Sara Barbieri has completed her PhD at the Advanced School of History of the University of San Marino. She teaches at the Second Cycle Degree Master MIREES of the University of Bologna, Forlì Campus. Her research focuses primarily on minority issues in Russia and in the Balkans, with a special attention to the study of Non-Territorial Arrangements for the management of diversities.
Recognition of group rights implies the development of conceptual frameworks and institutional arrangements able to guarantee the representation of national diversities in the socio-political life of the state. Moving from this consideration, a set of research activities and joint projects have been initiated in the last years with the aim to debate alternative socio-political arrangements able to address the problem of inclusion of National Minorities/Communities. Particularly relevant in this trend of investigations is the new momentum gathered by the discussion of the National-Cultural Autonomy Principle as an alternative to the territorialization of ethnicity.
The National-Cultural Autonomy Principle stands on the interpretation given by Karl Renner of the contrasting nature of state and nation, and on his criticism of the ‘territorial principle' presumed to underlie the construction of the modern Nation-State.
The research wants to investigate the Ottoman Millet System and to discuss its structure and functioning in relation to the idea of National-Cultural Autonomy advanced by Austro-Marxists at the end of the XIX century. The specific objective of the analysis is to present similarities and differences of the two models, especially addressing their conceptual foundations and structural organization. The Millet System and National-Cultural Autonomy will also be examined in relation to the idea of segmental/functional autonomy advanced by Lijphart in his definition of Consociational Democracy. The result of this comparison will be discussed within the broader framework of the above-mentioned debate on Non-territorial arrangements as instruments of management of diversities in multinational states.
