Non-territorial autonomy
Non-territorial autonomy is a form of self-determination in which the autonomous are not population groups living in a territory with defined borders, but rather communities defined by linguistic, cultural, and religious features, which, in many cases, features’ preservation is facilitated according to the terms of the group’s autonomy within the state.
Although means of social organization similar to non-territorial autonomy were also present in the distant past, the modern understanding of non-territorial autonomy is based on the works of Austrian social democrats Karl Renner and Otto Bauer published in the last years of the 19th and first years of the 20th century. They proposed an autonomy model which was aimed to find a solution to the problems and conflicts caused by the ethnic diversity in Austria-Hungary. However, various forms of non-territorial autonomy implemented today can be multifaceted and they may not have any connection with the vision of Renner and Bauer.
Non-territorial autonomy may be applied in practice or considered suitable in theoretical discussions, for example, to manage diversity inside a state, including for mitigating ethnic conflicts and preventing separatist sentiments among minorities. In addition, non-territorial autonomy can be one of the power sharing measures that increase the involvement of minority groups in decision making processes. Non-territorial autonomy is considered particularly suitable for the protection of the interests of dispersed communities, but it has also been considered suitable for, for example, indigenous peoples whose interests are actually often territorial. Thus, non-territorial autonomy may not function well as a completely independent measure, but may be combined with various means of territorial diversity management.
Concept and criticism
Non-territorial autonomy is an umbrella term and highly contested concept, the meaning of which is interpreted differently by both researchers and practitioners. This term has been used either as a synonym or as a connected term with several other concepts with a similar meaning, such as national personal autonomy, personal autonomy, national cultural autonomy, cultural autonomy, extraterritorial autonomy, corporate autonomy and segmental autonomy. In addition, non-territorial autonomy has been associated with consociationalism and plurinationalism. Alexander Osipov, a researcher of non-territorial autonomy, has found that although all of these concepts may have their own shades of meaning, non-territorial autonomy is the broadest and at the same time a neutral term. Some scholars argue that the term is not appropriate and too vague as most instances being labeled as "non-territorial autonomy" are neither non-territorial in a strict sense nor cases of political rule and autonomy, but of minority protection. The term is thus said to contribute to the conceptual confusion in the field.In general, among political scientists and other researchers of non-territorial autonomy, it is considered most natural to associate this concept with the Austrian social democrat Karl Renner. Mentioning Renner as a pioneer and one of the most important theorists of non-territorial autonomy is standard practice in academic publications on the subject.
History
Early cases
According to political scientist John Coakley, some phenomena similar to non-territorial autonomy existed already in medieval Europe. As one example, he has pointed out that the King of Bohemia allowed the Germans residing in the state to live according to their own legal system. Similar autonomous rights were granted by other monarchs as well. As another example, Coakley has described the autonomy of Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which guaranteed them freedom of decision not only in religious, but also in family and economic matters.Millet system in the Ottoman Empire
The millet system, which existed in the Ottoman Empire from the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453 until the 19th century, is often considered one of the earliest examples of non-territorial autonomy, and sometimes its most successful and long-lasting form. Some researchers have considered the millet system to be a near-ideal form of non-territorial autonomy that could be successfully applied even today, but others have in turn found that it is unsuitable for today's conditions.The millet system was not actually a codified system, but a set of administrative practices for regulating the relations between the state and communities. Such regulations offered protection and autonomy to communities while imposing tax obligation to the state. Using the millet system, the Ottoman Empire managed the country's religious diversity, particularly regarding the Jewish, Orthodox, and Armenian communities, with smaller religious communities placed under these three larger communities in terms of state administration. Although it is generally believed that the millet system was based on religion, it has also been found that it did not concern only religious communities, but was a much more broad system of social organization and included a territorial approach in addition to a non-territorial, thereby affecting, among others, for example, the Kurds who were Muslims and lived compactly in one area.
The Millet system has been considered a successful administrative model because it prevented a larger opposition to the state. In addition, according to researchers, the millet system increased the well-being of communities by guaranteeing social and cultural autonomy and legal pluralism. With the reforms in the 19th century, however, the management of religious communities changed—all non-Muslims were declared equal citizens of the empire, whereas in the days of the millet system, they had been separate and unequal communities, although under the protection of the state. However, it has been argued that certain elements of the old system were preserved and partially survived in several countries that emerged after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire or later in this area.
According to Karen Barkey, a researcher of the Ottoman Empire, and her colleague George Gavrilis, the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary also tried to implement methods of managing internal religious and/or ethnic diversity similar to the millet system. Furthermore, they have explicitly compared the autonomy ideas that emerged in Austria-Hungary with the millet system.
Autonomy ideas of Austromarxists
The ideas of autonomy based on non-territorial principles emerged in Austria-Hungary, particularly in Cisleithania, against the background of constant national conflicts, which were manifested at several fields of everyday life such as the education system and political representative assemblies. The issue of language use turned out to be the most acute, especially in areas where the German language was dominant despite the fact that people who used German as an everyday language were in a numerical minority there, as well as, for example, in Galicia, where the Polish language was dominant.Against the backdrop of tense ethnic relations, two social democratic politicians from the circle of Austromarxists emerged: Karl Renner, who himself came from Moravia, one of the regions with the most tense ethnic relations, and Otto Bauer. Renner published his vision for the reorganization of the administrative organization of the empire in 1899 in his book Staat und Nation and in 1902 in Der Kampf der österreichischen Nationen um den Staat. Bauer published his similar views in the book Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie in 1907. Of these writings, Renner's Staat und Nation has been considered groundbreaking in the development of the idea of non-territorial autonomy. A lesser known Austromarxist autonomy theorist was Etbin Kristan from Slovenia, although it was he who proposed to introduce the principle of non-territorial autonomy into the party program at the Congress of Social Democrats in Brno in 1899.
Relying on the belief that the religious wars ended in Europe only when the state and the church were separated, in the Austromarxists’ view, national conflicts could only stop if the state and the nation were separated. Renner and Bauer proposed a model in which a central national parliament would be elected by all eligible citizens of the empire and it would be responsible for issues of national importance such as foreign policy and the military, while issues of culture and education would be dealt with by nation-based elected councils. According to Renner's vision, the country should have been divided as far as possible into monolingual districts with full political autonomy, while autonomy based on national registries should have been established in multilingual districts. Renner and Bauer's model was based on the personal principle, according to which national communities would be formed according to the voluntary consent of individuals to belong to them. Renner in his writing "Staat und Nation" argued that every citizen should declare his or her nationality upon reaching the voting age, on the basis of which the community would be formed and on the basis of which representative assemblies would be elected.
The ideas of Renner and Bauer did not find any support in the Austrian Social Democratic Workers' Party, but national cultural autonomy nevertheless did not remain only an object of abstract discussions. In the last decades of the existence of Austrian-Hungary, the ideas of autonomy were tried to some extent in reality. Such an experiment was, for example, the adoption of the local constitution of Moravia in 1905, also known as the Moravian Compromise. According to the compromise the income-based election curias of the Moravian parliamentary elections were divided into Czech and German sections. In order to ensure that the Czechs chose representatives of their own nationality and the Germans chose the Germans, ethnicity-based electoral lists of voters, also known as cadastres, were provided. A similar compromise followed in Bukovina in 1909 and in Galicia in 1914. By contrast, according to the 1910 constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was annexed in 1908, income-based curias were divided into sections based not on nationality but on religion. These local constitutions allowed members of ethnic groups to elect representatives of their community to local parliaments, but did not offer economic autonomy or completely separate representative assemblies to any ethnic group.
The ideas of autonomy developed by the Austro-Marxists attracted interest outside Austria as well. As a result, at the end of and after the First World War, the ideas of non-territorial autonomy were tried to be implemented in several new countries, but the main principle changed. While the Austro-Marxists wanted to manage the ethnic diversity within the country with the help of autonomy, later non-territorial autonomy became one of the measures for the protection of minorities.