Quote Originally Posted by Watchman
Eh, the "one people one state" principle was seriously tried exactly once - after WW1. It turned out to suck beans and caused endless grief to everyone concerned, and would most likely have ended up in the dusty locker of other dubious Edwardian paraphenelia (like phrenology...) after WW2 had assorted separatists not kept it alive for fairly obvious reasons.
I disagree. The 1-p-1-s has almost never been employed in any systematic way. Take just the continent of Europe for example.

The Congress of Vienna affirmed the idea of a unified Belgium crafted from two peoples, the Flems and the Walloons as well as a Russia that included the Ukraine. The AHE itself was a motley collection at best, and they hosted the gathering.

Versailles, following the Great War (always loved that particular oxymoronic misnomeration ), carved up the AHE, Montenegro, and Serbia into several states: Austria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary. While Hungary and Austria could make a fair claim as to being one "people" the rest of the area included: Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians, Montenegrans, Macedonians, Czechs, Slovaks, and Sudeten Germans (plus a few I've probably missed). This was done because all of the groups involved felt entitled to most of the Balkans since their group had, at some point in history, been in control of a large chunk of it. The area was hardly calm throughout the inter-war period.

Yalta and Potsdam divided up the spheres of influence, and Soviet domination squelched internicine rivalry for decades, but the dissolution of the USSR in 1989-1991 left the area free to decide things for themselves. As you know, Czechoslovakia has split, Yugoslavia has splintered, and many of the factions within the region promptly went to war to conquer the rest. Were NATO forces withdrawn, this would likely continue.

Separatist movements in the Basque region and in Ireland want to re-draw their corners of the map, Spain continues to have some level of strain between the Andalusian and Catalonian components of that country, and Italy has effectively separated itself into two separate entities with a shared foreign policy.

....And that's just Europe. If you want to go into the disconnect between the lines on the map and the tribal "people" boundaries in Africa, we could spend a few weeks just sorting out the contenders and their claims.

One-people-one-state has NEVER really been tried, save where geography has allowed for nearly complete homogenization (i.e. Japan -- and even there some might argue about Hokaido). Could the 1-p-1-s model actually work to defuse tensions and conflict if it were implemented? Not sure, but with humanity in control, I always err on the side of cynicism.

Seamus