Symposium Introduction: The Many Faces of Territorial Autonomy

Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark & Elisabeth Alber

Åbo Akademi University & Eurac Research Institute for Comparative Federalism

This blog symposium brings together a number of experts on territorial autonomy, most of whom participated in a workshop convened in June 2023 by the Åland Islands Peace Institute in cooperation with the Finland Institute in Berlin. The goal was to look at and discuss the theory, research methodologies, and practice of European and global territorial autonomy. Documenting some of the knowledge and the new ideas from this workshop allows us to share results at an early, and even experimental, stage of a still loose worldwide network of scholars. The network, and this symposium, include researchers from the fields of politics, comparative politics, international relations, and of constitutional, public law, and international law, all working within different theoretical and methodological traditions.

In the early 1990s, there were similar networks at the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. However, they were often limited not only in their geographical reach but also in their gender and disciplinary diversity. The learnings from these networks often failed to be adequately documented to present them to new generations of researchers and decision makers, perhaps because it was thought for some time that democratic progress and human rights achievements had made them redundant. At the same time, it can be argued that territorial autonomy arrangements are still understood as an exceptional solution, at least when characterised by more robust asymmetry. Such exceptionalism, with territorial autonomy understood as an ‘unusual’, ‘abnormal’ or, at least, a ‘last resort’ approach, has possibly hindered the deeper study of territorial autonomy as such, and in its multiple facets over time and space.

The contributions in this blog symposium show that territorial autonomy has been, and is, widely used in various historical periods and different parts of the world. Territorial autonomy is today studied from a variety of disciplinary, theoretical and methodological angles, including those of federalism, consociationalism, dealing with diversity and minority accommodation, regional mobilisation, multilevel governance, democratic theory, nationalism, international agreements, and the management of conflicts, in quantitative or qualitative modes. This list is not exclusive. Most edited volumes and publications on territorial autonomy today are, however, collections of case studies. Consequently, systematic and comparative studies with a conceptual and theoretical ambition are rare.

In the present day, we must confront the challenges of the simultaneous centripetal and centrifugal tendencies within and between nation states, as well as the authoritarian trends around the world at a time of polarised domestic and international politics. These developments prompt us to update, reassess and deepen the knowledge about the position, role and functioning of territorial autonomy around the world. Territorial autonomy shows specific characteristics and operates under circumstances that cannot be captured fully within other specialised discourses, such as those on minorities, federalism or power-sharing. This insight, and the need to create platforms for discussion among specialised researchers, is why we have created this network of knowledge and discussion.

The manifold contributions to the blog symposium explore the many faces of territorial autonomy, emphasise the need for continued engagement with conceptual and definitional issues and show some of the possibilities for the conceptual development of territorial autonomy, with all its limits, as in any kind of institutional arrangement. At the same time, some blog posts also document problems and trends of regression where territorial autonomy is already in place, while arguing that territorial autonomy in authoritarian settings has been analysed far too little. The same goes for political (party) dynamics at different levels of government and their implications for territorial autonomies.

The network of researchers involved in the blog symposium intends to expand and to pursue this effort with recurring events and publications. For now, we guest editors and members of the IACL Research Group on Constitutionalism and Societal Pluralism: Diversity Governance Compared would like to thank all contributors for joining this blog symposium and the editorial team of IACL-AIDC for assisting and hosting us. Stay tuned!    

Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark is Director of the Åland Islands Peace Institute, Professor of Law at Åbo Akademi University (Finland) and member of the IACL Research Group on Constitutionalism and Societal Pluralism: Diversity Governance Compared

Elisabeth Alber is Senior Researcher at the Eurac Research Institute for Comparative Federalism (Italy), a member of the IACL Research Group on Constitutionalism and Societal Pluralism: Diversity Governance Compared, and Lecturer at the University of Innsbruck (Austria)

Suggested Citation: Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark and Elisabeth Alber, ‘Symposium Introduction: The Many Faces of Territorial Autonomy’ IACL-AIDC Blog (19 September 2023) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/territorial-autonomy/2023/9/19/symposium-introduction-the-many-faces-of-territorial-autonomy.