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Global Encyclopedia of Territorial Rights pp 1–6Cite as

Communitarianism and Territorial Rights

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Definition

Communitarianism is the belief that “the community, rather than the individual, the state, the nation, or any other entity, is and should be at the centre of our analysis and our value system” (Frazer 1995).

Theories about territorial rights tend to track and incorporate complex social, political, and ethical theories about individual persons and their relationship to states and communities. Communitarianism (see Definition) is one such theory. In order to justify the obligations that are owed to a community, communitarians maintain that the community is both intrinsically good in itself (a value judgment) and it is also a human need (as a factual matter) (Avineri and de-Shalit 1992). In terms of political theory, it has traditionally been juxtaposed with liberalism and other theories which prioritize individual freedom and rights over the general good. There is considerable disagreement about what kinds of political policies flow from communitarianism, but “[a]ll...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. California State University, Turlock, CA, USA

    M. Blake Wilson

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  1. M. Blake Wilson
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Correspondence to M. Blake Wilson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Studies, Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Michael Kocsis

Section Editor information

  1. Humanities / Liberal Arts, Seneca College, Toronto, Canada

    Nick C. Sagos

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Wilson, M.B. (2020). Communitarianism and Territorial Rights. In: Kocsis, M. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Territorial Rights. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68846-6_58-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68846-6_58-1

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