Habsburg Austria: Experiments in Non-Territorial Autonomy

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, three provinces of the Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire enacted national compromises in their legislation that had elements of non-territorial autonomy provisions. Czech and German politicians in Moravia reached an agreement in 1905. In the heavily mixed Bukovina, Romanian, Ukrainian, German, Jewish and Polish representatives agreed on a new provincial constitution in 1909. Last but not least, Polish and Ukrainian nationalists compromised in spring 1914, just a few months before the outbreak of the First World War vitiated the new provisions. Even though the provisions of these agreements varied substantially, new electoral laws introducing national registers were at their heart. These were designed to ensure a fairer representation of national groups in the provincial assemblies and to keep national agitation out of electoral campaigns. The earliest compromise in Moravia went furthest in consociational power sharing. However, the national bodies within the provincial assembly had no right to tax their respective national communities, and the provisions of the provincial constitutions kept the non-nationally defined nobility as an important counterbalance. The compromises in Bukovina and Galicia, even if they categorised all inhabitants nationally, contented themselves with even less autonomous agency for the national bodies in the provincial assemblies and rather emphasised the symbolic elements of national autonomy. The non-territorial approach in all three crownlands, however, was an instrument to reorganise multi-ethnic provinces that increasingly became the model for national compromises in other Austrian provinces.

Conclusion: Patterns of Non-Territorial Autonomy

“…Elsewhere, a mixture of 'objective' and 'subjective' determinants was used. In both Moravia and Estonia electoral rolls for communal representation were based on a draft compiled by officials, but there was an element of personal choice in that individuals could opt in or out of a particular list-freely in the case of Estonia, subject to official veto in the case of Moravia (Kuzmany, 2016;Smith, 2016). formal provision was made under the tanzimat reforms of the mid-nineteenth century for significant non-Muslim representation in the local administration (Shaw and Shaw, 1977, pp. 88-90).…”

Conclusion: Patterns of Non-Territorial Autonomy

“…The arrangements for the two language groups in Moravia (like those planned for Bukovina and Galicia) seem not to merit any points at all-a significant finding for a case long held out as a model of non-territorial autonomy. As Kuzmany (2016) shows, the Moravian Compromise of 1905 was an experiment in consociational government, not in non-territorial autonomy.…”

“…However, these arrangements are confined to national level; the pattern at local level is one of severe Maori under-representation (Sullivan, 2015). The division of the electoral roll in Moravia in 1905, and in Galicia and Bukovina later, had more direct implications for the disposal of power: it was designed to reduce intergroup conflict by fixing the representation level of each group and facilitating power sharing-not to confer autonomy on the various sets of communal parliamentarians (Kuzmany, 2016). The Ottoman millet system also facilitated power-sharing arrangements: at the level of local government (at vilayet level and lower), formal provision was made under the tanzimat reforms of the mid-nineteenth century for significant non-Muslim representation in the local administration (Shaw and Shaw, 1977, pp. 88-90).…”

“…In both Moravia and Estonia electoral rolls for communal representation were based on a draft compiled by officials, but there was an element of personal choice in that individuals could opt in or out of a particular list-freely in the case of Estonia, subject to official veto in the case of Moravia (Kuzmany, 2016;Smith, 2016). In the case of indigenous peoples, membership definition has shifted over time, hampered by the absence of an effective operational definition that is accepted internationally (Berg-Nordlie et al 2015b;Costa, 2015 choose to remain on the general electoral roll (New Zealand Parliament, 2015).…”

Introduction: Dispersed Minorities and Non-Territorial Autonomy

“…This is followed by two other cases where arguments for non-territorial autonomy were advanced in some detail, if with limited long-term effect. Borries Kuzmany (2015) analyses three efforts to apply the Renner model in the last years of the Habsburg monarchy, just before the outbreak of the First World War: in Moravia, Bukovina and Galicia. Roni Gechtman (2015) then addresses the special case of Jewish cultural autonomy in Central and Eastern Europe, including both its pre-war ideological roots and subsequent efforts to give it practical effect.…”