Interaction mechanisms in ethnic territorial autonomies: review of practices

The article addresses the value of the format of interactions between public authorities and ethnic groups for the effectiveness of regional autonomy in achieving and maintaining balance in interethnic relations. Inadequate and week mechanisms of interactions between public authorities and ethnic groups do not allow coordinating and balancing diverse views and interests of actors involved in so complex field as ethnic regional autonomy. It is of particularly important in conditions of Russia's National Policy Strategy through to 2025 implementation. The issues of institutionalization of interactions between public authorities and ethnic groups in general and advisory bodies’ activity in particular are in the focus of the Strategy. The institutionalization of interactions between public authorities and ethnic groups through the formation of special advisory bodies is widely used in the world, which makes the study of the world regional autonomies’ experience in the field quite necessary. Meanwhile, the advisory bodies are just one of the building blocks of the interactions between public authorities and ethnic groups. The study reviews the spectrum of the mechanisms of interactions between public authorities and ethnic groups in a broad world-wide comparative perspective, including joint committees and commissions, judicial review and arbitration, direct intervention by the international actors, co-optation, collegial political coordination mechanisms, and options for the organization of advisory bodies with the participation of ethnic minorities. The key characteristics of interaction between public authorities and ethnic groups are: 1) sustainability of practices of interaction; 2) inclusiveness, which means a set of actors, included in the process of policy formulation; 3) effectiveness of participating in policy formulation. Institutional forms of these characteristics can vary greatly from case to case.