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

Abstract

This paper examines the nature and extent of autonomy for minority groups in the context of the Hungarian minority in Romania. It shows that, rather than being a mechanism through which states fulfil their obligation to protect a people’s fair access to opportunities for self-determination, autonomy is merely a vehicle through which minority rights are administered. While the accommodation of national minorities in Romania is considered to be a positive example, a focus on the Hungarian minority highlights the extent to which the group’s autonomy has become entrenched in a nexus of dependence, involving both the home-state and the kin-state. I argue that the exercise of autonomy in cases such as the one discussed here is at odds with legal and political developments concerning the concept of autonomy for minority groups in Europe. This has not only weakened autonomy’s normative foundations but also, more worryingly, caused it to become evanescent.