A/79/169 (which depends on the electoral result) but can, in the view of the Special Rapporteur, be considered effective participation. On the other hand, it may result in the political and socioeconomic marginalization of areas where such non-mainstream parties are dominant; in such cases, the degree of territorial or sectoral autonomy will determine the relevance of the outcome. 32. States with a large diversity of groups in the population may have an institutional structure which is not based on group representation but which allows groups a degree of self-rule and/or representation in central decision-making processes. This is the case in federal States such as, Switzerland or Canada, whose institutional State structures, although not based on the representation of linguistic groups, allow a large degree of autonomy as regards linguistic policies in different parts of the country. The federal structure also usually helps with regard to recognizing the contributions of minority groups to the federal institutions, through the composition of a second chamber of parliament. However, one should not conclude that federal structures necessarily facilitate the capacity of persons belonging to minorities to participate in decision-making processes. For example, Australia, Brazil, Mexico and the United States of America have federal structures that do not per se facilitate the participation of persons belonging to minorities in decision-making processes, although neither do they hinder such participation. Outside of federal institutional arrangements, decentralization, devolution or regionalization processes may, within a unitary State, and depending on the distribution of populations 58 and competencies, also offer solutions in which the participation of persons belonging to a minority group in decision-making at the subnational level may lend their voice more weight in decisions of direct concern to their situation. However, such institutional schemes do not allow specific effective participation of persons belonging to minorities in decision-making at the national level. X. Self-rule (autonomy) 33. Autonomy means the capacity of members of a polity to adopt their own rules (from the ancient Greek for self (auto) and rules (nomos). Naturally, this appears to be an obvious solution for participating in “decisions … concerning the minority to which they belong”. 59 The question as to the granting or recognition of autonomy concerns the degree of diversity that is tolerated within a sovereign State, in order to accommodate the specificities of its diverse population. In other words, are they domains (such as education, cultural policy or relations with religious communities) that may be regulated differently for the majoritarian population and minority groups? In the Special Rapporteur’s view, a minority-sensitive institutional design should be built around a subsidiarity principle. In such institutional logic, the relevant approach should not be to question whether a minority issue in a specific field (such as education) should be dealt with differently for persons belonging to a minority group than it is for the whole population of the State. The appropriate question is whether such a field needs to be tackled by a single common approach at the State level, or whether different groups (majority on one side, minority or minorities on the other) could manage that field in different ways. For example, in States in which there are populations with different mother tongues, should the educat ional system be organized and regulated at the State level, with possible exceptions for some minority groups, or should education be organized by each linguistic group, according to its __________________ 58 59 24-13136 See para. 23 above. General Assembly resolution 47/135, annex, art. 2, para. 3. 17/20