self-determination

self-determination, the process by which a group of people, usually possessing a certain degree of national consciousness, form their own state and choose their own government. As a political principle, the idea of self-determination evolved at first as a by-product of the doctrine of nationalism, to which early expression was given by the French and American revolutions. In World War I the Allies accepted self-determination as a peace aim. In his Fourteen Points—the essential terms...