Choice of Case, Theoretical Framework, and Method

I will use the explanatory case study of the Danish minority in South Schleswig to demonstrate the inherent territoriality of the concept of national minority as well as the dilemmas inherent in applying this concept. The former duchy of Schleswig is an interesting case of a border region, where historic processes have led to a division of an economically and socially integrated region. This division incurred after a long nineteenth century of national awakening, national conflict, and power politics, combined with elements of national assimilation policies and eventually national self-determination. After the division of the region in 1920, the dissenters were offered national minority status based on self-identification, along with cultural self-administration. This has resulted in the institutionalization of a German minority in Danish North Schleswig and a Danish minority in German South Schleswig, with separate schools, church congregations, and cultural associations, effectively making it possible to live as a Dane in South Schleswig and as a German in North Schleswig from cradle to grave.

NTA is deeply imbedded into the study of nationalism and nationalization processes. The historiography of nationalism usually differentiates between the primordialist approach on the ethnic origin of nations (Smith Reference Smith1987; Gat Reference Gat2013), social constructivist approaches on imagined communities (Anderson Reference Anderson1983), and especially constructed or even invented nations (Hobsbawm and Ranger Reference Hobsbawm and Ranger1983). In the latter, elites mobilize populations with some joined ethnocultural characteristics, especially language, into eventually, ideally, forming homogeneous nations (Hroch Reference Hroch2005). The process of nationalization often aligned with democratization – democracy craving the formation of a demos as universally accepted group of people to rule with clear demarcation of who belongs to the demos and who does not. It also coincided with the disintegration of European empires. While predominant for the self-understanding of contemporary European states, nationalization was never complete: national indifference has existed widely (Zahra Reference Zahra2010), but also what we understand as national minorities reflect the ambivalence of aligning ethnicity, nationality, and state in nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first-century Europe.

The concepts of national minority and NTA are in-built in the concept of the nation as a homogeneous, primordial, stable community. The dilemma of imperfect geographical borders, cultural border zones, and ethnic diversity within set geographical spaces, on the one hand, and the aim to delineate homogeneous nation states, on the other hand, should be solved by consolidating diversity into national minorities and NTA. The reality of multicultural societies and conglomerate empires of the nineteenth century consisting of territories accumulated mostly by dynastic processes was confronted with a new form of b/ordering space (Houtum, Kramsch, and Zierhofer Reference Houtum, Kramsch and Zierhofer2005). Democratization and nationalization resulted in more or less successful alignments of the map of Europe to civil, ethnic, and democratic nation states. Here, the concept of national minority as a clearly bounded, stable, endemically reproduced community was invented and paternalistically applied in twentieth-century re-borderings of the map of Europe, most prominently in the post-World War I peace order.

Non-territorial autonomy (NTA) covers arrangements where members of ethno-cultural minorities have been granted national cultural autonomy, functional cultural autonomy, or simply cultural autonomy as individuals – functional autonomy as a cluster of regulations and deregulations ensuring self-governance of minority institutions being the most common (Malloy Reference Malloy, Malloy and Salat2021, 3). NTA thus could be characterized as a form of political decentralization, with minority institutions coexisting with state institutions with similar functions (Malloy Reference Malloy, Malloy and Salat2021, 5). It has been hailed as a good model for accommodation of ethnonational groups that cannot claim rights to a territorial homeland (Malloy Reference Malloy, Malloy and Salat2021, 3). Central to NTA is the focus on individuals enjoying cultural rights – not on groups or territories (ibid.). Nevertheless, these rights are administered by institutions of the group (ibid.), which does not eliminate the notion of minorities as stable, institutionalized groups with a defined membership. NTA is, as such, a static concept: it shall guarantee cultural, linguist, and sometimes religious autonomy of a historic ethnocultural group diverging from the titular nation of the state and thereby preserving this group and its apparent difference.

Despite its origins as a non-territorial concept attempting to manage diversity within the conglomerate Habsburg empire, I argue that it has become inherently territorial in its actual application and implementation. This is mainly because of the concept of autochthonous national minorities being territorial: autochthony refers to the minority’s ties to a territory, and the concept refers to ethnocultural groups residing within a territorially demarcated state. It becomes a dilemma that NTA, rightly evading the establishment of territorial autonomy by guaranteeing cultural autonomy, nevertheless is supposed to institutionalize an autochthonous minority culture, which, with the possible exception of dispersed and historically nomadic minorities such as the European Sinti and Roma, has references to a territory of residence.

The Strukturdebat (debate on the structure of minority self-governance) within the Danish minority in South Schleswig is here used as an example to demonstrate the challenges of a socially integrated minority, as it demands societal bordering, a clear narrative of “us” and “them” to define political rights, and, finally, a notion of territory based on the minority’s historical self-understanding. The case study is based on my own and others’ research on the Schleswig case and observation of recent developments within the triad of minority self-understanding, kin-state policies, and the relations between the minority and its state of residence and citizenship. I will use the discourses within the Danish minority of South Schleswig, as reflected in the minority’s daily newspaper Flensborg Avis as a source for the strukturdebat on the perceived democratic deficits, the lack of efficiency of the current structure of minority self-governance, and the models discussed to overcome these issues. This article will critically reflect on the implementation of NTA in Schleswig and the underlying concept of a national minority as an identifiable, bordered parallel society and the complications this concept implies for implementation of NTA.

The Schleswig-Case: A European Model?

The Schleswig region (geographically understood as the former duchy of Schleswig) is widely perceived as a model of successful border-delineation based on national self-determination and subsequent reconciliation and accommodation of national, linguistic, and cultural binarity in a majority-minority framework with wide-ranging cultural autonomy and respect for active kin-state involvement in culture and education (Klatt Reference Klatt2015; Kühl and Weller Reference Kühl and Weller2005; Kühl Reference Kühl2005b; Kühl and Bohn Reference Kühl and Bohn2005); but also acknowledging deficits in the deep implementation of the model and its susceptibility to crisis (Klatt Reference Klatt2014; Kühl Reference Kühl2012; Hughes, Megoran, and Benwell Reference Hughes, Megoran and Benwell2020). The region was divided between Denmark and Germany in 1920 after national mobilization and conflict, two wars, and national assimilation policies in the long nineteenth century. A plebiscite was implemented to confirm a nationally optimal border drawn along a line previously decided upon by Danish experts and politicians (Fink Reference Fink1979, Reference Fink1995). The dissenters of the plebiscite (the 25 percent who had voted for Germany in North Schleswig and the 20 percent who had voted for Denmark in South Schleswig) were accommodated as – or rather mobilized and assimilated into – national minorities, based on subjective self-identification. Both minorities have since provided their members a parallel institutional framework governing their cultural, religious, and linguistic affairs, as supported by the respective kin-state (Kühl Reference Kühl, Kühl, Bohn, Danker, Pohl and Ruck2005a).

Mobile Minorities

The minority’s institution’s territorial restriction to South Schleswig was challenged by breaking news on March 26, 2015, when the Danish minority newspaper Flensborg Avis, together with other Danish newspapers, reported that the Danish minority had doubled in size. Instead of the commonly accepted assessment of 50,000 minority members (for the methods of assessment, see Kühl Reference Kühl, Kühl, Bohn, Danker, Pohl and Ruck2005c), a study based on a representative telephone survey had assessed the minority to number 104,000, with a 95 percent confidence interval ranging from 75,000 to 134,000 (Schaefer-Rolffs and Knapp Reference Schaefer-Rolffs and Knapp2015, 5). The immediate surprise was clarified easily: Schaefer-Rolffs’ and Knapp’s telephone survey covered not just historic South Schleswig but the full federal state of Schleswig-Holstein and the city of Hamburg, which has federal state status in Germany. The study has a methodological weakness, as only 95 of the 2,500 interviewed identified with the minority (ibid., 7). Nevertheless, the study estimates about 42,000 minority members residing in South Schleswig, about 37,000 in Holstein (predominantly in the state capital Kiel and counties belonging to the Hamburg metropolitan region), and about 25,000 in Hamburg.

Furthermore, the study provides interesting facts about the geographic and intercommunity mobility of minority members. The first is not surprising regarding the fact that South Schleswig is a peripheral region of Germany with few opportunities for higher education and a rather narrow labor market. Historically, out-migration had played a role in the late nineteenth century (Nielsen Reference Nielsen1994); it had been a threat to a stable Danish minority in the interwar years when many young minority members migrated to Denmark after graduating from school to find work (Thomsen Reference Thomsen2020) as well as from the German economic recovery in the 1950s (Henningsen, Klatt, and Kühl Reference Henningsen, Klatt and Kühl1998; Henningsen Reference Henningsen2009). For the latter, intercommunity mobility is demonstrated by two-thirds of the interviewed residing in Schleswig-Holstein and all residing in Hamburg claiming to be the only minority member in their household (Schaefer-Rolffs and Knapp Reference Schaefer-Rolffs and Knapp2015, 7).

A more controversial aspect of intercommunity mobility is the issue of “recruitment” of apparently German families into the minority. This discourse has often focused on perceived material reasons for people to join the minority associations and institutions, as minority affiliation is a subjective decision not based on any objective, measurable criteria. It was especially outspoken in times of German crisis such as the loss of World War I (Jebsen and Klatt Reference Jebsen and Klatt2014; Fink Reference Fink1979) and World War II (Noack Reference Noack1991) but has resurfaced during the latest crisis in the Schleswig minority NTA in 2010–2012 when the Schleswig-Holstein government unilaterally reduced its funding of the minority schools (Kühl Reference Kühl2012; Klatt Reference Klatt2014; Hughes, Megoran, and Benwell Reference Hughes, Megoran and Benwell2020). This phenomenon of apparent nationality change still puzzles observers; and material reasons are still perceived as a driving factor especially in the southern parts of South Schleswig (Bittlinger Reference Bittlinger, Bendix, Ege, Hess, Lipp and Näser2020).

Nationalization processes, not only in borderlands, have been multifaceted and national indifference has remained an important category (Zahra Reference Zahra2010; Judson and Rozenblit Reference Judson and Rozenblit2005). It has also become academic standard to analyze identity not as a stable phenomenon but as a series of historical, individual, but also collective processes (among others, De Boer et al. Reference De Boer, Petersen, Spierings, Van der Velde, De Boer, Petersen, Spierings and Van der Velde2020). Spatial identities in Schleswig have remained far from clear during history (Klatt Reference Klatt, Andersen, Klatt and Sandberg2012). Waves of national mobilization could be tied to different social crises (Klatt Reference Klatt2019, Reference Klatt, de Boer, Petersen, Spierings and van der Velde2020). In the Kaiserreich, but also in the interwar years, social mobilization superseded national mobilization of Danish working-class members (Klatt Reference Klatt, Duhamelle, Kossert and Struck2007; Schartl Reference Schartl1999). Today, the high degree of mixed marriages and intercommunity mobility is also confirmed in a survey implemented in 2018 among high school students at the AP Møller School in Schleswig city: here, only 3 percent of the students came from families where both parents had attended a minority school, while another 30 percent came from families where one parent had attended a minority school. The remaining two-thirds came from parents who had not attended a minority school, which induced the author of the study, the school’s headmaster prof. Jørgen Kühl, to introduce the term post-national minority into minority studies to differentiate between a core group of minority members with multi-generational ties to the minority and a clear self-perception of being a part of the Danish nation and minority members with a looser connection to Danish nationality and a more bicultural self-perception (Kühl Reference Kühl and Kühl2018).

The following case study will illustrate how social and geographical mobility challenge the socially and, in my opinion, also geographically static concept of NTA.

Possible New Structures

The nine administrative directors of all the minority’s institutions collaborated on a study on the minority’s administrative structure to have a basis for negotiation, which was presented in June 2020. It suggested four models for the minority’s future self-governance:

Figure 1 illustrates the models discussed. Model A is based on the present structure but envisages a merger of the three largest associations within the minority, the school association Dansk Skoleforening for Sydslesvig, the cultural association Sydslesvigsk Forening, SSF (South-Schleswigian Association), and the youth associations’ umbrella association Sydslesvigs danske ungdomsforeninger, into two new associations: a School- and Culture Association and a Culture- and Leisure Association. This would put an end to the rivalry between the SSF, which often is perceived (and maintains to be) the core minority’s association, and the School Association, which by offering education and by attracting new families to the minority plays a key role to maintain it. Model B transforms the present Samråd from a coordination forum to a decision-making assembly of delegates elected by the different associations on their annual business meetings. This would create a members-based minority parliament to make all key decisions, based on majority voting. Model C intends to unite the different minority association into an umbrella organization Sydslesvigsk Råd (South Schleswigian Council) that would be membership based. This Council should have a secretariat and competence to sign binding legal agreements for the whole minority. It should also function as contact point for external cooperation with majority civil society as well as majority and kin-state politicians. The key argument provided for model C is that it will strengthen the minority politically, as the council will have full decision-making competence and be the minority’s spokesperson (Flensborg Avis, June 4, 2020). In effect, it would empower the minority’s general secretary and the joint chairman to represent a minority government. Model D will merge all minority associations to form one association, with a parliament, including parliamentary committees, elected by minority members, and a single administration. Although not directly outspoken in the draft, this would imply a form of registration of minority membership in a cadaster, a breach with the tradition of non-registration. According to the authors, every aspect was on the table, and there were no taboos (Flensborg Avis, June 5, 2020). The authors’ perception of major challenges were digitalization and individualization (e.g., fewer people committed themselves to voluntary work, fewer people attended events), globalization (e.g., being national becoming out of fashion, minority institutions as a form of globalized education, which is in conflict with the self-understanding of the School Association). For the authors, this implied that the minority needed to be more conscious about itself and what it means to be a national minority (ibid.).

Figure 1. Flensborg Avis, June 4, 2020, p. 8.

The different models were discussed informally over the summer of 2020, facilitated by the minority’s newspaper Flensborg Avis (July 16, 20, 23, 27, 31, August 5, 8, 12). In different “structural picknicks” around South Schleswig, different stakeholders in the minority were asked to discuss structure based on the models proposed. These picknicks, as presented in the newspaper, were carried through in a friendly atmosphere. Lego bricks were available to visualize different models of how to organize the minority. While thus being very open and diverse, there was consensus on the present structure being problematic with regard to democracy and inclusion of minority members. Surprisingly, the democratic element had a spatial dimension, with complaints about the dominance of Flensburg over the remainder of South Schleswig. Many criticized that power was concentrated in Flensburg, where the minority institutions have their headquarters. Another issue was lack of commitment to voluntary work from members as well as institutional staff and a hope that this could improve with a more democratic, inclusive organizational structure. Concretely, this did not materialize, and neither was there much open approval of one of the four models. Just one district chair clearly approved model D and argued explicitly that the Danish minority in South Schleswig should be organized as Denmark’s 99th municipality (Flensborg Avis, August 8, 2020). The chairman of the South Schleswig Association announced in September 2020 that the formal debate on the future structure of the minority would be postponed to 2021, “when the members will be included in depth into the debate” (my translation, Flensborg Avis, September 15, 2020).

On June 12, 2021, the Samråd reopened the debate at a closed meeting with input from kin-state stakeholders (Flensborg Avis, June 9, 2021). This was a new turn, as kin-state representatives had hitherto been rather reluctant on advising the minority about its internal structure. In the meeting, former Danish minister of culture and former chairman of Grænseforeningen, Mette Bock, encouraged starting a discussion about replacing the Samråd, an institution without a democratic mandate, with an elected body (Flensborg Avis, June 15, 2021). Henrik Becker-Christensen, a historian and Danish Consul General in Flensburg from 1998 to 2017, suggested strengthening the Samråd by introducing majority voting and supplementing it with a broader South Schleswig Council (Flensborg Avis, June 17/19).