Self-determination
Etymology
A modern compound; “determination” is from Latin “determinare,” “to set limits, bound off.” The phrase became a rallying term in the early twentieth century, championed in different forms by Woodrow Wilson after World War I and by Lenin, each invoking a people’s right to choose its own sovereignty — a principle that helped dismantle empires and remains contested wherever borders and peoples do not align.
noun phrase · /self-dih-tur-mih-NAY-shun/
The right of a people to decide their own political status and form of government without external coercion.
What it names
Use it in the collective, political sense — a nation or people choosing its own destiny — rather than the individual sense of personal autonomy.
Example
The independence referendum was framed as an exercise of national self-determination.
Related idea
Self-determination is the collective right of a people to choose their political fate; sovereignty is the achieved condition of supreme authority over a territory. A people can claim self-determination without yet possessing sovereignty — which is the crux of most secession disputes.