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in: The European Union and the Cyprus Conflict: Modern Conflict, Postmodern Union, Thomas Diez, Editor, Manchester University Press , Manchester, pp.98-116, 2002
The bulk of the recent interpretations of the principle of national self-determination appear to question the 'violence' in the homogenous concept of 'nationhood' which underlies the principle. Accordingly, self-determination redefined as power sharing in multi-ethnic societies, rather than outright secessionism, may be more appropriate for the exegencies of the contemporary nationhood no longer understood in purely ethnic or homogenous terms. Discussing self-determination and violence with reference to the specific case of the Turkish Cypriot claim to self-determination, embodied in the 1983 declaration of the runaway entity the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, this article remains somewhat unconvinced by the recent attempts to domesticate self-determination. The article argues instead that violence which characterizes self-determination is violence inherent in modernity, marked by a fundamental distinction between the self and the other, a dichotomy at once constitutive of modern states system.