National Minorities and Self-rule Autonomy: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Diverging Minority Rights in Western Europe

Western European states have conferred very different degrees of group autonomy to their historic national minorities. This diversity appears to be puzzling insofar as both large and small groups have obtained both significant and few self-rule autonomy. Most studies have until now focused on large sub-national groups that have been integrated in the nation-building process through regional or federal arrangements, or consist in individual case studies of smaller national minorities. Since it is
important, however, to understand why states with common democratic standards confer different degrees of autonomy to their national minorities, this paper studies with a Multi-value Qualitative Comparative Analysis (mvQCA) of 51 national minorities in Western Europe what factors led states to confer them self-rule autonomy and why these rights differ for supposedly similar groups.
The findings of the analysis suggest that the conferral of self-rule autonomy has to be understood through the complex interaction of at least seven variables. The support of a (1) kin-state, of (2) (co-)national minorities or of (3) similar minorities abroad appear to contribute to the conferred rights. The (4) openness of state nationalisms and the (5) territorial concentration of a minority prove to be important for the conferral of considerable autonomy statutes. While the relevance of (6) minorities’ size is ambiguous, (7) the degree of group mobilization appears to be an important necessary but, interestingly, non-sufficient condition for obtaining self-rule autonomy.