Secession and Security: Explaining State Strategy against Separatists (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) - Hardcover

Butt, Ahsan I.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1501713949 ISBN 13: 9781501713941

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2017

Synopsis

"The book is an excellent addition to the scholarly literature on subnational movements, both past and present, offering a range of insights to policymakers across the globe."―Ayesha Jalal, author of The Struggle for Pakistan

"With judicious use of empirical evidence and rich case studies, Ahsan I. Butt makes a compelling case that states’ responses to secessionist movements turn to a considerable degree on their external security environments."―S. Paul Kapur, author of Jihad as Grand Strategy

In Secession and Security, Ahsan I. Butt argues that states, rather than separatists, determine whether a secessionist struggle will be peaceful, violent, or genocidal. He investigates the strategies, ranging from negotiated concessions to large-scale repression, adopted by states in response to separatist movements. Variations in the external security environment, Butt argues, influenced the leaders of the Ottoman Empire to use peaceful concessions against Armenians in 1908 but escalated to genocide against the same community in 1915; caused Israel to reject a Palestinian state in the 1990s; and shaped peaceful splits in Czechoslovakia in 1993 and the Norway-Sweden union in 1905.

Using more than one hundred interviews and extensive archival data, Butt focuses on two main cases―Pakistani reactions to Bengali and Baloch demands for independence in the 1970s and India’s responses to secessionist movements in Kashmir, Punjab, and Assam in the 1980s and 1990s. Butt’s deep historical approach to his subject will appeal to policymakers and observers interested in the last five decades of geopolitics in South Asia, the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and ethno-national conflict, separatism, and nationalism more generally.

About this title

About the Author

Ahsan I. Butt is Assistant Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

Review

"Compellingly and authoritatively researched. The research design―a case study approach―is exquisite. The case selections and criteria for comparison are academically sound. Butt also had access to scores of personal interviews as well as extensive archival data. The result is a significant and timely contribution to the scholarship on state decision-making in the international arena."

(Choice)

"Ahsan Butt makes a useful contribution by highlighting the international framework in explaining state response to secessionist movements but his question is very narrowly defined looking at ethnic difference when its trajectory implicitly or explicitly is separatist."

(Bloomsbury Pakistan)

"The spectacular achievement of Butt's seminal study is that it offers a refreshing theoretical explanation as to why states employ different strategies against separatists and, more importantly, it does so by presenting facts in an unbiased fashion. Secession and security's academic rigour, in-depth analysis, accessibility and balanced objectivity make it a highly commendable contribution to International Relations theory and conflict studies. Apart from general readers, I highly recommend this book to scholars and policy-makers engaged in understanding and resolving the puzzling equation of state–separatist dynamics."

(International Affairs)

"Masterly."

(Northeast Now)

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1501713949
• ISBN 13: 9781501713941
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 308