The first phase is associated with the thinking of the Enlightenment and in particular with the principle of the self-determination of communities, i.e. the idea that a group of people have a certain set of shared interest and should be allowed to express their wishes on how these interest should best be promoted. Derived from the ancient Greek idea of the polis, or political community, this idea was most influentially expressed in the thinking of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau laid the basis for modern ideas of democracy and the legitimacy of majority rule. Later democratic thinkers, notably John Stuart Mill, added to this with their stress on representative government as being the most desirable from of political system: once the idea of representative government is accepted, as a means of realizing in a collective from the principle of individual self-determination, then it is a short step to the idea of the self-determination of nations.