O’Leary, B. (2016) ‘Debating Partition’

O’Leary, B. (2016) ‘Debating Partition’, K. Cordell and S. Wolff, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict, 2.ed., London, Routledge, 138-154.

1. Partition: “a fresh political border cut through at least one community’s national homeland with the goal of resolving conflict” (138).
2. Key political and moral arguments to resolve antagonisms through partition:
   1. Historicist: partition is inevitable once ethnic conflicts pass a certain threshold. It is seen as both informed and realistic, but record shows that there can be peace without separation.
   2. Last resort: if alternative strategies fail, partition should be chosen to avoid genocide or large-scale ethnic expulsions.
   3. Net benefit: “partition should be chosen when, on balance, it offers a better prospect of conflict reduction than maintaining the existing borders”. It is desirable in its own right, not just as last resort. (139).
   4. Better tomorrow: without partition there will be more conflict and conflict recurrence; therefore, after partition parties will conduct themselves better.
   5. Realist rigour: partition must lead to radical demographic restructuring, to reduce military and political significance of new minorities.
3. They all suggest that “it is foolish to insist on maintaining unviable multinational polities” (141).
4. Modalities:
   1. Proceduralists: consultations with affected parties to achieve reciprocal consent on new border: deploy fairness and feasibility requirements. A. Lijphart set requirements for a fair partition: negotiated not imposed; fair division of land and resources; results in substantially less plural independent states.
   2. Paternalists: local parties cannot reasonably agree, therefore a sufficiently powerful outsider must determine partition that will be durable and reduce conflict fast.
5. Anti-partitionist arguments share views of partitions as perverse, of jeopardising existing relationships, and of impossibility of achieving fair partitions:
   1. Rejection of rupturing of national unity: majority of original state opposes secession as violation of its right to self-determination, seen as only in interest of privileged elites.
   2. Constructive possibility of bi- and multi-nationalism: pluri-national arrangements must be properly exhausted before partition is considered genuinely as a last resort. Often, minority leaders refuse or block all other options.
   3. Practical impossibility of just partitions:
      1. a number of key difficulties that a boundary commission would need to decide:
         • Which should be the units around which new boundaries should be drawn?
         • Should there be subunit optouts?
         • How should units’ preferences be determined?
         • Should local popular preferences be considered just one criterion to be balanced among others?
         • Should non-preferential factors be considered in designing new borders, and should local popular preferences be subordinated thereto – and who should decide this?
         • Should there be constitutional amendments to ratify proposals and referendums, and should there be provisions for their subsequent revision?
      2. “partitions are perverse: they achieve exactly the opposite of what they nominally intend” (147).
      3. Kaufmann (1998) is wrong when he argues that partition reduced violence in his 4 case-studies. He shows “it is easy to slip from a defense of partition as a last resort to tacit support for ethnic expulsions” (148).
      4. Partitions often lead to post-partition wars., creating inter-state ‘security dilemmas’.
   4. Elusive mirage of homogenization without expulsion:
      1. Partition alone is unlikely to create desired levels of homogenization.
      2. Assimilation, expulsion, even genocide will follow.
      3. “Partitions are never enough for rigorous homogenizers.” (149)
      4. “Partitions without comprehensive expulsions generate two kinds of orphaned minorities: former prospective majorities, and formerly dominant minorities” (149). They both may become part of irredentist movements or campaign for further partitions.
   5. Damage to successor states:
      1. Partitions generate new inter-state security crises and cause significant economic disruption by disturbing established monetary and exchange networks, increasing transaction costs, protectionism and border-related criminal activity.
      2. Post-partition states have functional and infrastructural interests that leads them to consider cross-border cooperation or confederal arrangements that put into question the need for partition itself.
      3. Usually, one of the two post-partition states is significantly disadvantaged and significantly underperforms.
   6. Failure to make a clean or elegant cut:
      1. Post-partitionists’ maps bleed and “do not look good” (149).
      2. New borders are usually less compact and create adverse security and transport connections.
6. Anti-partitionists’ arguments are more compelling judged by realistic, political and moral criteria and are endorsed by international law.
7. “Give power-sharing a chance” (151): complex power-sharing settlements are possible even after protracted ethno-national wars.
8. Partitions deserve their poor press, as they do not generate better security environments and are biased towards privileged or dominant minorities.
9. Post-partition arrangements are worse than predicted for at least one successor state.
10. “Prudence therefore mandates opposing partition as a tool of international public policy-making, and placing the burden of proof on its advocates” 152.
11. Hard to find a good 20^th-century partition.
12. Implementing a new border destabilizes inter-group relations in ways that may take generations to repair. Secessions harden existing administrative borders and may be easier to accomplish.