Description
Austria-Hungary is considered to be one of the first states to institutionalize the rights of national minorities, at least in some areas. Contemporaries also held fundamental discussions about which models were suitable for guaranteeing a balance of interests between state power and minorities - a debate that also met with international interest. During the First World War, the political persecution of potentially disloyal groups led to the dismantling and therefore the deinstitutionalization of this minority rights' system. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, however, the concepts developed also served as a point of reference for some states - such as Estonia, Latvia and Czechoslovakia - when implementing minority rights. The victorious powers also attempted to institutionalize a system for the protection of minorities within the framework of the League of Nations in order to contain inter-state conflicts and ensure the loyalty of new citizens. This system proved to be ineffective in mitigating conflicts over border demarcations. This presentation attempts a comparative analysis of the failure of both approaches to the formation of legal systems for national minorities from the perspective of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization. It examines the motives and implementation of the legal models as well as the corresponding power constellations. It attempts to identify factors that caused continuity and disruption. It also asks what changes the concepts that emerged in Austria-Hungary underwent and what effects their implementation had in post-imperial contexts. Finally, against the background of preliminary developments in Austria-Hungary, the mechanisms and ambivalences of the League of Nations' minority rights system are also assessed.
