Self-Determination

Self-determination has deeply influenced international relations and the process of state building, particularly in Europe during the current century. Since the time of Wilson and Lenin, this political doctrine was used and/or abused by policy makers, leaders and political parties to re-define the geopolitical map of Europe as well as to establish a better security for their people.
 
In the last years, the Dayton agreement and the Kosovo problem (and previously the way how the former Yugoslav republics were recognised by the European Union) have strengthened the relevant role of self determination and secession, even offering new patterns for what we can call a "new political morality for the 21st Century".
 
The aim of this work is to analyse the concept and the policies of self determination in the Russian, German and Balkan areas during the twentieth century not only in a historical perspective but also taking into account the possible consequences on internal and international relations in the near future.

There are no collective discussions or considerations of the topic both historical and comparative. Moreover, the relations between dictatorships and self-determination, as well as amongst dictatorships-democracies and self-determination, have been rarely explored.
 
There have been several studies on self-determination under communism but these were written when communism was still in power. This both is the effort of those who wrote this collection of essays intending to contribute to the debate on self-determination as the starting point for a new approach on the topic, in order to find for the next century an alternative political morality to the historical legacy of the twentieth century and the tragedies of the peoples of Eastern Europe.