While a number of movements seek state secession, the majority never achieves internationally recognized statehood. Paradoxically, some movements that have succeeded have had weaker claims to statehood than many movements that have failed. Regional Politics and State Secession seeks to explain the variation in outcomes for secessionist movements. Why do some movements succeed when so many fail?

While a number of movements seek state secession, the majority never achieves internationally recognized statehood. Paradoxically, some movements that have succeeded have had weaker claims to statehood than many movements that have failed. Regional Politics and State Secession seeks to explain the variation in outcomes for secessionist movements and explores the reasons for why some movements succeed when so many fail. The author proposes a novel theory of secession based on the politics of the region, with the argument that only those secessionist movements that have the support of regional state and institutional actors will succeed in achieving internationally recognized statehood. Through an analysis of six movements across three regions, this book demonstrates why and how regional actors hold the key to understanding when a secessionist movement will find success. This work will appeal to an interdisciplinary academic audience. It lies at the intersection of international relations, international law, and comparative politics. While its core argument is based in international relations, its engagement with legal issues and its in-depth case studies, make it particularly relevant for those interested in international law and comparative politics.

Secession is the creation of a new independent state out of an existing state. This key volume examines the political, social and legal processes of the practice of secession. Following an analysis of secessionist movements and their role in attempts at secession, eight case studies are explored to illustrate peaceful, violent, sequential and recursive secessions. This is followed by a look at the theoretical approaches and a discussion that focuses on the economic causes. Normative theories of secession are discussed as well as the status of secession in legal theory and practice. The book systematizes our present knowledge of secessions in an accessible way to readers not familiar with the phenomenon and its consequences. It is ideal as a supplementary text to courses on contemporary political and social movements, applied ethics and political philosophy, international relations and international law, state sovereignty and state formation.

What makes a state? This question has attracted more and more attention in recent years with Catalan's illegal vote for independence from Spain and Palestine's ongoing search for international recognition. And while Scotland chose to remain with the United Kingdom, discussions of independence have only continued as the ramifications of the Brexit vote begin to set in. Kosovo, South Sudan, and the situation in Ukraine--each in its way reveals the perils of creating a nation separate from neighbors who have dominated it. As James Ker-Lindsay and Mikulas Fabry show in this new addition to the What Everyone Needs to Know® series, the road to statehood never did run smooth. Declaring independence is only the first step; gaining both local and global acceptance is necessary before a state can become truly independent. The prospect of losing territory is usually not welcomed by the parent state, and any such threat to an existing culture and its economy is often met with resistance--armed or otherwise. Beyond this immediate conflict, the international community often refuses to accept new states without proof of defined territory, a settled population, and effective government, which frequently translates to a democratic one with demonstrated respect for human rights. Covering the legal, political, and practical issues of secession and state creation, Ker-Lindsay and Fabry provide a sure-footed guide to a complex topic.

The present international order is characterized by the rapid globalization of economic activity, by systematic attempts to coordinate state responses to the outbreaks of violence and by unilateral military interventions against sovereign states either by the USA or by one of its regional allies. This collection explores the changes that the current international order has brought to the theory and practice of recognition of secessionist claims and to the conditions for secessionist mobilization. The volume examines how independence movements achieve legitimacy amongst both their target populations and outside states, and how the forces of increasing economic globalization and political interdependence impact on secessionist mobilization. It addresses how the outside states recognize the independence of new states and whether the claims to independent statehood can be justified within normative theories of secession and international law. These issues are explored both through comparative analysis within legal, international relations and political science frameworks and through an examination of several recent attempts at secession.

In 1845 Texans voted overwhelmingly to join the Union. They voted just as overwhelmingly to secede in 1861. The story of why and how that happened is filled with colorful characters, such as the aged Sam Houston, and with the southwestern flavor of raiding Comanches, German opponents of slavery, and a border with Mexico. Texas was unique among the seceding states because of its ambivalence toward secession. Yet for all its uniqueness the story of the secession of Texas has broad implications for the secession movement in general. Despite the local color and the southwestern nature of the state, Texas was more southern than western in 1860. Texans supported the Union or insisted upon secession for reasons common to the South and to the whole nation. Most Texans in 1860 were recent immigrants from southern and border states. They still thought and acted like citizens of their former states. The newness of Texas then makes it a particularly appropriate place from which to draw conclusions about the entire secession movement. Secession and the Union in Texas is both a narrative of secession in Texas and a case study of the causes of secession in a southern state. Politics play a key role in this history, but politics broadly defined to include the influence of culture, partisanship, ideology, and self-interest. As any study of a mass movement carried out in tense circumstances must be, this is social history as well as political history. It is a study of public hysteria, the pressure for consensus, and the vanishing of a political process in which rational debate about secession and the Union could take place. Although relying primarily on traditional sources such as manuscript collections and newspapers, a particularly rich source for this study, the author also uses election returns, population shifts over the course of the 1850s, and the breakdown of population within Texas counties to provide a balanced approach. These sources indicate that Texans were not simply secessionists or unionists. At the end of 1860 Texans ranged from ardent secessionists to equally passionate supporters of the Union. But the majority fell in between these two extremes, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence toward secession which was not erased even by the war.

The political impulse to secede - to attempt to separate from central government control - is a conspicuous feature of the post-cold war world. It is alive and growing in Canada, Russia, China, Italy, Belgium, Britain, and even the United States Yet secession remains one of the least studied and least understood of all historical and political phenomena. The contributors to this volume have filled this gap with wide-ranging investigations - rooted in history, political philosophy, ethics, and economic theory - of secessionist movements in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

This book explores the changing nature of secessionist attempts in connection with rapidly evolving geopolitical and technological landscapes. By presenting theoretical chapters as well as case studies on various secessionist movements around the globe, the contributing authors study a range of topics, including: the role of the media in secessionist conflicts; secessionist referenda and the viability of secessionist attempts in terms of their internal dimension; and external support and interference. The book will appeal to political scientists and international relations scholars who are interested in the processes, politics and geopolitical implications of secessionist movements.

The boundaries between secessionism and separatism are often blurred, and in many cases study of secessionism encompasses that of separatism and vice versa. Recognising this inherent relationship, this book provides a comparative survey of recent attempts at secession and separatist movements from across Europe and Asia, and assesses the responses of the respective host governments. The essays address two main questions which arise from the relationship between state governments and secessionist movements: first, how secessionist or separatist movements gather support and mobilize their target populations and second, how central political authorities respond to the challenges that secessionist or separatist movements pose to their capacity to control the country. With political analysis of recent cases ranging from the Balkans, the USSR, the UK and the Basque Country, to Sri Lanka, Burma, China, Tibet and Taiwan, the authors identify both similarities and differences in the processes and outcomes of secessionist and separatist movements across the two distinct regions. This volume will be an invaluable resource for those who wish to understand the dynamics of secessionist movements and as such will appeal to students and scholars of Asian and European politics, comparative politics, international relations and conflict studies. It will also be helpful to practitioners and policy-makers who wish to understand and contribute to the resolution of such conflicts.

This volume deals with current secessionist movements in states that are or were members of the European Union (EU). It compares the cases of Scotland, Catalonia, and Flanders, which are anchored in three different political systems. However, all three sub-state regions analysed are or were part of the EU multi-level system, and as such, they are subject to the influence of Europeanization. Their secession efforts are influenced by the European framework – including their own EU membership after a possible secession. The three regions, therefore, have different motivations and probabilities for actual secessions. All case studies in this volume are introduced and outlined with theoretical chapters and examined using consistent guiding questions to ensure comparability between the three cases. The analyses are framed by chapters describing other examples of secession processes past and present, and by texts that ask whether federalism or other solutions (so-called 'third ways') could offer a path beyond secession.