The Fight Over Freedom in 20th- and 21st-Century International Discourse: Moments of ‘self-determination’

245 Pages·2020·3.611 MB·English

by  Rita Augestad Knudsen

The Fight Over Freedom
in 20th- and 21st-Century
International Discourse
Moments of
‘self-determination’
Rita Augestad Knudsen
The Fight Over Freedom in 20th- and 21st-Century
International Discourse
“FromthebattlebetweenV.I.LeninandWoodrowWilsonafterWorldWar Ito
contemporary debates over the fate of Kosovo and other states in the making,
the idea of ‘self-determination’ has been as elusive as it is powerful. Which ‘self’
isinvolved,andwhatdoes‘determination’imply?RitaAugestadKnudsen’sstudy
ofitstrajectoryisunprecedentednotmerelyinitschronologyleadingalmostup
toourowntimes,butinitsconceptualdepthandsubtlety,remindingusthatthe
meaning of concepts emerges and evolves at pivotal moments in their history.”
—Samuel Moyn, Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale Law School, Professor of History,
Yale University, New Haven, USA
“This highly original book combines a history of events (‘moments’) with
conceptualhistory.AugestadKnudsenelaboratestwoconceptsoffreedomunder-
lying calls for national self-determination proclaimed by Lenin and Woodrow
Wilson in 1917–18. These two concepts then enable analysis of key moments
in international relations extending from 1918 to the question of Kosovan inde-
pendence in 2008–10. With meticulous scholarship Augestad Knudsen shows
how these concepts competed, overlapped, and combined. This is a significant
contributiontounderstandingthepoliticsandinternationallawofacentury:the
century of national self-determination.”
—John Breuilly, Emeritus Professor of Nationalism and Ethnicity, London School
of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK
Rita Augestad Knudsen
The Fight Over
Freedom in 20th-
and 21st-Century
International
Discourse
Moments of ‘self-determination’
Rita Augestad Knudsen
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Oslo, Norway
ISBN 978-3-030-46428-8 ISBN 978-3-030-46429-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46429-5
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Acknowledgements
Of the many heartfelt thanks to be parted out here, the first must be
directed to my editor at Palgrave, Sarah Roughley who made the process
ofcompletingthismanuscriptsmootherandmoreenjoyablethanIwould
have been able to imagine. The other person essential to this book’s
materialisation in print is Dr. Aino Rosa Kristina Spohr, who supervised
my doctoral research at the London School of Economics and Political
Science (LSE) International History Department, on which this book is
based. Throughout my years of LSE M.Sc. and Ph.D. studies, Dr. Spohr
supported my academic development with supreme vigour and devotion.
Professor Quentin Skinner has been another invaluable source of inspi-
ration and guidance, especially on the meaning of freedom and indeed,
of discourse—he graciously offered his advice at several points during my
research. Professor John Breuilly and Dr. John Hutchinson at the LSE
were especially helpful in the early phases of developing the manuscript.
Severalinstitutionshavealsoprovidedcrucialassistance:Aboveall,the
LSE’s Department of International History. The Department as well as
the LSE Postgraduate Travel Fund, and the Lise og Arnfinn Hejes Fond
all provided scholarships during my studies. I am also grateful to the
History Department and the Harriman Institute of Columbia Univer-
sity (CU) in New York, as well as to the Graduate Institute for Interna-
tional and Development Studies in Geneva (IHEID), Geneva for hosting
meandprovidingengagingintellectualenvironmentsduringmyresearch
stays in these two cities. The LSE-CU exchange bursary enabled my
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
visiting Columbia, and Foundation Pierre du Bois was central in making
possible my visit to Geneva. During my time at Columbia, Professors
Mark Mazower and Samuel Moyn in particular kindly found the time to
givemevaluableadvice,asdidProfessorJussiHanhimäkiattheGraduate
Institute in Geneva. Professor Moyn in particular continued his support
for my project beyond my stay in New York, for which I am enormously
grateful.
I also wish to thank the archivists and librarians at the United Nations
in New York; and in Geneva, the staff at the United Nations and League
of Nations archives and libraries. In London, my work was made much
easier by the staff at the National Archives, Kew, as well as the librar-
ians at the LSE and the British Library. The staff and facilities at the
WebstercontributedtomakingmystayinNewYorkauniquelyrewarding
experience.
Lastbutnotleastoftheinstitutionsonthislistismypresentemployer,
the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), where my
GroupleaderDr.KarstenFriis,AcademicDirectorDr.OleJacobSending,
andDirectorUlfSverdruppatientlyallowedmesufficienttimeawayfrom
my present portfolio on Counter-terrorism to complete this book. My
sincere thanks also to the whole Security and Defence Research Group at
NUPI for valuable input and encouragement on the book’s final stages,
and especially Ole Martin Stormoen for his incalculable assistance.
Finally, my parents, Kim P. Augestad and Sverre Knudsen, continue to
be immense sources of inspiration and support without which all of this
would have been much more difficult.
Any shortcomings of this book, however, are of course of my own
making.
Contents
1 Introduction: ‘Self-Determination’ and Ideas of Freedom 1
The Liberal-Conservative Idea 4
The Radical Idea 8
Capturing ‘Self-Determination’ 10
Moments of Self-Determination 12
One Hundred Years of ‘Self-Determination’ and Ideas of
Freedom 15
2 Lenin, ‘Self-Determination’ and the Radical Idea of
Freedom 33
Lenin and the Socialist Debate on the National Question 34
Lenin’s Opponents: The ‘Autonomists’ 37
Lenin’s Opponents: The ‘Rejectionists’ 40
Conditioning Self-Determination 41
Freedom as Equality 44
Lenin’s Discourse and the First World War 47
3 Woodrow Wilson, ‘Self-Determination’ and the
Liberal-Conservative Idea of Freedom 65
Context and Criticism 66
The Fourteen Points 69
Freedom as Peace and Non-Interference 71
Wilson’s ‘Self-Determination’ and Popular Sovereignty 72
vii
viii CONTENTS
Wilson’s Internationalisation 75
Regrets and Tensions 76
Wilson’s Self-Determination in Practice 82
‘Self-Determination’ Recast 85
4 ‘Self-Determination’ Enters International Law 101
Post-First World War Self-Determination: Radical Calls,
Liberal-Conservative Responses 102
Albania 102
The Aaland Islands 105
The United Nations Charter 113
5 Defining ‘Self-Determination’, Disagreeing on Freedom 133
Common Ground 136
Against ‘Self-Determination’ 139
Western Dilemmas, Maturity and Self-Determination 143
Self-Determination and Radical Freedom 147
A Definition of ‘Self-Determination’? 149
6 In Court: ‘Self-Determination’ and Freedom in the ICJ
Case on Kosovo 173
Historical and Legal Background 174
The Emergence of the ICJ Case 178
Debating ‘Self-Determination’ at the ICJ 181
‘Internal Self-Determination’ 181
Sui Generis and ‘Remedial Self-Determination’ 184
Independence and International Statebuilding 188
The Final Word 191
7 Conclusions: The Fight over Freedom at Moments of
Self-Determination 211
Ideas in Contention 211
Agents in Contention 214
Self-Determination ‘Selves’ and Freedom Today 217
Index 225
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: ‘Self-Determination’ and Ideas
of Freedom
In early 1918, on one of the last days of the coldest January recorded
bythatpointintime,AmericanPresidentWoodrowWilsontookhiswife
and his closest advisor on a leisurely drive. It was the President’s first
day outside the White House after suffering from a bad cold. Seemingly
in good spirits after several days in bed, Wilson was happy that he was
able to have ‘one or two real talks’ with the two people to whom he
wasclosest.Meanwhile,the FirstWorldWarwas enteringintoadramatic
phase,withhecticdiplomacyandpublicexchangesonthepreferredterms
for peace for the belligerent participants. In a provocative statement in
late 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks asked the
Allies what their commitment to ‘self-determination’ really was. Reading
their statement, some of Wilson’s advisors urged him to appropriate this
language, while others warned against it. In early January 1918, Wilson
deliveredhisFourteenPointsspeechtotheU.S.Congresswithoutciting
‘self-determination’. A few days before that cold January afternoon, the
German Chancellor, Georg von Hertling, publicly presented his reply to
Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
Until Wilson’s motoring excursion, the President was unsure of what
his next public move should be. The international situation appeared to
beapproachingconditionsfavourabletopeace,andamisguidedinitiative
could jeopardise this development. In the car, Wilson told his wife that
he wanted to take a stand against the German Chancellor’s preference
© The Author(s) 2020 1
R. Augestad Knudsen, The Fight Over Freedom
in 20th- and 21st-Century International Discourse,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46429-5_1
2 R. AUGESTAD KNUDSEN
for the ‘old diplomacy which has brought the world into such difficul-
ties’. Almost two weeks later, on 11 February 1918, Wilson laid out his
position in another speech to Congress. He effectively proclaimed that
von Hertling was missing the point; fatally, the Chancellor was ignor-
ing the principle of ‘self-determination’. Before Wilson’s speech, ‘self-
determination’ had been associated with Lenin, and it was Lenin who
ensuredthatthistermbecamepartofthewar’sdiscursiveexchanges.But
with Wilson’s February 1918 address, the President both claimed and
properly internationalised this language. Wilson’s role in the history of
self-determination has often been exaggerated—but he did ensure that
the specific phrase ‘self-determination’ reached a worldwide audience.1
This book tells a story of how important statements on ‘self-
determination’ in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have con-
tained and reflected a battle over the international meaning of freedom.
It does so by examining how a struggle between two ideas of freedom
has emerged in international discourse about ‘self-determination’ at key
historicalmoments.Icallthesetwoideasa‘radical’ideaoffreedomanda
‘liberal-conservative’ idea of freedom. Although the battle over the inter-
national meaning of freedom has also appeared in many other domains
and forms of discourse, this book focuses on the ways in which the
struggle between these two ideas of freedom has played out through key
international discourse of ‘self-determination’ of the last hundred years.
Before outlining the radical and the liberal-conservative ideas of free-
domthathavebeencentraltointernational‘self-determination’discourse,
it is important to sketch the mechanics linking this discourse with the
ideasoffreedom.Sincetheearlytwentiethcentury,everyimportantinter-
national reference to ‘self-determination’ has depended on one of these
two ideas of freedom as its standard of legitimation.2 Like any other
political or legal actor, the key international agents who have used the
language of ‘self-determination’ over the last hundred years—politicians,
diplomats, lawyers, judges and international institutions—have sought
legitimation for their arguments and ideas in order to convince their
immediateaudiencesandenhancetheirgeneralmoralauthority.Andeach
of these agents, as will be shown, has relied on one of two ideas of free-
dom when doing so.