imaginative vein, has reflected on the state- society ties in colonial and post-colonial states to understand the notion of self- determination. The colonial slate was characterised by the dominance of the state over society. In several parts of the third world the post-colonial states were built on the basis of the colonial state. This gave little room to resolve the tensions in state-society ties. Hence, the post-colonial liberation struggles do merit scholarly attention. Such struggles, according to Bose, are the products of a contest over the notion of sovereignty. Thus, the dominant conceptualisation of sovereignty which stems from the highest echelons of a centralised slate is fundamentally at variance with the conceptualisation of sovereignty held by liberation movements. For, the liberation movements move with a conviction that sovereignty essentially resides in the social base of a self- defining community, i e, the 'nation'.