ABSTRACT
It is well known that World War I was mainly triggered by the nationalistic aspirations among Slavic peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina who wanted to be part of Serbia rather than the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In other words, issues of membership and belonging, and related frustrated nationalisms, resulted in a full-blown world war. 1 By the end of the war, the Romanov, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires had all disintegrated, 2 and state borders needed to be redrawn. 3 US president Woodrow Wilson, playing a prominent role during the peace negotiations, strongly promoted the principle of national self-determination as the guiding principle for redrawing the borders. 4 Nevertheless, the negotiations demonstrated that it would be impossible to follow this principle through to its conclusion, giving each nation a state of its own. 5 Put differently, the new states would inevitably have some minority groups within them, and would be faced with related governance challenges. 6
