1st ENTAN conference: Non-Territorial Autonomy as a Form of Plurinational Democracy: Participation, Recognition, Reconciliation
The European Non-Territorial Autonomy Network (ENTAN) invites applications to participate in its first conference in Belgrade (22.11.2019-23.11.2019).
ENTAN is a recently approved Action from the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Association. ENTAN is mandated to study how modalities of Non-Territorial Autonomy (NTA) can help resolve or alleviate national and ethnic conflicts in states were national and ethnic communities demand the recognition of their collective rights. Liberal democracies produce vital notions of citizens’ rights, but citizens are often understood as homologous quantities, leaving little room for the political recognition of difference and pluralism, and, for national minority collective rights. At the same time, in the international arena, the concept of National Self Determination (NSD) is understood to mean the creation or consolidation of nation-states for aggrieved national communities. However, the number of national communities outnumbers the number of nation-states by far, and, in most cases, different ethno-national populations overlap in the same territorial space, making a territorial solution unworkable and destructive. In various parts of the world, these unfulfilled demands have led to bloody and entrenched conflicts.
The problem of scattered minorities’ representation is not new, and there have been historically, important attempts to create modalities of NSD that do not require the creation of nation states. Among the most influential are the National Cultural Autonomy (NCA) model developed by the Austrians Otto Bauer and Karl Renner, the latter a former president of Austria. However, while NCA was for a period important and influential in Central and Eastern Europe, it had limited influence in Western Europe and other parts of the world. There are, however, many other modalities of NTA that emerge simultaneously in different parts of the world, showing that the problem of minority self-determination is recurrent in many different countries.
The aim of the first ENTAN conference is to examine how and in what context modalities of NTA can improve the value of democratic participation in Europe, by enhancing the collective incorporation of national minorities. The conference will also evaluate the relation between democracy and collective rights, and how NTA can improve minority recognition and foster reconciliation in areas of conflict. The conference addresses both theoretical questions and importantly, empirical case studies. We call upon scholars and practitioners interested in NTA as a solution to ethnic conflict in empirical and theoretical dimensions, to submit paper and panel proposals for our conference.
Possible but not exclusive areas of discussion are:
- The nation state and NTA, how can they work together?
- Plurinational states and the implementation of NTA
- European demoicracy and NTA
- Historical cases of NCA or NTA illustrating what value they have for contemporary discussions
- Human Rights and modalities of NTA
- Central and Eastern Europe and modalities of NTA
- The Balkans and modalities of NTA
- Liberal Democracy and NTA
- NTA and scattered minorities (e.g. Roma)
- Indigenous Peoples and NTA (e.g. Sami)
- Non-European models of NTA, how useful they are in the European context
- Migration and NTA
- Refugees and NTA
- Women and NTA
- Risks of NTA models
- NTA and its implications for cultural identities and identity boundaries
- Тhe role of non-territorial autonomy of ethno-cultural groups in regional and socio-economic development
- The role of ethno-cultural and national minorities in cross-border cooperation