Conclusion: Patterns of Non-Territorial Autonomy

Abstract

This article seeks to generalize about the significance of non-territorial autonomy as a mechanism for the management of ethnic conflict on the basis of a set of case studies covering the Ottoman empire and its successor states, the Habsburg monarchy, the Jewish minorities of Europe, interwar Estonia, contemporary Belgium, and two indigenous peoples, the Sámi in Norway and Maori in New Zealand. It begins by assessing the extent to which the spatial distribution of ethnonational communities determined the range of autonomy options available-whether these might be territorial, or whether only non-territorial autonomy would be realistic. The article continues with an assessment of the significance of 'autonomy' in circumstances where the institutions with which it is associated enjoy a non-territorial rather than a territorial writ. It concludes by suggesting that in almost all cases where autonomy is extended to a minority within a state this is exercised on a territorial basis, and that in many cases of non-territorial autonomy, or national cultural autonomy, the powers assumed by the 'autonomous' institutions are substantially symbolic. It argues that notwithstanding the limited empirical evidence for the existence of non-territorial autonomy, this device should not be written off at a normative level.

Objectivising national identity: The introduction of national registers in the late Habsburg Empire

“…Not national territories, but the nationalities themselves, as corporate bodies, would govern their cultural affairs autonomously, and establishing national rolls would be a way to determine national belonging. Over the last 20 years, many nationalism studies scholars have consistently pointed to the Habsburg monarchy as an early laboratory of non‐territorial autonomy (Coakley, 2017; Kuzmany et al, 2022; Nimni, 2005; Osipov, 2004; Smith & Hiden, 2012).…”