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Territoriality, ethno-linguistic Minorities and Inclusion in a multilingual Europe

Cleavages
Comparative Politics
Ethnic Conflict
Federalism
Globalisation
Governance
László Marácz
University of Amsterdam
László Marácz
University of Amsterdam

Abstract

Territorial arrangements for managing linguistic diversity at the national level of governance are far from consensual. On the one hand, there are those who stand by the collective right to some sort of self-governance for ethno-linguistic minorities within their historic territories. In this case, a strong or weak version of Laponce’s generalization, namely that the Territoriality Principle provides the best protection for language(s) is implemented. On the other hand, there are those who consider primordial the territorial integrity of the existing states. In this case, ethno-linguistic communities can enjoy cultural or personal autonomy at maximum. In Europe, these different options for the management of linguistic diversity exists in parallel, Territorial solutions have been elaborated in different corners of Europe, like in the case of Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Hercegovina. In some cases, even a state has become federalized, like Switzerland, or Belgium. The non-territorial solutions based on the Personality Principle introduce disparity of rights characterized by restrictive language laws, language hierarchies, thresholds, and asymmetric bilingualism. This state of affairs is enhancing the ethno-linguistic hegemony of the majority population. Hegemonic power constellations will be discussed in more detail on the basis of the Hungarian ethno-linguistic communities in Slovakia and Romania. This leads to the following observations in reference to the system of multi-level governance of the European Union. Firstly, it allows the implementation of both the Territoriality and Personality Principle, although due to processes of globalization and Europeanization the Personality Principle seems to have more international support than the Territoriality Principle. Secondly, I will argue that the implementation of the Personality Principle for ethno-linguistic minorities creates a discriminative context contradicting an inclusive society. Arrangements for linguistic diversity based on the Territoriality Principle do not suffer from this. Hence, my conclusion that territorial arrangements for linguistic diversity are to be preferred over personal ones.