Secession Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Secession can be defined as the establishment of sovereignty over a territory that once belonged to a larger political entity. Secessionism is the pursuit of sovereign status for that territory. Separatism, in turn, denotes the broader pursuit of increased independence for the territory—up to and including secession. The majority of secessionist movements are based on presumed ethnic differences between the seceding region and the larger state entity.

The Morality Of Secession

Because secession usually involves unilateral breakup of the state, legal scholars and political theorists have outlined conditions under which secessionism might be a justified course of action under prevailing international norms and existing legal practice. Here, the most important debate is between remedial rights and primary rights advocates. Remedial rights arguments hold that ethnic groups that have suffered massive repression by the center may be entitled to independent statehood if the violations were so severe that reconciliation within the existing state framework is no longer deemed viable. Primary rights arguments, on the other hand, hold that groups might have a right to secede whether or not they suffered repression from the government. Within the primary rights camp, ascriptive theorists hold that when there are significant ethnic differences between the group and the majority population, or when the group has a long-standing claim to sovereignty, it has a natural right to secede. In contrast, plebiscitary rights theorists hold that when a majority of residents in a given territory desire to separate from the state, they have the right to do so, regardless of whether they have a history of ill treatment or even shared ascriptive traits.

Theories Of Secessionism

By now, the literature on the causes of secession is considerable and may be divided into several broad theoretical frameworks. Essentialist arguments hold that ethnic identities trump other identities such as class and gender in modern political organization. In this formulation, secessionist movements are a function of significant ethnic differences between the minority and majority (measured in terms of race, custom, appearance, language, beliefs, or religion). The argument follows that any strongly differentiated group quite naturally will desire control over its political destiny in the modern era.

Secessionist claims are therefore a straightforward reflection of group desires for political independence. Consequently, secessionist conflicts cannot be resolved without granting the group some degree of sovereignty.

Institutionalist theories of secession hold that quasi-state structures such as regional autonomy, veto power, or local tax authority predispose ethnic groups to separatism. Much of this scholarship employs constructivist logic in arguing that national institutions (regardless of their original function) effectively create national groups, which ultimately mobilize for secession once the opportunity arises. The former Soviet republics provide a striking illustration of this phenomenon. The Soviet Union gave its union republics national constitutions, communist parties, academies of sciences, and national flags; the republics even had the rights to secede and conclude bilateral treaties with foreign countries. Though these structures had no functional value under centralized Kremlin rule, Ronald Suny (1994) demonstrates that these institutions served to construct salient republican identities around which groups mobilized for national independence when the Soviet state began to implode.

Political economy theories hold that secessionism is the outcome of economic differences between the seceding region and the state center. There are two separate and seemingly opposing predictions concerning secessionism in this literature. Proponents of advanced region secessionism predict that wealthy regions will attempt to secede in order to avoid taxation by the poorer center (e.g., Slovenia, Croatia, and the Katanga region of Congo). In contrast, backward region secessionism predicts that poor regions will seek independence in response to exploitation by the wealthier center in conjunction with limited access to state economic, cultural, or social institutions (e.g., Slovakia and Ireland).

Although not explicitly a theory of secession, the ethnic security dilemma holds that ethnic groups mobilize in response to the security vacuum brought about by state collapse. Barry Posen (1993) argues that regime change in multiethnic states creates an internal security dilemma by reproducing the condition of international anarchy on the substate level. In the absence of central authority, individuals will mobilize along the default cleavage of ethnicity. Where ethnic populations are intermingled, groups have a significant first-strike advantage; this creates an incentive for both groups to strike preemptively, increasing the likelihood of ethnic war. Under these conditions, an ethnic group may pursue secession (or territorial separation) as a means of increasing its physical security.

Credible commitment theories of secessionism build on this logic, predicting that a group will fight for secession when the center or majority cannot commit to protecting its wellbeing in the future. For example, Barry Weingast (1998) argues that the Southern states attempted to secede from antebellum America when the sectional balance in the Senate tipped in favor of the “free” states. Once the South lost its legislative veto, the Northern states could no longer credibly commit to protecting the Southern slave economy. This led the Southern states to attempt secession. Both security dilemma and commitment arguments rest on the assumption that secessionism is primarily driven by minority fears of victimization.

Ethnic bargaining theories challenge this view by focusing instead on opportunities for mobilization in the context of minority-state bargaining. Rupen Cetinyan (2002) argues that secessionist threats serve mainly as a bargaining tool for minorities to extract concessions from the center. When minorities have internal sources of strength (such as territorial concentration) and external sources of power (such as patronage from an external lobby actor), then the minority is more likely to escalate its demands of secession to obtain greater side-payments from the government.

The ongoing debate over the causes of secessionism has real-world implications, as our prevailing understandings of such conflicts inform the interventions that are designed to solve them. Essentialist theories prescribe a degree of autonomy for seceding groups on the assumption that they will continue to fight until their desires for self-determination are met. In contrast, institutionalist theories recommend against autonomy, which is believed to serve as a stepping stone to eventual secession. Security dilemma and commitment theories argue for external security guarantees so that seceding minorities will feel safe enough to reintegrate into the state. Ethnic bargaining theories suggest instead that third-party intervention may paradoxically encourage groups to secede, prolonging the conflict and provoking a majority backlash. Thus, the prescribed solutions to such conflicts depend very much on one’s understanding of their causes.

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