ABSTRACT
National minority movements in modern liberal democratic states usually claim the right to political self-determination for their group, which does not always imply the right to secession. This chapter addresses the question: does the liberal principle of equality, in a variety of its interpretations, 'generate' the obligation of a state within which national minority groups reside to guarantee that these groups are free to establish state-like institutions over which they have unchallengeable control. The preservation of minority cultures may be the matter not of conceptual necessities but of upholding the equality of the conditions for the exercise of political liberty. The disadvantage analogy, the principle of liberal equality does not appear to generate an obligation on the part of the state to protect and promote all minority cultures. The possible source of the equality of cultures principle may perhaps be found in the principle of just distribution of political power and state resources.
