Ethnic Diversity and the Nation State

Smith, David J.; Hiden, John

doi:10.4324/9780203118320

Cited by 38 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…All of these factors, we argue, contributed to putting the minority law onto the political agenda and led to the compromises shaping its eventual character. Overall, we argue that while the setting of the early 1990s saw both a transfer of Western standards of minority rights and a revival of NTA as a largely Central European contribution to the management of ethno-cultural diversity (Smith and Hiden 2012), their implementation has been seriously distorted due to the continuing influence of communist legacies. Thus, despite a strong commitment to minority protection motivated largely by concern for Hungarian minorities abroad, Hungary was no different from other postcommunist countries, and remains paradoxically embedded in the broader context of postcommunist state-and nation-building processes in which most countries in the region have focused primarily on securing the institutional positions of the majority language and culture (Csergő and Regelmann 2017, 215-216;Kymlicka 2004).…”

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confidence: 89%

Cultural Autonomy in Hungary: Inward or Outward Looking?

Sansum

Dobos

2020

Nationalities Papers

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Since the late 1980s, the interpretations of policy toward Hungary's minorities-most notably the country's 1993 minority law and the minority self-governments established as part of a system of nonterritorial autonomy (NTA)-have been the subject of debates in politics and academia in at least two critical respects. Aside from the declarative character of the law, foremost has been the question of Hungary's kin-state activism toward Hungarians abroad and the implications this has carried for domestic minority issues. A second-and related-question has concerned the extent to which cultural autonomy and minority rights are in accordance with the needs of the Roma, by far the country's largest ethnic minority group. A growing number of scholars have accepted the argument that the minority law was enacted because of concerns regarding Hungarian minorities living in the neighboring countries. In our view, it is more appropriate to ask instead how Hungary's kin-state policies have influenced the opportunities for domestic groups, and, in particular, how Hungary fits into the broader context of post-Communist state-and nation-building projects. This is the approach we take in this article, which aims to unpack and reconcile the complex and seemingly contradictory findings on the Hungarian case. Our conclusions are drawn from a content analysis of parliamentary debates on the minority law-something that has never previously been undertaken. This is supplemented by semi-structured interviews with former and current politicians and minority activists.

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confidence: 89%

Cultural Autonomy in Hungary: Inward or Outward Looking?

Sansum

Dobos

2020

Nationalities Papers

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“…Supporters and opponents of corporative minority legislation were to be found across the entire Estonian political spectrum. The leader of Estonia's Agrarian Party and later authoritarian head of state Konstantin Päts strongly endorsed the idea, as did the social democrat Karl Ast, who justified his support in a parliamentary session in 1923 with reference to the Austro-Marxists and the fact that the existing European minority protection was hardly democratic: 73 The Social Democrats are pleased that this law has been put forward since it derives from the work of Springer and Bauer. We would be happy to see Estonia become a modern democracy, which in its approach to the national question applies a set of principles wholly different to those employed by the old democracies.…”

Section: Developments In Interwar Nation Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At a gathering of Jewish communal representatives in Tallinn in 1919, Hirsh (Grigorij) Aisenstadt, the later long-term head of the autonomous Jewish Cultural Council, communicated 'the ideas of Renner and Bauer, stressing as key principles the belonging of an autonomous minority to the state in which it resides and the "inviolable" unity of the citizen body. ' 76 The minimum numerical threshold needed to apply the cultural law was originally set at 4,000 potential members. It was only during the concrete negotiations for the drafting of the bill in 1925 that this threshold was eventually lowered to 3,000 in order to make the law applicable to the Jewish minority as well.…”

Section: Developments In Interwar Nation Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Territorial National Autonomy in Interwar European Minority Protection and Its Habsburg Legacies

Kuzmany¹

2020

Remaking Central Europe

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This chapter investigates the history of the idea of non-territorial autonomy as a form of corporate collective minority rights. The concept originated in the Habsburg Empire, where it was both implemented in several Austrian provinces, at least partly, as well as discussed theoretically by Austro-Marxist thinkers. While Zionist Jewish protagonists unsuccessfully suggested this form of minority protection at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, it continued to be discussed and applied in several Eastern European countries, in particular in the Baltic states, often with reference to its Habsburg origins. The European Nationalities Congress, a transnational advocacy group of European minorities during the interwar period, also strongly supported the idea of non-territorial autonomy. The chapter argues that despite the Congress’s final inability to convince the League of Nations of this model of corporative minority rights, non-territorial autonomy was lively discussed in the international arena of European minority protection with the protagonists pointing to the legacy of the demised Habsburg Empire.

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“…Yet, the Estonian experience of the 1920s has arguably acquired a new relevance today, at a time when several states of post-communist Central and Eastern Europe have adopted minority rights legislation based (at least nominally) on the principle of non-territorial autonomy. 2 For all of the interest in the 1925 law, however, it is only recently that scholars have turned their attention to analysing how it actually operated in practice, as opposed to debating the reasons for its adoption (Laurits, 2008;Smith & Hiden, 2012). The present article builds on my own previous work in this area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Estonia: A Model for Inter-War Europe?

Smith¹

2018

Non-Territorial Autonomy in Divided Societies

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While Estonia's 1925 Law on Cultural Self-Government for National Minorities is often cited as a rare functioning example of Renner and Bauer's non-territorial autonomy scheme, there has until recently been comparatively little research on how the law operated in practice. This article analyses the institutions of German and Jewish minority self-government established in inter-war Estonia, arguing that (prior to the eclipse of democracy in 1934, at least) these possessed considerable depth and authoritative competence in the area of cultural and educational policy. Cultural autonomy did not resolve all outstanding points of division between state, majority and (in particular) Baltic German minority; nevertheless, it played a positive role in the regulation of ethnonational tensions. Even less well-known is the international resonance of this unique law, which transnational minority activists argued should serve as a general model for the regulation of minority disputes. The League of Nations rightly questioned this claim, and the non-territorial autonomy model was scarcely applied beyond the Baltic region during the 1920s. However, it is still instructive to revisit the 1925 law today, at a time when several post-communist states have adopted minority rights legislation based on similar principles.

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Ethnic Diversity and the Nation State

Cited by 38 publications

References 0 publications

Cultural Autonomy in Hungary: Inward or Outward Looking?

Cultural Autonomy in Hungary: Inward or Outward Looking?

Non-Territorial National Autonomy in Interwar European Minority Protection and Its Habsburg Legacies

Estonia: A Model for Inter-War Europe?

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