This open access book assesses Non-Territorial Autonomy (NTA) in terms of its practical capacity to support the linguistic, cultural, and educational rights of national minority groups across Europe. The fact that 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of the coming into force of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on National Minorities (FCNM) and European Charter for Regional and Minority languages (ECRML) makes this book especially timely and relevant. Its numerous detailed empirical studies, one of which uses FCNM reporting as a benchmark, give a picture of the extent (or otherwise) to which international minority rights standards are actually being realized through various NTA arrangements. In keeping with the principles laid out in these foundational documents, the contributions to this volume acknowledge that when it comes to the effective delivery of linguistic, cultural and educational rights, NTA is best regarded not as an alternative but as a complement to territorially based arrangements. David Smith holds the Alec Nove Chair in Russian and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK. Ivan Dodovski is Professor in Critical Theory, and Dean of the School of Political Science at University American College Skopje, North Macedonia. Flavia Ghencea holds the Fundamental Institutions of Administrative Law Chair at the Faculty of Law and Administrative Sciences at Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania.

This Open Access textbook is a result of the work of ENTAN – the European Non-Territorial Autonomy Network. It provides students with a comprehensive analysis of the different aspects and issues around the concept of non-territorial autonomy (NTA). The themes of each chapter have been selected to ensure a multi- and interdisciplinary overview of an emerging research field and show both in theory and in practice the possibilities of NTA in addressing cultural, ethnic, religious and language differences in contemporary societies. This is an open access book.

Minority movements tirelessly continue to engage in the process of social change, trying to promote and enforce minority protection norms and to have their world views, cultural practices, and norms recognized by the state. Through an examination of selected cases, this book problematizes how collective identities are not structurally guaranteed but rather constructed in dialectically interrelated positions and identity layers. The authors show the kind of impact that these processes can, or fail to, have on minority norms, actors, and strategies. Going beyond abstract normative principles, this collection reflects both Global North as well as Global South perspectives and examines through a variety of angles the role that race and ethnicity, culture, or religion play within social mobilization towards social change. The volume offers global insight on actor and strategy attempts to foster social change through the instrumental use and interpretation of minority rights as norms. This book will be of interest to those researching minority rights broadly understood within the disciplines of law, anthropology, sociology, and political science.

Using a human rights approach, the book analyses the dynamics in the application of minority policies for the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity in Russia. Despite Russia’s legacy of ethno-cultural and linguistic pluralism, the book argues that the Putin leadership’s overwhelming statism and promotion of Russian patriotism are inexorably leading to a reduction of Russia’s diversity. Using scores of interviews with representatives of national minorities, civil society, public officials and academics, the book highlights the reasons why Russian law and policies, as well as international standards on minority rights, are ill-equipped to withstand the centralising drive toward ever greater uniformity. While minority policies are fragmented and feeble in contemporary Russia, they are also centrally conceived, which is exacerbated by a growing democratic deficit under Putin. Crucially, in today’s Russia informal practices and networks are frequently utilised rather than formal channels in the sphere of diversity management. Informal practices, the book argues, can at times favour minorities, yet they more frequently disadvantage them and create the conditions for the co-optation of leaders of minority groups. A dilution of diversity, the book suggests, is not only resulting in the loss of Russia’s rich cultural heritage but is also impairing the peaceful coexistence of the individuals and groups that make up Russian society.

For centuries autonomy has been a public policy tool used to provide stability and cohesion to multicultural societies. Examining case studies on non-territorial autonomy arrangements in comparison with territorial autonomy examples, this volume seeks to inform both design and decision making on managing diversity.

Non-territorial autonomy (NTA) is a statecraft tool that is increasingly gaining importance in societies seeking to accommodate demands by ethno-cultural groups for a voice in cultural affairs important to the protection and preservation of their identity, such as language, education, and religion. As states recognize the specific rights of identity minorities in multicultural and multi-ethnic societies, they are faced with a need to improve their diversity management regimes. NTA offers policy-makers a range of options for institutional design adaptable to specific circumstances and historical legacies. It devolves degrees of power through legal frameworks and institutions in specific areas of ethno-cultural life, while maintaining social unity at the core level of society. Throughout Europe and North America, NTA exists and is implemented at a state, regional, and local level. Much has been written about the concept of autonomy and its usage as a statecraft tool in states facing regional division, but little literature addresses its non-territorial institutional and public administration functions. This edited volume seeks to fill this gap. Managing Diversity through Non-Territorial Autonomy: Assessing Advantages, Deficiencies, and Risks, carves a space for contextual knowledge production on NTA in law, as well as social and political sciences. Contextual knowledge involves a description of institutions and their functionality as well as of the institutional and legal frames protecting these. What are the institutions, bodies, and functions that ethno-cultural groups can draw on when seeking to have a voice over their own affairs, as well as over issues in society related to their identity production? How are these entities incorporated and empowered to have a voice? What degree of voice do they have, and how are they designed to project this voice? Thus, contextual knowledge also involves critical assessment and risk analysis as well as penetrating insights as to the unintended consequences and hidden agendas that may inform NTA policies. This volume is to provide both policy-makers and ethno-cultural groups with a tool-kit that promotes social cohesion while respecting diversity. This is the first volume in a series of five which will examine the protection and representation of minorities through non-territorial means.

The book examines all relevant models which have been employed in settling ethno-territorial conflicts since the time of the League of Nations. Eight of these models have been studied in-depth. The aim of this analysis is to gain expertise and insights that could prove relevant to resolving the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. This potential is evaluated in the closing chapters of the volume where novel ideas on how to apply the lessons of these cases to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh are presented. This conflict carries many features typical of ethno-territorial conflicts in present and past times: it is neither unique, nor does its settlement depend on others than the parties to the conflict. Rather it is – as in all other cases – entrenched historical narratives and enemy images which lead to zero-sum calculations and can conceivably only be overcome in a gradual process. Content Part I Nagorno-Karabakh and ethno-territorial conflict settlement Part II Case studies of ethno-territorial conflict settlement: Åland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, South Tyrol, Trieste, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Quebec. Part III Results and conclusions: A way out for Nagorno-Karabakh The Editors Dr Azer Babayev​ is Assistant Professor of Political Science at ADA University, Baku. Dr Bruno Schoch is Associated Researcher at PRIF (Peace Research Institute Frankfurt), Frankfurt/Main. Dr Hans-Joachim Spanger is Head of the Dissemination Division at PRIF (Peace Research Institute Frankfurt), Frankfurt/Main.

Since the formation of the UN in 1945 the international community has witnessed a number of violent self-determination conflicts such as the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Kashmir, and South Sudan that have been a major cause of humanitarian crises and destruction. This book examines the scope and applicability of political self-determination beyond the decolonisation process. Explaining the historical evolution of self-determination, this book provides a theoretical examination of the concept and background. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the author analyses self-determination in relation to contemporary conflicts, which inform and drive a coherent theoretical framework for international responses to claims for self-determination. Built upon an examination of the conceptual foundations of self-determination, this book presents a new understanding and application of self-determination. It addresses the important question of whether self-determination claims legitimate armed violence, either by the self-determining group’s right to rebel, or by the international community in the form of humanitarian intervention. The Politics of Self-Determination will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, international relations, security studies and conflict studies.

This book examines the emergence of nationalism in Lithuania, specifically the Lithuanian national movement, known as Sajudis, and its approach towards the citizenship rights of national minorities. The study concentrates on the period between 1988 and 1993 when the national majority and minorities began forming and debating citizenship rights. The question of citizenship rights of national minorities is not ordinarily viewed as a problem with regard to Lithuania and there has consequently been minimal attention devoted to this topic. This book addresses this neglect and brings the underlying assumptions into critical perspective by analysing the Lithuanian situation not just according to the letter of the law but also in terms of how these laws were implemented and how the minorities responded to them. In doing so, the book explores the conflict which emerged between the growing national movement and the ideals of citizenship such as multicultural pluralism, diversity and heterogeneity. The book therefore has relevance to all those who are interested in postcommunist societies; and in particular the tensions that frequently develop between nationalism and citizenship.

The conflicts in the South Caucasus are now a decade old, but still appear impervious to solution. The hopes that independence raised have been dashed by an insidious cocktail of past and present regional hegemony, historical antipathy and Soviet planning. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, thus, continue to wait for their long awaited Spring. In a region where Western academic writing has focussed, during the last decade, almost exclusively on the dynamics of regional security and Great Power rivalry, even in the context of conflict, this volume provides an important and necessary legal appraisal of the possible processes and structures which may, ultimately, facilitate the finding of constitutional settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In the work, Tim Potier, an academic lawyer with much experience in the Caucasus, has written a powerful but dispassionate account which will prove not only to be of use to academics, diplomats and government officials working in the region, but also be of lasting value to the ongoing development of the international law on self-determination and autonomy. Dr Potier also considers the fate of what he prefers to term, `regionally non-dominant titular peoples'.