Quadratic Nexus
Starting from Rogers Brubaker’s triadic nexus, many scholars have argued that this three-element model should be supplemented with a fourth element, namely, the international organizations. On a conceptual level, Brubaker’s triadic nexus—which links national minorities, nationalizing states, and external national homelands—is extremely powerful and has lent itself to numerous empirical applications, particularly in relation to autochthonous kin-minorities in Eastern and Southern Europe. However, it almost completely ignores international organizations, which play a crucial role in shaping the dynamics of state-building, identity formation, and the politics of national minorities in the contemporary world. While Brubaker’s model was effective for understanding the historical dynamics in Europe, it does not fully address how international pressures and external norms interact with national governments and minority groups in the current global context. Thus, the quadratic nexus offers a more nuanced and comprehensive framework for understanding the intersection of national identity, state sovereignty, minority rights, and international influence. In the Hungarian case, an example of the quadratic nexus would be the interrelationship between the Hungarian community in Romania (as a national minority), Romania (as a nationalizing state), Hungary (as an external national homeland), and European institutions such as the Venice Commission, which is an advisory body of the Council of Europe (as an international organization).