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Secession and the Sovereignty Game offers a comprehensive strategic theory for how secessionist movements attempt to win independence. Combining original data analysis, fieldwork, interviews with secessionist leaders, and case studies on Catalonia, the Murrawarri Republic, West Papua, Bougainville, New Caledonia, and Northern Cyprus, Ryan D. Griffiths shows how the rules and informal practices of sovereign recognition create a strategic playing field between existing states and aspiring nations that he terms "the sovereignty game." To win sovereign statehood, all secessionist movements have to maneuver on the same strategic playing field while varying their tactics according to local conditions. To obtain recognition, secessionist movements use tactics of electoral capture, nonviolent civil resistance, and violence. To persuade the home state and the international community, they appeal to normative arguments regarding earned sovereignty, decolonization, the right to choose, inherent sovereignty, and human rights. The pursuit of independence can be enormously disruptive and is quite often violent. By advancing a theory that explains how sovereign recognition has succeeded in the past and is working in the present, and by anticipating the practices of future secessionist movements, Secession and the Sovereignty Game also prescribes solutions that could make the sovereignty game less conflictual.

What are the factors that determine how central governments respond to demands for independence? Secessionist movements are numerous and quite varied in form, but the chief obstacle to their ambitions is the state itself, which can deny independence demands, deploy force if need be, and request that the international community respect its territorial integrity by not recognizing the breakaway region. Age of Secession focuses on this crucial but neglected moment in the life of a secessionist movement. Griffiths offers a novel theory using original data on secessionist movements between 1816 and 2011. He explains how state response is shaped by international and domestic factors, when conflict is likely, and why states have proliferated since 1945. He mixes quantitative methods with case studies of secessionist movements in the United Kingdom, Russia/Soviet Union, and India. This is an important book for anyone who wants to understand the phenomenon of secession.

How do secessionist movements formulate strategy and choose tactics? Secessionism takes place on a strategic playing field that shapes tactical behavior, driving some movements to choose armed rebellion while others prefer nonviolent civil resistance or electoral competition. Secessionist movements attempt to compel and make normative appeals in different combinations depending on local conditions such as regime type, the strength of the state, and the degree to which the region is already de facto independent. These efforts are aimed at not only the home state, but also the international community that can apply pressure on the home state to negotiate with the secessionists. I identify six kinds of movements—democratized, indigenous legal, combative/strong state, combative/weak state, decolonial, and de facto—and I outline the perils and possibilities inherent in each kind. I then construct a theoretical framework and test the implications using original data on secessionist tactics between 1946 and 2011.

AbstractHow do secessionist movements formulate strategy and choose tactics? Secessionism takes place on a strategic playing field that shapes tactical behavior, driving some movements to choose armed rebellion while others prefer nonviolent civil resistance or electoral competition. Secessionist movements attempt to compel and make normative appeals in different combinations depending on local conditions such as regime type, the strength of the state, and the degree to which the region is already de facto independent. These efforts are aimed at not only the home state, but also the international community that can apply pressure on the home state to negotiate with the secessionists. I identify six kinds of movements—democratized, indigenous legal, combative/strong state, combative/weak state, decolonial, and de facto—and I outline the perils and possibilities inherent in each kind. I then construct a theoretical framework and test the implications using original data on secessionist tactics between 1946 and 2011.

In his work on structural realism, Kenneth Waltz developed a theory of international order that is admired for its parsimony but criticized for its simplicity. Using his ordering principle as a foundation, I critique and extend his theory by constructing a model of international order with two dimensions: one of political centralization and the other of segmentary/functional differentiation. The resulting map locates different configurations of order and highlights four ideal-types: mechanical anarchy, organic hierarchy, mechanical hierarchy and organic anarchy. I then use the two-dimensional map and related ideal-types to outline two different processes of international change — a classical path and a modern path — that were invisible in the Waltzian model. This article is thus a contribution to the developing literature on conceptualizing different forms of international order and the dynamics of international change.

In his work on structural realism, Kenneth Waltz developed a theory of international order that is admired for its parsimony but criticized for its simplicity. Using his ordering principle as a foundation, I critique and extend his theory by constructing a model of international order with two dimensions: one of political centralization and the other of segmentary/functional differentiation. The resulting map locates different configurations of order and highlights four ideal-types: mechanical anarchy, organic hierarchy, mechanical hierarchy and organic anarchy. I then use the two-dimensional map and related ideal-types to outline two different processes of international change — a classical path and a modern path — that were invisible in the Waltzian model. This article is thus a contribution to the developing literature on conceptualizing different forms of international order and the dynamics of international change.

AbstractCommon wisdom and current scholarship hold that governments need to stand firm in the face of secessionist demands, since permitting the secession of one region can set a precedent for others. For this reason governments will often choose blood rather than risk dissolution. I argue that administrative organization provides states with a third option. Those regions that represent a unique administrative type stand a much better chance of seceding peacefully. Moreover, large articulated states sometimes downsize by administrative category, which helps explain why governments will release one set of units without contest while preventing another set from doing the same. Finally, secessionist movements that do not cohere with any administrative region are the least likely to be granted independence. In sum, the administrative architecture of states provides governments with a means to discriminate between secessionist demands. I test this theory in a large-N study using original data on secessionist movements and administrative units between 1816 and 2011.

The twentieth century saw the rise of two important and interrelated norms. The first is the norm of self-determination, which advances the right of stateless nations to govern themselves. The second is the norm of territorial integrity, which upholds the principle that political borders should be respected. A consequence of these norms has been an increase in secessionism, a decline in conquest, and a proliferation of states. This paper will examine the development of these norms, their interrelationship, and their prospects for the future. Attention will be given to three important questions: (1) Under what conditions does a norm endure beyond a power transition? (2) How likely is an ascendant China or India to support the norms? (3) What does a power transition and the corresponding support of these norms augur for the future of secession, conquest, and the number of sovereign states? (Pac Rev/GIGA)