From local government to national sovereignty.

The concept of «self-government» in Europe and America

Abstract

In the 17th century for most people the word self-government was primarily related to the individual who had full autonomy in a moral sense. This idea later spread to others fields (education for instance) and to other subjects, especially to the municipality. The concept of self-government then came to mean mainly «local-government» (in apolitical sense) and was applied not only to British towns but also to the North American Colonies and in other territories such as India. However, after the liberal revolutions, the concept evolved from its original English language sense and acquired new meanings within the vocabulary of many European and American thinkers, who linked the idea of self-government to that of democracy understood as civil liberty, citizenship and representative government. This newly built liberal concept changed along XXth Century, first to be identified with national sovereignty and later to be confused with self-determination.