Principles of Autonomy*

Abstract

Autonomy has two faces, individual autonomy and institutional autonomy. Political systems not only deal with demands for individual freedom, the traditional rights of citizens to freedom of opinion, association and contract. Institutional autonomy is a pervasive property of all kinds of political systems. To international political systems just as to local and regional political systems, autonomy is a basic property. Both types of systems face the difficult task of maintaining stable relations with the nation state, securing an amount of control for the nation state while retaining some autonomy for themselves. The demand of various regions for independence or semiindependence within nation states has been a dominant theme in the politics of the sixties and the seventies. The autonomy of the nation state is its sovereignty. International political systems present a threat to the autonomy of the nation state, while at the same time they may provide mechanisms by means of which other sources of infringements on autonomy may be counteracted. Autonomy is a fundamental political property. A theoretical understanding of autonomy is conducive to the explanation of those aspects of political systems that are related to stability. Such an interpretation may place autonomy in an equilibrium analysis of how demand and supply of autonomy interacts with other basic political properties like influence and control.