Our understanding of separatist movements is challenged daily by news reports from places as varied as India, Indonesia, Kosovo, and Quebec. This book gives readers a new insight into these movements by providing a thorough analysis of separatism from a historical and comparative perspective. It also studies the conditions, which ensure the success of integration and of melting-pot processes, in particular at the language level.

Black Separatism and Social Reality: Rhetoric and Reason deals with the contemporary debate over black separatism in America. It brings together for the first time many of the perspectives, ideas, orientations, and ideologies that all directly or indirectly address the question of black separatism — pro and con — from the vantage point of their own realities. It raises fundamental issues that have recurred throughout the last century and continue unabated today, such as whether black Americans should seek their political destiny apart from white Americans, or whether economic growth within the black community can eventually lead to true ""black power."" This book is comprised of 31 chapters and begins with a historical overview and social reality of black separatism in America, how and why black separatist movements emerge and why separatism appeals to some individuals and not to others. The next section explores the similarities of white racist assumptions and black separatism as well as the arguments for and against separatism. The prospects of black separatism are analyzed, along with Pan-Africanism and black studies. A comprehensive review of the history of separatist thought and a bibliography concerning the relation of Afro-Americans with Africa are presented. The possibility of a violent confrontation between whites and blacks is also considered. Finally, the book ponders the question of whether there is a need for a distinct, ""black"" social science. This monograph will appeal to sociologists, social scientists, political scientists, politicians, blacks, and scholars of black studies.

Economic integration is widely argued to increase subnational demands for independence. Yet, increasingly high degrees of integration have not been associated with a commensurate explosion of separatist activity. Integration, I argue, should not promote separatism because states retain important political and economic powers even in the face of major integration, and because separatist movements intrinsically support strong states, albeit not the ones from which they are seeking independence. Empirically, I test this argument through the case of post-WWII European integration, a hard test of my argument, since the European Union (EU) is the most advanced economic integration scheme in the world today. The quantitative analysis supports this argument showing that EU integration is weakly associated with a minor increase in separatist party activity in only two countries, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Further qualitative analysis suggests that even in these two countries the increase in separatist activity is not due to integration.

Argues that racial segregation is still prevalent in American society and a transformation is necessary to build democracy and eradicate racial barriers.