Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The protection of linguistic minorities as a field of inquiry -- Chapter 2. Discursive spaces and the protection of minorities: historical, institutional and ideological conditions of knowledge production -- Chapter 3. Production of discourse and institutional constraints: the search for objectivity -- Chapter 4. State divergences and the principle of universality: a protection through absence -- Chapter 5. Ambivalence, particularism and the reproduction of state interests: a limited protection -- Chapter 6. Institutional continuity, the management of paradoxes and state consensus: a controlled protection -- Chapter 7. Conclusion -- Backmatter