Why Territorial Communities Demand and Why States Grant Autonomy: Conceptual and Methodological Framework for a Comparative Analysis of Autonomy-building in Western Europe

In recent decades, territorial communities below the traditional nation-state have become of growing importance for both the exercise of political sovereignty and collective popular identification. When autonomy is conferred to historic territorial communities with distinctive linguistic, cultural or historical characteristics, states face the paradox that this conferral can lead either to the accommodation or to the amplification of self-governance claims. In Western Europe, some territorial communities (1) demanded and obtained autonomy, others (2) demanded but did not obtain autonomy, (3) did not demand but obtained autonomy, and (4) did neither demand nor obtain autonomy. This paper exposes a conceptual and methodological framework for a research that aims at understanding how one gets to these four scenarios. By defining ‘territorial communities’ as territories inhabited since long by a human community with distinctive linguistic, cultural or historical characteristics, it tries to bridge both the personal and territorial approach of autonomy and to leave room for the overlap and intensity of both to vary from case to case. By defining ‘autonomy’ as a self-governance right constituted by the three dimensions of empowerment, self-rule and shared rule, it develops a ‘Relative Autonomy Scale’ which allows to compare territorial communities’ autonomy statute not only absolutely, but also relatively vis-à-vis a qualitative anchor distinguishing between the presence and absence of the concept of autonomy. By identifying the potential factors accounting for both the demands and conferral of autonomy, and by developing methodological considerations on the combination of large-n macro level analyses and in-depth within case studies, it lays the groundwork for a comparative analysis of autonomy building in Western Europe.