Norbert Tribl: Synopsis

The research and the upcoming book underlying the presentation focused on the legal protection and normative regulation of symbols of comprehensive communities, which are of paramount importance to society and which permeate (most of) a given society. The framework of social coexistence is the state; the ideological basis of the state and the ultimate source of its identity, as well as its main basis of legitimacy, is the nation, either in its political or in its cultural sense. The constitutive elements of the state are also those traditional communities whose identity and autonomy are traditionally such values that deserve to be protected. The principles and values of these communities are embodied or expressed in (a system of) symbols which is not only an expression of collective self-identification, but also a force for community building (or preservation) in itself.