Institutional reforms scenarios for Hungarian territorial communities: Comparative analysis of Romania, Slovakia and Serbia

Introduction: Romania, Slovakia and Serbia are nation states in which significant Hungarian ethnic territorial communities are settled. The communities are regularly articulating regionalist demands for granting/expansion of autonomy and minority rights. Thus, the states are faced with the challenge of managing such political-territorial heterogeneity, which is an important research topic. The subject of this article is the institutional management of political-territorial heterogeneity in relation to Hungarian ethnic minorities by the national center in Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. The research focuses on institutional reforms for the management of political-territorial heterogeneity in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia, concerning the Hungarian ethnic community as a territorial community. Objectives: to determine the scenarios of institutional reform as a mechanism for managing political-territorial heterogeneity in relation to Hungarian communities used by the national governments of Romania, Serbia and Slovakia in the period 1990–2020s. Methods: comparative small-N analysis, comparative-oriented case study. Results: cases of institutional reforms as a mechanism for managing political-territorial heterogeneity regarding the Hungarian territorial communities demonstrate different scenarios: the national governments of Romania and Slovakia demonstrate similar scenarios (European integration as a significant incentive, limited pragmatic decentralization, territorial reconfiguration to limit the structural power of the Hungarian community, similar institutional formats of subnational units autonomies ); Serbia stands out for its own structural and institutional specifics (virtual absence of external incentives, orientation towards the Hungarian community and regionalist actors, a clear vision of the institutional configuration of the autonomy). Conclusions: the studied scenarios of institutional reform are mechanisms for managing political-territorial heterogeneity in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia and contribute to the elimination of threats to territorial integrity.