Social Studies 20: When National Interests Mean Making a Nation

Today, we started talking about how national interests can be used to create a new nation-state. This action is called self-determination.

Now, one of the first quotes that we went through in the notes was how it is a force of convergence and divergence, which is completely true. While a new nation is being formed and a group who identifies with each other is converging or joining together, this comes at the expense of the disintegration of already existing nation states. As much as one may joke that they don't care if Quebec separated from Canada, what would a Canada without Quebec really be like?? Not only is our Canadian history full of French influence in the discovery of our country, but without Francophone explorers and traders, it is uncertain for how western Canada was explored and settled. So the question comes: Who has the right to pursue self-determination?

But, is there are reason to stop a country from pursuing self-determination? That's what we are going to be looking at - the different ways in which a state can pursue self-determination and what are the intended and unintended consequences.

Today, we looked at a current example of a group attempting self-determination: Catalonians in Spain. There are many other groups that seek to pursue this as well. Here are some examples: