Reconciling Autonomy, Community and Empowerment: The Difficult Birth of a Diversity School in the Western World

Abstract

The management of diversity in multinational political communities can take various forms. Consociationalism, federalism, and territorial and cultural autonomy are among the main institutional arrangements that are proposed for accommodating national pluralism.¹ Here I want to highlight the reasons why territorial autonomy is currently experiencing some significant setbacks in the Western world (and making no real progress elsewhere, as we will see in contributions dealing with China and the Philippines). I also want to propose a way out of this predicament. First of all, I will explore the contradictory way in which governments and international organizations have blown hot and cold with respect to the treatment of national diversity; those who were previously inclined to support territorial autonomy as a way of managing national diversity have progressively retreated from this position and now encourage containment or even outright assimilation. It is difficult to imagine the two latter approaches (containment and assimilation) as providing a basis for trust among communities in contexts where minority nations are threatened by institutionalized domination. Second, I will turn to the major debate in political science concerning rival strategies for ensuring the stability of existing states.