What is national self‐determination? Nationality and psychology during the apogee of nationalism*

Abstract. The idea of national self‐determination propounded at the 1919 peace conference centred in Paris marked a new era in international relations. In this article I re‐examine the history of the idea of national self‐determination in this period by situating it in the context of ‘the psychological turn’. I argue that national self‐determination came to serve as a popular philosophical basis for post‐war democracy among Entente liberals at a time when the Enlightenment equivalence between democracy and ‘self‐determination’ was under challenge from new scientific depictions of the unconscious and irrational, and the biologically determined self. The focus of my discussion is the psychological discourse that threaded through the versions of national self‐determination articulated by British and French intellectuals during World War I.     

Geneva's future: reflections on the role of a values‐based city

In a world where most of the great cities are heavily branding themselves to compete for lucrativebusiness, political and sporting events, what future role is there for an international values‐based city like Geneva? This article reflects on the history of ideas that have taken root in Geneva over the centuries and suggests how they might be actively re‐positioned to give the city continuing relevance in the coming century. It looks at eleven political and practical ideas that have hadimportant manifestations in Geneva and have been embodied in some of its international organizations, notably: freedom of movement; free thinking; political self‐determination; compassionate warfare; peace and trade among others. It then argues that, in order to survive as a leading international city, Geneva must develop real expertise on these big‐hitting political issues, improve its ability to deliver on them and create a dynamic alliance of other internationalist valuesbased cities around the world which can mobilize similar concerns and embody a similarly Genevan model of international space.     

Standards of self‐determination and standards of minority‐rights in the post‐communist era: a historical perspective

Abstract. In the recent Yugoslav crisis, the decisions of the international community sparked off a sharp debate on the recognition of self‐determination claims, reminiscent of the debates in the aftermath of the First World War. This article compares and contrasts the principles and practices of the international community in these two periods. It draws a parallel between the simultaneous strengthening of self‐determination norms and minority protection norms, first at Versailles and then in the midst of the recent Balkan crisis. Though the processes showed many similarities, there was one crucial difference: by the time of the Balkan crisis, the international community had come to regard minority autonomies as the most appropriate form of protection for compact minorities in new nation‐states born of ethnic separatism. While in the Versailles system minority protection norms were meant as compensations for the denial of self‐determination, in the Balkan crisis the autonomies were regarded as the highest form of minority protection, which in turn increased the perceived risk of minority separatism in new states. It is in this context that the article presents the debate over the traditional and more recent approaches to the ‘unit question’, which has haunted scholars and policy‐makers ever since the concept of self‐determination emerged as an international norm.     

Reframing Bi‐nationalism in Palestine‐Israel as a Process of Settler Decolonisation

This paper examines some of the emerging critical civil society debates in relation to the one‐state solution being the most appropriate geo‐political arrangement for the articulation of freedom, justice and equality in Palestine‐Israel. This is done with reference to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions’ 2012 statement in support of a bi‐national state and the ensuing critiques it attracted from Palestinian supporters of the one‐state position. Drawing on these debates which have largely revolved around Jewish Israeli rights to political self‐determination in Palestine‐Israel, this paper proposes that alternative versions of self‐determination as cultural rights for the established Hebrew‐speaking national community represent a more inclusive form of self‐determination in the eventuality of decolonisation.     

Partition,consociation, border‐crossing: some lessons from the national conflict in Ireland/Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT. Outlining Ireland's long history of ethno‐national conflict, and the recent protracted ‘peace process’ in Northern Ireland, contextualises a critique of the problems underlying such conflicts, and the difficulties in transforming externally imposed conflict management into self‐sustaining conflict resolution. It is argued that the problems and difficulties are deeply rooted in a thoroughly modern complex of nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty and representative democracy. These are knotted together in a common denominator of territoriality, and the nub of the problem is the ‘double paradox’ of democracy's undemocratic origins in the present. Territoriality, the use of bordered geographical space, is a powerful and ubiquitous mode of social organisation which simplifies social control. But it can grossly oversimplify and distort social realities, particularly at borders and especially where territory is contested, thereby reinforcing other distorting simplifications typically found in ethno‐national conflicts. In consequence, radical remedies are needed if the problems are to be overcome. Making ethno‐national peace paradoxically calls for more creative border‐crossing conflicts around other issues.     

The ambiguities of self‐determination: IGAD and the secession of South Sudan

This paper examines the 1994 Declaration of Principles (DoP) for the resolution of the Sudanese civil war, adopted by the Inter‐Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). This was the only occasion on which an African inter‐state organization included separation as an option for resolving a civil war. It was the basis for South Sudan's independence in 2011. The DoP was drafted by the Ethiopian government, and imposed on belligerent parties, both of which were, at the time, unionist. The paper identifies two concepts of self‐determination within the DoP— independence for colonial territories and the Marxist‐Leninist idea of self‐determination for national groups. The rationale for including both arose from Ethiopian leadership within IGAD. The paper also examines the diverse Sudanese debates on self‐determination, including several strands of nationalism, Islamism, and the ‘New Sudan’ of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). There was radical disagreement among Sudanese on national identity and self‐determination, creating ambiguities that ironically facilitated the exercise in southern self‐determination in 2011. Drawing on documentation of Sudanese negotiations, the paper examines how the DoP unlocked the Sudanese debate on the issue, and how the different concepts fared up to the time of the independence of South Sudan.     

The Ernest Gellner Nationalism Lecture: The Soviet Union,self‐determination,and the creation of the postwar human rights system

The USSR played a key role in the establishment of the post‐World War II human rights system despite its repressive and even murderous domestic record. It forged an alliance with the countries of the Global South in support of decolonization, self‐determination, and social and economic rights, policies opposed by liberal states like the United States, Great Britain, and France. These positions were deeply rooted in the socialist tradition. Moreover, when a human rights movement emerged in the mid‐1960s, its members—in its origins overwhelmingly from the intelligentsia—called not for the overthrow of the Soviet Union but for the fulfilment of Soviet law. The language of rights, proclaimed with such flourish in the 1936 constitution and its successor in 1977, served as the weapon hurled by dissidents as they called on the Soviet government to respect freedom of speech and assembly, and national rights, including the right to emigrate. In turn, the international human rights movement developed from the 1960s to the 1990s largely through support for the Soviet dissident movement, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch prime examples. The Soviet experience is critical to any global history of human rights.     

Contemporary conflicts,cross‐border military operations,and the declining role of the UN: The case of Turkey and Saudi Arabia

This article examines an emerging trend of cross‐border conflicts between states and non‐state actors. It looks at the narratives fronted by Turkey and Saudi Arabia to justify their operations in northern Syria and Yemen, respectively. The authors argue that the increased inaction and lack of influence by the UN in response to such operations reaffirm states as the core actors in international politics and that national security and interests continue to shape the behavior of actors at the international level. The article concludes that the UN needs to adjust to the new forms of conflicts, actors, and behavior being experienced at the international level if it is to retain its relevance as an anchor of peace and international security.     

Territoriality,self‐determination and Crimea after Badinter

The Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia provided the basis of the post‐Cold War territorial settlements in Europe. These included democratization criteria for the recognition of the new states in central Europe and a new territorial concept that allowed the internal borders of federated states to serve as international borders. In the process, the commission endorsed cultural nationalism within fixed borders and encouraged a significant degree of political self‐determination. The commissioners also supported identity nationalism as a genuine aspiration, giving rise to ‘an interesting direction of thought’ concerning the interpretation and meaning of the self‐determination of peoples, and these provoked an enhanced understanding and protection of the rights of minorities. This was to provide a basis for the legitimacy claims not only of Bosnian Serbs and Kosovars, but also of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Crimea.     

North Africa's Spain: peripheral national identities and the nation‐state as neo‐empire

When ethno‐cultural heterogeneity exists and thrives within a nation‐state, social tension and ethno‐nationalist sentiments are not considered surprising. Yet in many nation‐states, various native‐born communities have diverse and potentially contradictory national identities without the desire for self‐determination. In this paper, I explore the circumstances in which ethno‐culturally distinct, peripheral communities may develop variants of the dominant national identity – ensuring that they remain excluded from the national narrative – yet remain part of the nation‐state. To do so, I conduct a comparative analysis of the native‐born Muslim communities in Spain's two North African exclaves. I find that most Muslims are Spanish citizens yet understandings of ‘Spanish‐ness’ appear to vary between the exclaves. I use these findings to propose further steps for refining current conceptualisations of the nation‐state, in an effort to better understand cases in which variations in the dominant national identity exist, but without ethno‐nationalist sentiments.     

Romantic Scotland,tragic England,ambiguous Britain: constructions of ‘the Empire’ in post‐devolution national accounting

ABSTRACT. This article compares the ways in which references to ‘the (British) Empire’ were constructed and used in interview accounts of national identity and domestic politics in Scotland and in England. In Scotland, spontaneous accounts of Empire were typically formulated in conjunction with nationalist moral meta‐narratives. Respondents variously inferred heroic national character from Scotland's role in Empire, or cast Scottish history as an enduring struggle between progressive forces of nationalism and atavistic forces of Anglo‐British colonialism. The construct of Britishness was often seen to derive from, and to be synonymous with, the history of Empire. In England, the Empire story tended to be framed within anti‐nationalist meta‐narratives. Imperialism was generally understood to represent a product of excessive nationalism, and tales of Empire were used to draw exemplary moral lessons concerning the deficiencies of Anglo‐British national character and of the catastrophic consequences of the pursuit of national self‐interest more generally. The existence of Britain, and the construct of Britishness, were generally understood to both predate and postdate the history of Empire.     

“Our Journey,Our Choice,Our Future”: Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ Self‐Government enacted through the Maa‐nulth Treaty with British Columbia and Canada

In 2011, Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations became one of five Nuu‐chah‐nulth Nations on the west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada to implement the Maa‐nulth Treaty with the Province of British Columbia and Canada. Modern treaties are dense and lengthy legal documents that exhaustively set out the obligations of each signatory party. They are heavily criticised for being unjust extensions of colonialism that limit Indigenous self‐determination and transform homelands under settler colonial property regimes. Yet, some First Nations accept these agreements as their chosen path for self‐government in state structures. We document Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ decision‐making that resulted when the Maa‐nulth Treaty was implemented and replaced the Indian Act by analysing the Maa‐nulth Treaty and interviews conducted with Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations leadership. We demonstrate how ?iisaak (respect) and ?uu?a?uk (taking care of) guided Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ self‐government, while nesting this discussion in the complexities and critiques of modern treaties.     

Choosing Peace and Order: National Security and Sovereignty in a North American Borderland, 1837–42

This article considers the international ramifications of the Canadian Rebellions of 1837, in particular their impact on US politics and policy-making as well as on the state of the international border. The Rebellions and the ensuing border raids led to the deployment of US and British forces in the borderlands, not in pursuit of war but in the interest of peace. Ignoring popular agitation in the Canadian colonies and in border states, the British and US governments expressed their commitment to peace and recognised that continued friendly relations required further assertion of central state authority on both sides of the boundary line. Thus, the events of 1837–42 mark an important advance in the development of national security and national sovereignty in North America. This paper expands upon purely national depictions of the Canadian Rebellions and integrates international developments by utilising a borderlands approach and traditional diplomatic history.     

Epistemic justice and everyday nationalism: An auto‐ethnography of transnational student encounters in a post‐war memory and reconciliation project in Kosovo

This contribution introduces an exercise in epistemic justice to the study of everyday nationalism in post‐conflict, transnational (local and international) encounters. It explores how everyday nationalism, in often unexpected and hidden ways, underpinned a cocreational, educational project involving several local (Albanian) and international (British based) university students and staff collaborating on the theme of post‐war memory and reconciliation in Kosovo. The set‐up resembled a microcosm of transnational social encounters in project collaborations in which the problem of nationalism, typically, is associated with one side only: here, the Kosovars. Guided by Goffman's (1982) social interactionist framework, the study employs selected participants' paraethnographic and auto‐ethnographic reflections of their project experiences and practices after the event in order to trace the everyday workings of mutual assumptions and constructions of a national self and other for all sides involved. In this, it explores how the project participants' asymmetric positioning within a wider, global context of unequal power relations shaped their vernacular epistemologies of belonging and identity. It thereby excavated what otherwise taken‐for‐granted criteria can become relevant in such local/international social encounters as reflected upon and how the enduring power imbalances underpinning these might best be redressed.     

“The Gospel Has Always Been Disturbing”: The Centrality of “God's Will” to the Cold War Political Activism of the Reverends Frank Hartley and Alfred Dickie

Religious faith was pivotal to the personal ideologies and radical political activism of the Reverends Alf Dickie and Frank Hartley, both of whom were prominent in the Australian peace movement from 1949 until the early seventies. This article examines Dickie's and Hartley's self‐identification as prophets in the context of the optimism of the post‐war era and its subsequent retreat as the Cold War altered the political climate. It examines how their post‐war political activism was framed by a devout faith in the existence of an objective “truth” with regard to the Cold War, a “truth” based on a self‐styled notion of the “Will of God”. Further, it argues that suffering was understood by these self‐declared prophets to be inherent to their mission and was thus embraced, when ostensibly visited upon them, as an affirmation of the righteousness of their cause. For Dickie and Hartley, an active association with the radical Left was a natural expression of God's Will.     

The Parthenon Marbles as icons of nationalism in nineteenth‐century Britain

Theories of nationalism place native culture at the core of national self‐fashioning. What explains a state's adoption of foreign objects to sustain national identity? In this paper, I argue that the incorporation of the Parthenon Marbles into British public life is an early example of supranational nationalism. The nineteenth‐century ‘art race’ was a competitive field in which European nation‐states vied for prestige. Of the thousands of art trophies that were brought to Britain from Mediterranean and North African countries, the Parthenon Marbles were uniquely iconicised. Using data from period newspapers and official documents, I assert that this was because they were assiduously presented as prenational by British authorities. In this way, they belonged simultaneously to no nation, to every nation, and to Britain. The case demonstrates the emergence of a particular form of national distinctiveness that transcended the smallness of particularity and rose to the level of universal civilisation.     

Equality respecting nationalism and the relevance of culture

ABSTRACT. Both Will Kymlicka (1995) and David Miller (1995) have defended the value of national self‐determination and have argued that a properly organised self‐determining nation respects rather than undermines the equal treatment of all of its members, including ethnic, religious and cultural minorities. I argue that their respective attempts to defend national self‐determination and the equal treatment of all members of the nation are saddled with a serious tension. It is actually quite difficult to coherently argue both that (a) national self‐determination fulfils ethically valuable ends, and that (b) a self‐determining nation can treat all members equally. The equality‐respecting requirement is in tension with the claim that nations secure ethically valuable goods for their members.     

Systems and Boundaries in International History

The recent transnational, global, and cultural turns have challenged international historians to reconsider the approach, purpose, and value of their field. Although the new trends are beneficial to the extent that they challenge the premise that the nation-state should be the primary framework of historical inquiry, the boundaries of international history have expanded too far, and the cultural turn's preoccupation with national discourses at the expense of international structures and processes is diverting the field away from the analysis of the causes of war and the conditions of peace. The author argues that international history should distinguish itself from global and transnational history by drawing clear yet open disciplinary boundaries. Every field of inquiry needs some consensus about what it is, where it is going and why: in other words, an identity, purpose, and values. The author argues that what defines international history is its focus on the origins, structures, processes, and outcomes of international politics, above all the causes of war and the conditions of peace.     

British and Irish Conflict Regulation from Sunningdale to Belfast. Part II: Playing for a draw 1985–1999

Abstract. The fundamental improvement between the Sunningdale and Belfast (or Good Friday) Agreements as conflict regulation processes is the recognition of opposing nationalisms as the core cause of conflict and, by extension, the development of a more symmetrical intergovernmental relationship between British and Irish governments which maximised the basis of consent for addressing conflicting claims to national self‐determination. While the Agreement reflects a liberalisation of opposing nationalisms, it does not represent a ‘post‐nationalist’ solution; the evolution of conflict regulation from 1985 to 1998 reflects a bi‐national trend. The key to cultivating a ‘ripe moment’ for a constitutional settlement was based on the recognition that Northern Ireland's constitutional status needed to be redetermined and that the processes of self‐determination needed to address and modify ‘constitutive’ aspects of sovereignty which preceded partition, as well as ‘regulative’ aspects which have evolved since the Anglo‐Irish Agreement of 1985.     

The necessary indeterminacy of self‐determination: Politics,law and conflict in the Horn of Africa

This article frames a themed collection on Nationalism and Self‐determination in the Horn of Africa. It demonstrates how the praxis of self‐determination in the Horn of Africa has contributed to normative developments. On the basis of case studies of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan/South Sudan this article argues that nationalism and self‐determination have had different meanings in the political cultures across the different countries and have changed over time. We contend that such indeterminacy is unavoidable and should be welcomed. Nationalism is driven by historical circumstances that are contingent and often transitory. Self‐determination claims based on such nationalism are equally contingent and transitory. When the principle of self‐determination gets translated into concrete legal entitlements (for instance, a referendum on independence), it tends to solve one problem only by creating others. Instead, the pursuit and realization of self‐determination require constant political processes.