Introduction: ‘Self-Determination’ and Ideas of Freedom

Abstract

This chapter introduces the international language of ‘self-determination’ and explains the two ideas of freedom that have fought over this discourse over the last hundred years: the radical idea of freedom and the liberal-conservative idea of freedom. It fleshes out the anatomy of legitimation that connects these two ideas of freedom with international ‘self-determination’ discourse, and anchors the book disciplinarily in intellectual history and international history. This introductory chapter explains the organisation of the book in terms of ‘moments’ from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the selection of the specific historical moments of self-determination.