SUMMARY:

The history of ethnic relations in Western democracies contains many examples of injustice, oppression, coercion, discrimination and prejudice. Yet over the past thirty years, Western democracies have developed a number of interesting and effective models for accommodating ethnocultural diversity. One of these models involves the use of federal or-quasi-federal forms of territorial autonomy to enable self-government for national minorities and indigenous peoples. Kymlicka believes that these forms of territorial autonomy are in general a success, and contain potential lessons for other countries around the world struggling with issues of minority nationalism. In his article Kymlicka focuses on the possible application of Western models of federalism to ethnic conflict in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. In his view, what is happening today in Eastern Europe may be a harbinger of things to come elsewhere in the world. The decision of Western organizations to insist on respect for minority rights from Eastern European countries will be the first serious test case for the feasibility and desirability of “exporting” Western minority rights standards to the rest of the world. For this reason, it is worthy of careful consideration by anyone interested in the issue of minority rights.
In the article Kymlicka analyzes the particular case of applying Western models to Eastern and Central Europe (ECE), and more specifically models of federal or quasi-federal territorial autonomy. If, as he argues, it is extremely difficult to apply Western models to Eastern Europe, despite the significant historical and cultural commonalties between Western and Eastern Europe, it will be all the more unlikely to work in Asia and Africa.
Kymlicka begins by explaining what he takes to be the main outlines of a common Western approach to territorial autonomy (section 1). There are of course many differences amongst the Western nations, but he proves that there have been several important areas of convergence in recent decades, which can usefully be seen as defining a distinctively Western approach to the issue. He also argues that the success of this approach may be related, in complex way, to a particular view about secession (section 2). Then Kymlicka explains why this model has been resisted in Eastern Europe (section 3), and explores whether Western organizations can or should attempt to do more to pressure countries to adopt these models (section 4), including efforts to change their views about secession (section 5).
Kymlicka concludes that there is no guarantee that federalism will not lead eventually to secession. And granting self-government to national minorities raises the danger that they will embark on their own illiberal forms of nation-building, restricting the rights of their own members or of other groups on the territory. There are all-too-many examples of this in the ethnorepublics of the Russian federation. It is an essential feature of a liberal-democratic conception of multination federalism that all governments – whether the central government or regional governments dominated by national minorities – be subject to constitutional restrictions that protect individual civil and political rights. It may be difficult to achieve this sort of democratic multinational federalism in ECE: majority nationalists too often resist granting self-government to national minorities; and minority nationalists too often exercise their self-government in illiberal and intolerant ways. But to say it is difficult is not to say it is impossible. In any event, he sees no feasible alternative to territorial autonomy in many of these cases.