The research aims to introduce an institutional analysis approach to understanding of state-minority relations, and more specifically to explore how the newly independent states in the broader post-Soviet and post-socialist space developed their institutional frameworks for national minorities. For this purpose, it draws empirically from two case studies – Slovakia and Azerbaijan as examples of states which followed similar historical and institutional trajectories, and yet subsequently took very different state-building path in their post-socialist developments. Roma and Lezgin as significant minority communities living in the peripheries of these states are the empirical focus of this research endeavour. The study introduces an overarching definition of an institutional framework, consisting of policy and legal basis, institutional structures, organisations and networks, and institutional mechanisms to allow for a mapping of evolution and change in institutional frameworks of state-minority relations for the two case studies of Azerbaijan from the 1920s and Slovakia from 1960s. The study draws from archival research, interviews, and document analysis. It develops and employs an analytical framework drawing from Skocpol’s consideration of structural factors and Ostrom’s multi-level institutional analysis to understand the processes of radical and incremental institutional change, which show practically opposite trends in the two case studies. While Slovakia radically redefined and diversified its institutional framework for national minorities, and Roma in particular, at different institutional levels, Azerbaijan did not experience an effective institutional change at the formal level, with informal institutions playing a more formative role. Overall, the study endeavours to offer a more dynamic institutional approach to minority studies, which are currently dominated by the more static regime- and rights-based approaches, and thus contribute with a prospectively useful framework for understanding the developments of state-minority relations in the broader post-Soviet space and beyond.