particularism

From particular +‎ -ism, after French particularisme.

particularism (countable and uncountable, plural particularisms)

1. An exclusive focus on a particular area, group, sect, etc.
2. (Christianity, Judaism, theology) The principle that only certain people are chosen by God for salvation.

   Synonym: (obsolete) particularity

3. (politics) The principle that individual states, races of a federation, etc., may act independently of a central authority.
   • 2011, Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms, Penguin, published 2012, page 221:

     Despite the dominance of Castile and the stream of centralizing measures flowing from the new capital in Madrid, Aragonese particularism continued to make itself felt right up to the early eighteenth century.

Borrowed from French particularisme.

particularism n (uncountable)

1. particularism