Lecture | Peace Histories Seminar Series
Self-Determination in Very Small Places
- Date
- Monday 30 March 2026
- Time
- Serie
- Peace Histories Seminar Series 2025-2026
- Address
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- 2.60
Abstract
The idea of self-determination is one of the most significant in modern international politics. For more than a century, diplomats, lawyers, scholars, activists, and ordinary people in every part of the globe have wrestled with its meaning and implications for decolonization, human rights, sovereignty, and international order. The First Right (Oxford UP, 2025) argues that there was no one version of self-determination, but a century-long contest between contending visions of sovereignty and rights. UConn’s Brad Simpson will focus in this talk on those places that were considered too small, too backwards, or too primitive for self-determination, and their implications for contemporary global politics.
This talk is part of Brad Simpson’s new book titled The First Right: Self-Determination and Transformation of International Order, 1941-2000. For a better understanding of this talk, kindly read chapter 5 titled “Self-Determination in Very Small Places.”
Link to this chapter: https://academic.oup.com/book/60825/chapter/529215267
