Cantonalisation
The concept of cantons is linked to Switzerland. The cantons were originally independent political-administrative units; they formed alliances with each other as early as the Middle Ages. It was only later that their cooperation became closer and the present state structure was only established in 1848. The country is still called the Swiss Confederation, but in practical terms, it is now a federation. Despite its smaller size, Switzerland is a more decentralised federation than Austria or Germany. Common affairs mainly concern military affairs; foreign policy and financial policy, while in other matters the cantons still have a high degree of autonomy and exercise general competence. Their autonomy applies, for example, to questions of citizenship, the regulation of cantonal police forces and even certain aspects of the judicial system. The majority of the 26 cantons are German-speaking (19), a minority of them are French-speaking (4) and there is an Italian-speaking canton. In addition to French, German and Italian, Rhaeto-Romanic is also an official language. The population is also religiously heterogeneous (Roman Catholics and Protestants). A model based on strong self-government and linguistic tolerance helped to eliminate ethnic and religious divisions as early as the 19th century. Switzerland had therefore already become an attractive model for researchers and politicians at the turn of the previous century. In Hungary, the bourgeois radical Oszkár Jászi mainly represented this concept, while among the Slovaks the idea of cantons was propagated by Emil Stodola. Cantonalisation is about the creation of cooperative local government territorial units in which one linguistic community is in a clear majority, but where the rights of other linguistic communities are respected. Cantonal self-government concentrates mainly on areas that are important for the daily life of the population, but does not disturb the spheres that threaten the unity of the state. Despite its professional popularity, the cantonal model has been implemented in only a few places in the 20th century. The best example is Bosnia and Herzegovina, restructured after the Dayton Peace Accords (1995), which consists of two territorial entities. While the Republic of Serbia is a unitary state, the Muslim-Croat majority Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of ten cantons. The vast majority of them are dominated by Muslim Bosnians or Croats. The cantons have their own statutes, representative councils, governments and other administrative bodies. The solution devised by the interventionist international community is costly and cumbersome, but it has guaranteed peace for the third decade.