Strategies of Secession and Counter-Secession

How can we understand the strategic interaction between secessionist movements and sovereign
states? A casual review of the many secessionist struggles around the world, both violent and
peaceful, shows a variety of types.

Some, like Catalonia, are pursuing their ends using combinations of electoral capture and civil demonstrations, just as the Spanish government is working to delegitimize these efforts and defeat them in the polls. Regions like Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) lack the same institutional connectivity with the larger state of Azerbaijan and are relegated to a de facto (but unrecognized) status where defense, deterrence, and diplomacy are critical. For its part, Azerbaijan invokes its territorial integrity and attempts to deny all forms of recognition to the breakaway region. Other regions from West Papua to Tibet are faced with the hard choice between civil resistance and the use of violence, and their states are keen to suppress their efforts and hide them from the world. What features are common across all of these examples, and how do they differ?

This volume synthesizes a number of theories and theoretical approaches that purport to explain the
strategies of secession and counter-secession. This is an important topic. Apart from the many legal
and cartographical issues that attend secessionist activity, the potential for conflict is a very real
concern. Estimates put the share of civil wars driven by secessionism at about 50%,1 and according
to Barbara Walter secessionism is the chief source of violence in the world today.2 Secessionism is
destabilizing because, at the least, it presents a direct challenge to existing political systems. Yet
surprisingly, the strategic interaction between states and secessionists is an area in which we have
incomplete understanding.

Ryan Griffiths is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He has held previous posts at the University of Sydney, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (IBEI). He completed his PhD at Columbia University in 2010. His research focuses on sovereignty, international order, and the dynamics of secession. He is the author of Age of Secession: The International and Domestic Determinants of State Birth (Cambridge University Press, 2016). He has published articles in various journals including International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and Security Studies.

Diego Muro is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St Andrews. His main research interests are identity politics, ethnic conflict, and terrorism and counter-terrorism. He has published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Ethnicities, Mediterranean Politics, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict, Nations and Nationalism, South European Society & Politics, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and West European Politics. His latest books on terrorism are Ethnicity and Violence (2008), Politics and Memory of the Transition (2011), ETA’s Terrorist Campaign (2017) and When does terrorism work? (2018).