Non-Territorial Autonomy

The aim of the chapter is to propose a possible framing of the NTA concept, considering the historical legacies by which the usage of the term is loaded, on the one hand, and the complex empirical realities the notion is expected to map, on the other hand. First, the idea of non-territoriality will be explored briefly, with highlight on the circumstances that bring about arrangements generally referred to when the NTA concept as an umbrella term is used. Then the origin and the semantic content of several subjacent terms—national autonomy, national cultural autonomy, cultural autonomy, personal autonomy, functional autonomy, administrative autonomy, consociationalism—will be discussed, together with the problems triggered by the concurrent attempts to provide precise definitions to the various institutional embodiments of the general NTA idea. The chapter will conclude with a brief assessment of the consequences for the NTA scholarship which follow from the two main limitations of the NTA notion: the underdetermination of the widely used concepts and the gap between theory and empirical realities.

This chapter explores the origins of the idea of non-territorial autonomy and traces its theoretical development, as well as actual implementations, across time and space from the late Habsburg and Russian Empires to the Paris Peace Conference and to the interwar nation-states. Upon completing this chapter, you will learn how the concept of NTA came into being; what were its main features; who were the concept’s main proponents; which political currents supported the idea and which opposed it; and, finally, how historical events and changes at both the state and the international levels shaped the NTA concept’s ideological metamorphoses and determined its practical applications.

This chapter offers an overview on how is NTA reflected in international documents on minority rights and how can NTA fit in the international minority rights regime. First the relation of human rights and minority rights is explained in international law, then the following section analyses how individual and group rights approaches can be reconciled in this regard. Since most international documents on minority rights remain silent on autonomy, minorities’ right to participation in public life may create the link between minority rights and non-territorial autonomy. Against this background the final section analyses the international documents that mention minority autonomy in this context and points to the conclusion that minority autonomy, both territorial and non-territorial autonomy may be useful to secure minority participation in public life as it is guaranteed by international norms on minority rights.

Having been implemented in several contexts and extensively discussed internationally during 1900–1940, NTA largely disappeared from the international legal and political agenda immediately after World War Two, only to again attract interest from scholars and policymakers from the 1960s onwards. This revived interest partly reflected the emergence of new multicultural models of state and citizenship—and attendant NTA-style arrangements for minorities—in some established Western democracies but was given further impetus by the start of democratisation in Central and Eastern Europe following the end of communist rule in the region. The adoption of laws and institutional arrangements bearing the NTA label in Hungary, Estonia, Russia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia (among others) coincided with the elaboration of new international standards on minority protection by European and Euro-Atlantic International Organizations, which today serve as a benchmark against which different forms of NTA can be assessed in terms of their potential to support democratization and the sustainable accommodation of ethnic diversity. This chapter first examines the origins and drivers of the new more contemporary variants of NTA, before sketching the main lines of how a democratic NTA arrangement should look. This ideal-type model is then used to assess contemporary examples of NTA and their potential to support democratization (or otherwise) in post-Cold War Europe.

This chapter asks the normative question whether non-territorial autonomy (abbreviated as NTA) should be implemented and, if so, why. In other words, it asks which normative principles, like the principle of equality or the principle of cultural preservationism, would demand NTA. As such this chapter places NTA in the debate on multiculturalism as it is conducted in the liberal tradition of normative political philosophy by authors like Yael Tamir, Will Kymlicka, Alan Patten and Brian Barry. The first section discusses what a principle of equality that demands the implementation of NTA would look like. This section points out a limit or a problem for the principle of equality as a legitimation of NTA. That problem is basically that the main alternative to NTA, territorial self-government, looks much more like, is much more equal to, a majority state than NTA. Hence using the principle of equality to argue for NTA requires one to explain why this principle nevertheless demands NTA. The second section discusses the principle of cultural preservationism in relation to NTA. This section tries to reappraise the heavily criticized principle of cultural preservationism. It does so because there is a close fit between this principle and NTA. The third section discusses group rights. Although not principles as such, liberal individualists often object to group rights on the basis of normative principles. Moreover, NTA is usually seen to imply group rights. This section points out the possible liberal defenses of group rights that an advocate of NTA might make use of.

The chapter deals with the political context of NTA arrangements, with focus on the actors involved in such arrangements, the conditions the actors have to meet, the political decisions they need to make, the legal and institutional consequences of those decisions, and, finally, the social and political costs of the arrangements and the criteria of success. Given that NTA arrangements are manifold, the issued addressed in the chapter are detailed with regard to each sub-type or form of manifestation. The approach is mainly descriptive and empirical, but since there are gaps between the ideal type and examples of practical implementation, normative considerations/recommendations are also part of the argument outlined by the chapter.

Non-territorial autonomy (NTA) is one of the methods designed to accommodate ethnocultural diversity and empower especially relatively small and territorially dispersed minority communities. However, the appellation involves rather a generic, multifaceted and shifting umbrella term that embraces a wide variety of practices and theories, including those notions explicitly used in several national legislations, such as “cultural autonomy” and “national cultural autonomy”, as well as a bunch of similar denominations in theory, like “segmental”, “extraterritorial”, “personal”, or “corporate” autonomy. Their common elements lie in the fact that as a general rule they are based on the individuals’ ethnic self-identification and seek to represent a specific ethnocultural segment of the society regardless of its size and place of residence in order to preserve their members’ identities and distinct features, without aspiring control over the territory. Compared to territorial autonomy, NTA usually has less competencies, fewer participation rights in those particular areas being important for the group members’ identities, typically culture, education, language and religion, is less surrounded by legal guarantees and is financially more dependent on state budget. Moreover, the existing arrangements labeled as some forms of NTA in various Central and Eastern European countries all lack legislative powers and decisive authority. NTA can range from unrecognized and informal, non-legal practices and arrangements to private law institutions and even to constitutionally entrenched, institutionalized and extensive structures of separately elected self-governments at various levels, while alternative and emerging examples stemming from legal pluralism and network governance tend to be also accepted as forms of NTA. This in turn raises not only the question of the different institutional forms NTA may take and the various public and private law approaches, in which NTA may be embedded, but also the questions of group membership, effectiveness and the degree of institutionalization. Which individuals belong to a given minority, who has the right to enjoy the benefits provided by NTA arrangements, and who should decide on these issues? Are the traditional cases with their strong institutional and legal background the most effective, is there fully institutionalization at all, and further, whether NTA really needs to be institutionalized in a top-down manner and officially recognized by the state to make an NTA durable and functioning? To what extent does agency affect effectiveness, and are there other models that build more on bottom-up activities? To address the issues above, the present chapter aims to provide an overview of the various types and institutional forms of NTA especially in the European context, including the sectors and scope of their activities and the degree to which power has been delegated to NTA bodies. In addition, it also summarizes the various acts that might appear as a legal basis and guarantees for NTA in practice, including some “bypasses” that would present the pros and cons of the mostly applied legal solutions. A case study about the national minority councils in Serbia is included to illustrate how NTA can be built and institutionalized in a legal order in a top-down manner.

The purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate this multi-faceted nature of NTA by pointing out some core conceptual unclarities/variations, as well as by outlining the main types of NTA. The first section outlines the vagueness of the NTA concept, or concepts, through explaining manifestations of the territoriality and personality principles in the NTA, discussing the difficulties in defining ‘autonomy’ and to what extent NTA can be considered as a fullyfledged autonomy, and finally showing how the very term NTA has been interpreted in various ways by different authors. In the second section, the chapter provides an overview of the most common types of NTA: cultural, functional, and personal autonomy. It explains core features of each of the type and offers some real-life examples that can help to better grasp the variety of manifestations of the NTA. As a result, the discussions in the chapter shall help to understand that NTA is not a uniformed and coherent model, but has various forms and components that can be differently combined. While such vagueness of the NTA can be considered its weakness, at the same time such flexibility is also its strength, as it enables the NTA to be tailor-made to meet the given context and best address the specific needs of diversity accommodation.

Given the, often, abstract conceptual understanding of NTA, the aim of this chapter is not to provide an analysis of the ideal type(s) of cultural autonomy arrangements in minority group contexts. Instead, it purports to evaluate the design, implementation and evolution of such arrangements between states and minority groups as applied in specific areas of minority culture. Following a first brief section that describes the main features of cultural autonomy (see also Chapter 8), the chapter will focus on two important identity markers of minority groups to show how these have formed the basis for a number of NTA arrangements. These are language and religion which are at the heart of the protection of minority identities. Through the lens of these two important identity-markers, the chapter will adopt a double objective: first, to outline the variety of cultural NTA arrangements and their limitations from a diversity governance perspective on the basis of language and religion and second, to highlight the link between cultural forms of NTA and minority agency.

In order to understand how members of ethno-cultural groups enjoy and benefit from non-territorial autonomy (NTA) in their daily lives, it is important to understand how they organize and operate NTA institutions beyond the formal legal and political establishment of institutions. To implement NTA there needs to be institutions and organizations through which members of ethno-cultural groups can carry out the work and make NTA operational. These are not usually established by the state and the authorities because that would be a violation of the idea of autonomy. Rather, ethno-cultural groups must set up facilities, using both material and non-material resources, in order to become empowered. However, authorities can support ethno-cultural groups in their work. With regard to the material side of NTA, governments and authorities can provide subsidies in terms of buildings and land or access to such as well as to other tangible materials needed to set up and run organizations. With regard to the non-material side of NTA, governments can provide subsidies for instance to running costs and salaries. These financial aspects depend on the agreements that are reached between the state and/or local authorities, on the one side, and the ethno-cultural groups seeking to establish and run their own organizations, on the other side. In other words, ethno-cultural groups must be able to represent themselves and put forward their wishes or needs to the government and its authorities in order to access their NTA rights. This also means that ethno-cultural groups must be able and willing to co-operate with the government and authorities. A key question is therefore, how do ethno-cultural groups muster collective agency that enables them to make decisions and co-operate with public authorities? This chapter will offer tools to assessing how members of ethno-cultural groups come together collectively to organize autonomy as a result of being granted rights to decide over their own affairs. Specifically, it will offer indicators of how to assess the capabilities and activities which ensure that the members of ethno-cultural groups can be empowered.