Autonomy Arrangements in the World

In a speech to the Corsican Regional Assembly, Emmanuel Macron proposed a constitutional text to build Corsican autonomy within the French State. France's President proposed a constitutional text to Corsica's elected representatives to build autonomy for the island "without any disengagement from the state". "It will not be autonomy against the State, nor autonomy without the State, but autonomy for Corsica and within the republic," he explained. Read more...

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 is 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. Read all contributions here.

This open-access volume explores current and historical struggles for autonomy within ancestral territories, experiences of self-governance in operation, and presents an overview of achievements, challenges, and threats across three decades. Case studies across Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, and Canada provide a detailed discussion of autonomy and self-governance in development and in practice. Paying special attention to the role of Indigenous peoples’ organizations and activism in pursuing sociopolitical transformation, securing rights, and confronting multiple dynamics of dispossession, this book engages with current debates on Indigenous politics, relationships with national governments and economies, and the multicultural and plurinational state. This book will spark critical reflection on political experience and further exploration of the possibilities of the self-determination of peoples through territorial autonomies. Read more…

The aim of this open-access textbook is to introduce, for the first time, the students to a comprehensive reading offering the opportunity to learn more on different aspects and issues around the multifaceted and evolving concept of non-territorial autonomy (NTA), which is a group rights model to deal with national diversity within states. The textbook comprises thematic topics and a selection of multi-and interdisciplinary as well as comparative overviews of an emerging research field. It also demonstrates from different angles—theoretical considerations, historical background, and practical implementation—the possibilities of NTA in addressing cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences. It thereby provides non-territorial solutions to one of the key societal challenges in contemporary societies. Read more...