groups receive gives them a form of arbitrary power that can constitute the former’s domination. Secondly, I argued in this chapter that the autonomy-based account cannot provide a satisfactory basis for nationalist claims to self-determination, because it can justify the claims of non-nationalist groups. This, I argued, could create territorial fragmentation undermining the nationalist idea of self-determination in a unified homeland, in turn constraining the account’s own value of the free exercise of cultural autonomy. I argued, instead, that a political justification is required to ground claims for self-determination, In the third section I discussed two instrumental accounts and argued that whilst these accounts provide a political basis to assess claims for self-determination, they provide the wrong political basis to assess these claims. I argued that instrumental accounts either provide too sectarian a justification for national self-determination in the case of the justice-promoting account or that the democracy-supporting account provides the justification for an assimilationist politics that can dominate national minorities instead of securing for them their own status of self-determination. In the section, I argued that the fairness-based account is correct to contend that some form of political treatment is required to justify claims for self-determination, however, this account provides too narrow an account of what constitutes poor political treatment, failing to capture the justified claims non-nations should be able to have for I concluded in the last section that nations are justified in making claims for not because they are nations but because they are groups subject to a remedial wrong. This, I argued, means that nations are not the only groups that can make justified claims for self-determination. However, this also means that not all nations are justified in making claims for self-determination nations who are not subject to any – remedial wrong, therefore, do not have a right to self-determination by mere virtue of them being nations. This remedial requirement is one the primary right nationalist theory of self-determination does not have and only achieves in cases through its recourse to liberalism or democracy. – In the next chapter I will examine the just-cause theory of self-determination. This is a remedial theory of self-determination. I will examine this theory to see if it can provide a satisfactory account of what constitutes a remedial wrong that can satisfactorily assess if claims for self-determination should be justified.
groups receive gives them a form of arbitrary power that can constitute the former’s domination. Secondly, I argued in this chapter that the autonomy-based account cannot provide a satisfactory basis for nationalist claims to self-determination, because it can justify the claims of non-nationalist groups. This, I argued, could create territorial fragmentation undermining the nationalist idea of self-determination in a unified homeland, in turn constraining the account’s own value of the free exercise of cultural autonomy. I argued, instead, that a political justification is required to ground claims for self-determination, In the third section I discussed two instrumental accounts and argued that whilst these accounts provide a political basis to assess claims for self-determination, they provide the wrong political basis to assess these claims. I argued that instrumental accounts either provide too sectarian a justification for national self-determination in the case of the justice-promoting account or that the democracy-supporting account provides the justification for an assimilationist politics that can dominate national minorities instead of securing for them their own status of self-determination. In the section, I argued that the fairness-based account is correct to contend that some form of political treatment is required to justify claims for self-determination, however, this account provides too narrow an account of what constitutes poor political treatment, failing to capture the justified claims non-nations should be able to have for I concluded in the last section that nations are justified in making claims for not because they are nations but because they are groups subject to a remedial wrong. This, I argued, means that nations are not the only groups that can make justified claims for self-determination. However, this also means that not all nations are justified in making claims for self-determination – nations who are not subject to any remedial wrong, therefore, do not have a right to self-determination by mere virtue of them being nations. This remedial requirement is one the primary right nationalist theory of self-determination does not have – and only achieves in cases through its recourse to liberalism or democracy. In the next chapter I will examine the just-cause theory of self-determination. This is a remedial theory of self-determination. I will examine this theory to see if it can provide a satisfactory account of what constitutes a remedial wrong that can satisfactorily assess if claims for self-determination should be justified.
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