Self-determination of Ethnic Minorities: Comparative Analysis of Policy Scenarios

This paper focuses on the ethnic minorities’ self-determination issue as in globalizing world, ethnic conflicts became crucial for public policy agenda. Because of that, it is very important to comprehend what strategies are used by the conflict parties, which are state and ethnic minorities, for getting the most favorable result. The theory of self-determination states that actions of public policy actors could be defines as autonomous and heteronomous. (Deci, & Ryan, 1985). Because of that we can say, when states chose to grant autonomy to ethic minorities, it tells about the fact that they aspire to the highest degree of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy in Western Europe and the countries of the Anglo-Saxon legal family in terms of ethnic issues is taking a course on multiculturalism (Bromell, 2008). However, the main concern of states is to preserve their territorial integrity, while ethnic minorities tend to realize the right of self-determination at different levels. Thus, the goal of our paper is to identify applicable strategies of ethnic minorities and states interaction for resolving the issue of self-determination. We attempt to answer the following questions: What political strategies do ethnic minorities help to realize the right of self-determination? What strategies do governments help to avoid the ethnic conflict saving the public order and avoiding the undermining of territorial integrities of states? By approximating the findings of our research, we want to stress on the fact the most favorable strategy for states is granting autonomy to ethnic minorities within the framework of the the policy of multiculturalism in order to preserve the territorial integrity and security public order. Therefore, it does not exclude the possibility of ethnic minorities’ self-determination of at the state level.