International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   In the political context, “secession” is the withdrawal of a people and their territory from the sovereignty of an existing state and the establishment of a new, independent state with sovereignty over that territory. The social science literature on secessionism exploded after the well-known secessions of the early 1990s: the breakup of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia and the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia. At the time, many observers worried about the fragility of the nation-state, particularly in an era of economic globalization. However, actual secession has remained an exceedingly rare phenomenon. Since the 1990–3 wave, only a handful of additional countries have gained independence: Palau in 1994, East Timor in 2002, Montenegro and Serbia in 2006, and Kosovo (disputed) in 2008. Nevertheless, movements for independence or extensive autonomy remain prevalent in states with geographically concentrated ethnic minorities. Because secessionist aims strike at the territorial integrity of the state, governments tend to resist such movements fiercely. Directly, secession causes an effectively permanent loss of territory and resources for the rump state. Indirectly, a successful secession can also signal weakness on the part of the government losing territory to other governments and minority groups. Because governments rarely concede ... log in or subscribe to read full text