Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T01:06:13.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

21 - Self-Determination and National Sovereignty

from Part III - Intersections: National(ist) Synergies and Tensions with Other Social, Economic, Political, and Cultural Categories, Identities, and Practices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2023

By
Alain Dieckhoff
Edited by
Cathie Carmichael ,
Matthew D'Auria  and
Aviel Roshwald
Cathie Carmichael
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Matthew D'Auria
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Aviel Roshwald
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Get access

Summary

Developing “friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples” is one of the purposes of the United Nations Organization, as stated in the founding charter of 1945. The principle of self-determination has even become a right through the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (December 1960). The Declaration states that: “All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” Self-determination has thus entered international law. Strangely enough, however, nowhere are the bearers of this right defined: who are the peoples entitled to claim self-determination? This omission is not there by chance. Indeed, the definition of peoplehood is far from evident. Should a people be defined on a territorial basis, i.e. include all the population living within a given territory delimited by given boundaries?

Keywords

NationSovereigntyBoundariesself-determinationFranceGermanyEastern EuropeWoodrow Wilson
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism , pp. 467 - 484
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Breuilly, John, The State of Germany: The National Idea in the Making, Unmaking and Remaking of a Modern Nation-State (London: Longman, 1992).Google Scholar
Dieckhoff, Alain, Nationalism and the Multination State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).Google Scholar
Greenfeld, Liah, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Manela, Erez, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origin of Anticolonial Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, David, On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Nipperdey, Thomas, Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck, 1800–1866 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).Google Scholar
Schulze, Hagen, States, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).Google Scholar
Smith, L. V., Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamir, Yael, “The Right to National Self-Determination,” Social Research, 58/3 (Fall 1991), 565–590.Google Scholar
Weber, Max, Economy and Society (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×