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Introduction to the special section: minority politics and the territoriality principle in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Magdalena Dembinska ,
László Máracz  and
Márton Tonk
Magdalena Dembinska
Affiliation:
Political Science, University of Montreal Montreal, Canada
László Máracz*
Affiliation:
European Studies, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Márton Tonk
Affiliation:
International Relations and European Studies, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
*
*Corresponding author. Email: magdalena.dembinska@umontreal.ca
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Abstract

Territorial arrangements for managing interethnic relations within states are far from consensual. Although self-governance for minorities is commonly advocated, international documents are ambiguously formulated. Conflicting pairs of principles, territoriality vs. personality, and self-determination vs. territorial integrity, along with diverging state interests account for this gap. Together, the articles in this special section address the territoriality principle and its hardly operative practice on the ground, with particular attention to European cases. An additional theme reveals itself in the articles: the ambiguity of minority recognition politics. This introductory article briefly presents these two common themes, followed by an outline of three recent proposals discussed especially in Eastern Europe that seek to bypass the controversial territorial autonomy model: cultural rights in municipalities with a “substantial” proportion of minority members; the cultural autonomy model; and European regionalism and multi-level governance.

Keywords

European minority regimesterritoriality vs. personality principlethreshold ruleterritorial and cultural autonomiesEuropean regions and multi-level governance

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , May 2014 , pp. 355 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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