Potential Political Cultures

Abstract

In the previous chapter, I defined a nation as a group of people whose members self-identify with a political culture of a certain kind. This political culture is related to the group’s shared goal of maintaining or acquiring collective agency that would enable it to control its political future. I also established that nations have the capacity of being free in relation to other similar agents and thus of holding a primary moral right. The self-identification component in my definition of nationhood is designed to exclude vacuous political cultures in transitional or oppressive societies, but it is these societies that most need claims to self-determination on their territory to be regulated.