The national self-determination doctrine proclaims the freedom of the people of a given territory to determine their own political status or independence from their current state. Daniel Hannan this morning defends the right of the South Ossetians to self-determination, proclaiming that it applies just as much to South Ossetia versus Georgia as it does to Kosovo versus Serbia, Bosnia versus Yugoslavia, and the UK versus the EU. And, of course, the logic of the self-determination doctrine obliges him to hold this position. But the doctrine itself, though seductive and often producing answers that we like, is deeply flawed and should be rejected.
In the modern era, the concept of national self-determination is usually traced back to the revolt of the American colonists against the British. When the Southern States attempted to break away from the Union, self-determination turned out to be a doctrine Americans discovered had limits. Nonetheless, the doctrine in its modern form became pushed heavily towards the end of World War I, driven by two closely-related notions. First, there was the view of Woodrow Wilson, then American President. Amongst the "fourteen points" he and his team of 150 advisors ("The Inquiry") developed were several that demanded self-determination for the peoples of the European Empires and the setting of borders on "nationality" bases.
Many of Wilson's proposals were unpopular in Europe. This was surely not helped by the fact that the Bolsheviks also proposing a "right" of all "nations", interpreted so as to include colonies, to self-determination. Lenin, for example, writing in 1914 stated: “[It] would be wrong to interpret the right to self-determination as meaning anything but the right to existence as a separate state."
The British were initially very sceptical about the self-determination concept. However, the idea came to gain purchase from the late 1920s and into the 1930s, in the period of Imperial Doubt. Much of the British establishment was impressed with Ghandi's movement for self-determination in India. Similarly, in the early phases of German expansion in the 1930s, the tale offered was of the unification of the German-speaking peoples - an application of the self-determination doctrine that seemed attractive to many in the British establishment uncomfortable about the treatment of the Germans at the end of World War I.
After its entry into the Second World War, the US became particularly keen that, post-war, the doctrine should be applied to the British colonies. The Americans were highly critical of the state of the peoples of the British colonies, particularly in Africa, and of the political treatment of the peoples of India and Burma. In November 1942, Churchill (who never accepted the doctrine) responded to sustained American attacks upon the British Empire, stating "I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."
Nonetheless, in the period after World War II, Britain was financially and economically impoverished by the two great wars, had become enamoured of the self-determination doctrine itself and ever-more doubtful of the morality of Empire, and was unable to resist the drive towards national self-determination post-war, stirred up by and supported by the United States, by the Soviets and by China. The anti-colonial movements in Africa, India, the Caribbean, and East Asia, in both American-inspired and Communist-inspired forms, were a major feature of world politics between the late 1950s and the end of the 1970s.
Self-determination was more recently a key feature of the break-up of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the post-Soviet republics. The doctrine is invoked by nationalist movements in many parts of Europe - in Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall, in Catalonia and the Basque region, by the Lombards in Italy.
Although widely-supported when pressed the doctrine reduces itself to absurdity, as we see in Hannan's post. For who decides who a "people" are? If this to be done by some outside authority - say, the state - then the act of denying a "people" "nationhood" is the act of denying self-determination. The only possibility is that a people declare itself. But what of any minority within a state that disagrees with the declaration of the rest that they are a people (as with, say the people of South Ossetia)? This minority's recourse is then to declare itself a people entitled to be self-determined (ditto). And of course, inevitably, there will be some within that sub-region that disagree (vide the Kosovan serbs). These again must declare themselves a "people" and claim their own right to self-determination. There is no end to this process, either in theory or, indeed, in practice. Eventually six people who don't like the taxes they are charged, or the way local road signs are spelt, or whatever, declare themselves a "people", entitled to be self-determined and to opt out of the state under which they fall.
The self-determination doctrine is thus absurd, empty and pointless, for it cannot be self-determination, really, that is telling us why Bosnia and not Republika Srpska is the right scope of a state, or Georgia and not South Ossetia. And once we know that "something else" that does determine the proper scope for a state, we no longer need the self-determination doctrine. The doctrine is connected to a deeply flawed concept of democracy, namely that it involves a "demos" ruling themselves. I shall attack that idea in more detail another time, but for now I wish to press the thought that there is a genuine alternative to the belief in self-determination, for its grip seems to be so strong that the only thing most people seems to be able to imagine as an alternative is oppression.
Why should it follow, from the fact that a group of people is not self-determined, that they be oppressed? Of course, they may not like being governed by the rulers they have, but that is not the same as oppression. Gangsters may not like their government, indeed may not accept the authority of their government to set laws and raise taxes. But are gangsters "oppressed" by being ruled by a state whose authority they do not acknowledge? Again, I may not be particularly keen on having a Labour government. Am I "oppressed" by Gordon Brown? Oppression is not a matter of not having the rulers we would like. It is about the nature of the laws our rulers implement and enforce.
That the majority of the people of Cornwall - the people that happen to live there at some moment in time - think that they would like to leave the UK is neither here nor there to what should happen in Cornwall. Why should that accident of the moment be important? In twenty years time, perhaps, with the movement of people, a different set of people will live in Cornwall that take a different view. What counts is how well Cornwall is ruled, and whether the people from other parts of the UK want to be "us" with those living in Cornwall - want to treat the Cornish as family with whom we might side with outsiders even when we are not sure that our family member is right; that we might provide money to look after even if we think the family member has been irresponsible; that we might take an interest in the schemes of even if they are dull; that we might call on for assistance even if the family member is incompetent. In sum, the question is how Cornwall is ruled, and whether others wish to act as good rulers and brothers of Cornwall.
Self-determination has led to a great deal of human misery. The lot of the post-colonial peoples has typically been far worse than it would have been had good Imperial rule continued - in terms of prosperity, liberty, and indeed democracy. The doctrine has driven bloody and vicious wars in many places, and continues to do so. It has crippled post-invasion actions by the United States in places such as Iraq and Afganistan, where it would have been far better to rule well than to leap so precipitately to self-rule. It exists as a shibboleth, long past its post-Great War sell-by date. We should have no more acceptance of it than US self-myth-making will misguidedly force upon us.
[A previous post explaining my views on duty-driven imperialism and how they differ from "liberal Conservatism" in more detail can be found here.]
