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The interplay between national self-determination, the colonial legacy, the concept of sovereignty and the nature of state formation is what is at issue in any understanding of political development in the Pacific Islands. These complex territorial entities, scattered over thousands of square miles of ocean, embrace a vast range of cultural, geographical and linguistic diversity. Indigenous social and political organisation has been overlaid by arbitrary colonial divisions, and a model of western-style nation state formation promulgated by UN agencies. In the event, many of the fundamental economic and political problems of these societies have never been properly addressed-a situation exacerbated by the growing recourse to interventionism against 'failed' states by the most powerful. Any starting point for true self-determination in Oceania has to be found in indigenous practices of self-government.

A symposium on national independence & self-determination in postcommunist countries. In Self-Determination and War: The Case of Yugoslavia, Branka Magas discusses the origins of the Yugoslavian conflict, blames the Left in Europe for defending Yugoslavia against its secessionist republics, & argues that the Yugoslavian conflict represents the destruction of once-autonomous states rather than simply the eruption of retrograde nationalisms. In Nationalism: Barrier to Progress, Ernest Erber argues that: the nation-state & the principle of national sovereignty is in historical decline, nationalism plays an increasingly reactionary role, & the right of national self-determination will fade as ethnic minority rights are subsumed under the expanding umbrella of human rights. In Nationalism and the Self, Lynne Jones discusses psychological aspects of nationalism, examines the relation between the self & historical processes, & argues that Yugoslavia illustrates how the rejection of nationalist aspirations tends, paradoxically, to intensify them. In Really Existing Nationalism, Bogdan Denitch argues that nationalism provides a collective identity that can be adopted to protect against the collapse of universalisms, eg, communism. In Democracy and the Right to Secede, Martin Thomas argues that Slovenia & Croatia had a right to secede. In Self-Determination: As a Contingency Principle, John Feffer argues that Left-oriented analyses of nationalism & the legitimacy of states suffer from a latent libertarianism that seriously compromises the discussion of self-determination. In Self-Determination: A Democratic Political Principle, Samuel Farber contends that: the self-determination of nations is a fundamental democratic principle, self-determination is crucial for progressive political change, & self-determination has little to do with nationalism. W. Howard

Argues in favor of a conception of self-determination which involves equal recognition of different national identities. Self-determination of peoples in international law, philosophy, and political practice, and objections to national self-determination.