in the study and application of nonterritorial autonomy and reinvigorate the discussion about linguistic, cultural and educational rights of minorities by offering research ideas and findings, both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, so as to develop new modalities for the accommodation of differences in the context of growing challenges stemming from globalisation, regionalisation and European supranational integration.…”

The Evanescence of Autonomy for Minority Groups: The Hungarian Minority in Romania and the Complex Nexus of Dependence

“…The Conceptualisation of Autonomy for Minority Groups Despite recent growing interest in the concept of autonomy for minority groups (Prina, 2020), not only is the right to autonomy still absent from international law but also autonomy for minority groups remains a contentious issue and continues to be rejected on the grounds that it threatens a state's territorial integrity and sovereignty. This is particularly the case in central and eastern Europe where the majority's right to self-determination remains historically anchored and originates in forms of cultural autonomy enjoyed under the Ottoman, Habsburg and Tsarist empires.…”