ABSTRACT
Political order has always required a certain abrogation of individual rights in exchange for civic stability. The question of whose rights would be abrogated for the greater good in this new order of democracy in the age of self-determination became not just a pragmatically political one, but a social and a moral one as well. The associated mismatch in the location of rights between liberalism and nationalism thus became a problem for the basic question of political order. The creation of the Irish Free State, and particularly the creation of Northern Ireland, were heavily influenced by the conceptions of populations, democracy, and self-determination enshrined in the political lexicon at the peace conference. While France refused to use the term "minority" in Alsace, the government there turned the tables in an age of nationalism, and instead investigated political, rather than national, minorities.
