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gwern comments on Calibrating your probability estimates of world events: Russia vs Ukraine, 6 months later. - Less Wrong Discussion
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
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From your link (sans references):
However, there are far more self-identified nations than there are existing states and there is no legal process to redraw state boundaries according to the will of these peoples.[43] According to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the UN, ICJ and international law experts, there is no contradiction between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, with the latter taking precedence.
But again, that's not even my point. My point is a Kantian point: do you want to live in a world where self-determination of [group] in [country] is sufficient grounds for boots on the ground? This is not even a question about what the US or Russia had been or is doing, but about our preferences.
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I'm saying we live in a world where a right to self-determination has been recognized for something like a century now, even if it does not come with an automatic invasion authorization from the UN Security Council. So far, I'm not sure if it's been all that bad although as an American, I cannot sympathize with those who might want to exercise said right inasmuch as there is no other country to which people like me might want to form.
The right to self-determination seems to me to have been "recognized" as propaganda, but practically never practiced.
It was used post WW1, but only because there were two big multi-ethnic empires to be broken up. No-one proposed treating the victors similarly; their constituent nations which wanted independence had to fight for it, like Ireland did in 1920-1922.
Very few significant new nations have claimed statehood in the century since then on the basis of this principle without armed struggle. And when there's a civil war or rebellion and one side wins independence by military and political means, I don't give much credence to abstract principles.
Using Wikipedia's list of sovereign states by date of independence for the last century, the only states in the first half of the list (from 1973 to the present) that were established peacefully along ethnic lines are Czech and Slovak republics in the post-USSR breakup of Czechoslovakia. Most other Soviet states became nations despite being multi-ethnic, or fought bloody civil wars as in Yugoslavia. So did almost all African and Asian colonies post decolonization.
I admit I didn't have the patience to read all the linked articles on that list, and its older half (1914-1972), but at least its first half doesn't contain a single example of a part of sovereign nation breaking away on the basis of self determination without a major war. The older half probably might have some examples, but I expect them to be very few.
?!
You're right. I don't know what came over me :-( Amended, and thanks.
A lot of former colonies are now self-governed and a lot of them became independent without armed struggle. That was what the principle of self-determination was about. The British lost their empire over the principle.
It wasn't really about giving the Scottish or the Basques a right to hold a referendum to get independence.
On the other hand the principle of immutability of borders as written down in the Hague Conventions isn't that well respect either. The borders of Ukraine changed frequently since the Hague Conventions was made and I don't see a real reason why they should now be immutable when a majority of Crimeans doesn't want to belong to Ukraine.
The Soviet states also did became nations in a way that did violate the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union without a war.
Those colonies became independent states with borders decided by the accidents of previous colonial conquest, or drawn arbitrarily post-conquest without regard to local interests or ethnic, economic and cultural divisions (e.g. India and Pakistan).
Similarly, in the British-administrated post-WW1 mandate territories (which they divested during the same general political era when they lost their empire), they drew arbitrary borders and deliberately installed rulers who were foreign to the local population or represented minorities, because they knew these rulers would have to oppress the locals and so would depend on foreign support (e.g. Jordan, Iraq).
Local people were not consulted by a referendum or plebiscite, and in no case that I'm aware of did previously multi-ethnic or multi-cultural states peacefully divide into nation states. There is certainly a principle of decolonization and de-imperialization, but I'm not seeing any self-determination.
When the Hague Conventions were signed, Ukraine didn't exist as a sovereign state and hadn't done so since the 17th century. Its borders changed a lot after that, but always as a result of war and conquest, apart from Russia's gift of Crimea in 1954. It was partitioned and partially annexed many times over the 20th century by its more powerful neighbors. This history did not follow self-determination at any point.
Even if you accept it as a valid moral principle, the devil is in the details. How large a majority do you require before supporting separatism against a minority's wishes? How much gerrymandering in the geographical boundaries do you allow? What is the minimum size of a group that may secede (since no-one will recognize family or tribe-sized states in practice)? If people who secede take their privately-owned land with them to form their new state, what happens when the owners of the mine or oil field providing 10% of your GDP secede and then sell their resources back to you at a 500% markup? If the richest and best-educated 10% of your population all happen to live in the same few cities, and they secede to stop wealth redistribution to the other 90%, is that alright? If a group of people wants to secede and implement an fundamentalist state with no freedom for women, gays, or atheists, do you try to stop them as you would non-state actors in your country, or do you shrug and say "eh, we don't declare war on Saudi Arabia, either"?
The USSR (and the Warsaw Pact) was a union of separate republics to begin with; it chose to dissolve itself and they resumed their sovereignity. More importantly, I don't think anyone would argue that a state has no right to break itself up if a large majority of its citizens agree. It's a different matter if only the citizens in a particular region want to break away, and the rest want them to stay.
The notion of self-determination is not primarily about referendums and plebiscites. A government that's backed by a home grown military coup doesn't violate the principle.
Not every group of people is an ethnic group with the corresponding rights.
In this case you have a majority of Crimeas who speak Russian. You had the the government in Kiev who came to power as the president fled the city because armed Ukrainian nationals took power over the city. They continued to destroy buildings of communist party. Then they passed laws to remove the status of minority languages.
In that climate Crimeans have a valid interest to secede.
That a question about who sets the boundaries. In the case of Crimea the natural boundaries work quite well. In the case of Scotland the boundaries are also obvious.
In the case of the Basque country or Padania I'm sure that you could find a way to set reasonable boundaries.
Then I'm confused. If the government of a breakaway region isn't backed by its population but relies on military force, is it self-determination? If nation A conquers half of nation B and sets up a state where a minority rules by force, is that self-determination? I thought the answer was clearly no in both cases, but if a government backed only by a military coup (i.e. force majeure) counts as "self-determination" then I'm totally confused as to what you mean by those words.
(Your comment doesn't seem to be a response to my question about minimum size)
Since their "referendum" passed under Russian commando control I have no idea what percentage of the population might be opposed to independence, let alone opposed to Russian rule. 58.5% of the population of Crimea are Russians, but 24% are Ukrainians and 10.2% are Crimean Tatars many of whom only recently returned from a decades-long exile originally imposed by Stalin. No matter how this plays out there is going to be a severely oppressed minority maybe as large as 34%. (Do you think Ukrainian is going to have minority language status in Russian-occupied Crimea?)
For Crimea and Scotland this may be true. I was talking about generalizing the principle of self-determination.
The notion of self determination is that every people can govern themselves. It's a group right. Not one of individual persons. Party of self-determination means that a country can't remove a king of another country even if 60% of the population dislikes the king and would prefer another kind of political system then monarchy.
That depends very much about how the conflict plays out. I do believe that if things go according to Putins plan, that's the outcome. Neither the EU nor Russia wants to wage war against each other, so sooner or later they have to negotiate a settlement. Russia wants a settlement that gives Crimea international recognition and is probably willing to give the Ukrainians and Tatars in Crimea minority rights in exchange.
Putin makes moves so that he will have a settlement which is overall beneficial for Russia. Winter is coming and the EU needs gas. As long as the West doesn't want to settle Putin is going to take more territory in Ukraine. I don't completely understand what game plan Obama follows and what his goal happens to be in the conflict.
A bunch of smaller groups of native Americans got some form of autonomy that allowed them to start casinos in the desert and do a bunch of things that are otherwise illegal in the US. I'm okay with handling it like that.
I don't see how to reconcile this with your statement that:
If a government doesn't have popular majority support, and so it would not win a referendum, but keeps power anyway through military force, how does this uphold a group right for self-governance? Wouldn't the group right argue in favor of anyone who doesn't support the government being self-governing and uncoerced by their military powre?
On that view, Russia was wrong in supporting Crimean separatism.
I don't know anything about Native American rights and politics in the USA, but I expect that this autonomy is granted because the majority feels guilty over past conquest and oppression and is trying to make amends. A different group of comparable size (say, people of Chinese descend) would not be allowed to "do a bunch of things that are otherwise illegal" merely because they had a minority ethnic status and wanted self-determination.
If it has not been practiced, then it cannot be harmful as Ilya claims. So which is it: do international abstractions have no force and no consequences, in which case it doesn't matter at all, Kantian or otherwise, which abstractions are mouthed? Or do they matter at least a little bit? In which case you don't seem to have demonstrated any harm from the abstraction - fighting bloody civil wars is not a new phenomenon.
It hasn't been practiced. If it starts being practiced, however, it may be as harmful as Ilya claims, so his argument deserves a response. But saying:
Is not evidence because it hasn't been really practiced so far.
Also:
I'm not claiming anything about other abstractions, some of which definitely have force, just this one.
Source.