National Self-Determination: A Theoretical Discussion

Abstract

The principle of national self-determination has been haunting the world since the French Revolution. In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union alone 20 new “nation-states” were created in the 1990s—200 years after the French Revolution. They were all established on the basis of the principle of national self-determination. There may be no other term in modern political discourse which is used with more emotion and passion. Recent history has known many wars fueled by conflicting interpretations of self-determination. Woodrow Wilson thought that implementation of the principle of self-determination would lead to a better world, a world without wars and “safe for democracy.” His secretary of state, Robert Lansing, had doubts. He suspected the concept of self-determination to be “loaded with dynamite” and capable of causing even more bloodshed because it “will raise hopes which can never be realized.”