Vidmar, J. (2010) ‘The Right of Self-Determination and Multiparty Democracy: Two Sides of the Same Coin?’, Human Rights Law Review 10 (2), 239-68.

1. Exploration of relationship between right of self-determination (‘SD’) and multiparty democratic political systems (‘MDPP’).
2. In contemporary International Law (‘IL’), SD is not an absolute legal principle, but a human right subject to several limitations.
3. MDPP is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for SD.
4. Representative government principle underlies both democracy (‘D’) and SD. D & SD are associated in western European and American traditions; in eastern Europe it is rooted in 19^th century nationalism.
5. SD therefore refers both to a state’s internal political organisation (‘ISD’) and to external creation of new states (‘ESD’).
6. Woodrow Wilson combined ISD and ESD in his 8. January 1918 ’14 Points’ speech, which made them seemingly contradictory and difficult to implement in practice.
7. Until 1945, SD remained a political principle. With the UN Charter, it became a human right subject to limitations – first and foremost, to the principle of territorial integrity of States (‘TIS’).
8. Therefore, in no-colonial situations, SD is consummated as ISD. Because of the requirement of representative democracy, SD became linked again to an emergent ‘right to democracy’.
9. Right to participation and SD are interdependent but this does not necessarily imply an obligation to implement MDPPs.
10. In IL, even governments that do not come to power through multiparty electoral contests can be seen as representative of their peoples.
11. MDPPs do not automatically lead to the right of SD.

SD: Development, Democratic Pedigree, Limitations

1. Both Wilson and Lenin were advocates of SD from ideologically opposite perspectives.
2. For Lenin, SD was linked to secession as a path to socialist revolution.
3. Wilson’s support for SD was based on the liberal principle of self-government: it was the logical corollary of popular sovereignty and consent of the governed. SD was thus a synonym for a democratic political system (244).
4. In his 14 Points speech, Wilson stipulated SD as the criterion for Europe’s new states, along ethnic lines, and as resulting in the right of each nation to its own State.
5. ISD and ESD could not be easily reconciled because it implied SD must be a continuous process synonymous with democratic forms of government.
6. For Wilson SD was an absolute political principle; yet post-WWI events showed it had to be reconciled with the TIS principle.
7. SD remained a political principle until it was codified as a human right by the 1966 ICCPR, Art. 1 and the ICSECR and declared to be accepted as part of customary international law.
8. It remains subjects to same limitations as other human rights, including especially TIS.
9. Only colonial SD was recognised as legitimately leading to independence and statehood.
10. ‘Safeguard clause’ of the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law (‘DPIL’) defines TIS and can be read both as a shift from ESD to ISD, and as including an external dimension: a state without government representing all its citizens may be denied right to assert TIS principle – which would legitimize ESD claims from its national groups (confirmed in the SCC’s Quebec case): confirmation of remedial secession doctrine.
11. SD is linked here with both democracy and human rights.
12. However, SD “does not have an exclusive democratic pedigree” (247). Some interpret the ‘safeguard clause’ as requiring MDPPs.

SD, Governmental Representativeness and Multiparty Democracy

1. The ‘safeguard clause’ requires a representative government. That does not mean it demands democratic governments, and even less MDPPs.
2. The ICJ held in the 1972 East Pakistan case that in defining ‘peoples’ for the purpose of SD, one must keep in mind that “a people begin to exist only when it becomes conscious of its own identity and asserts its will to exist” (249), and therefore that SD is a political phenomenon and the exercise of the SD right is a political act.
3. UNESCO sets following criteria (250), which do not include affiliation to political parties:
   1. Common historical tradition;
   2. Racial or ethnic identity;
   3. Cultural homogeneity;
   4. Linguistic unity;
   5. Religious or ideological affinity;
   6. Territorial connection;
   7. Common economic life.
4. In practice, Southern Rhodesia’s 1965 unilateral declaration of independence was not recognised by the UN because its government did not represent all its people and declared it an “illegal regime” in its 1970 Resolution 227 because of its racial animus.
5. However, the democratic principles referred to here related to popular support for change of legal status of a territory, not to MDPPs.
6. The South African bantoustans granted quasi-independence by South Africa between 1976 and 1981 were also not recognised by the UN and constituted a violation of SD right of South African people grounded in racism and apartheid. Security Council Resolution 417 also asserted that South Africa’s entire apartheid system was racist and violated the SD right of its people; it did not focus on lack of MDPP.
7. Collective practice of UN organs shows that even governments that do not emerge via MDPPs may be considered legitimate and representative of their peoples.
8. When the DPIL was adopted in 1970, it was clear that political representativeness did not demand exclusively MDPPs.
9. Security Council resolution never denied states legitimacy on democratic grounds because of non-elected governments; therefore, “governmental legitimacy in international law is not linked to a democratic political process”.
10. IL does not prescribe how ISD should be implemented by states with their territories and accepts it can take various forms.

The Right of SD, Political Participation and the Choice of a Political System

1. Interdependence between SD right and Political participation right also does not result in a requirement of MDPP; nor do actually existing MDPPs lead to an automatic realization of the right of SD.
2. Some authors and politicians claim that SD right requires adherence to ”some democratic standards” based on Art. 25 ICCPR elaborating right to political participation.
3. General Comment 25 of the UN Human Rights Committee interpret right to political participation more narrowly, as not requiring a particular form of government. This was affirmed by the ICJ’s Nicaragua case. GA Resolutions 45.150 and 45/151 confirm this.
4. “International law does not require a specific political system and does not bind non-democratic states to democratization” (263).
5. “The right to self-determination cannot be consummated through the existence of a democratic, multiparty, electoral system alone”, and in absence of adequate mechanisms for the protection of numerically inferior peoples, may even lead to its violation (266).
6. “In international law as it currently stands, a multiparty democracy is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the realisation of the right to self-determination” (268).

Tullberg, J. and Tullberg, B.S. (1997) ‘Separation or Unity? A Model for Solving Ethnic Conflicts’, Politics and the Life Sciences, 16 (2), 237-48.

1. Ethnic separation should be regarded as an alternative to national unity, to be made democratically by the group proposing it. If approved, it should include population transfers. (237).
2. “A separate culture is the raison d’etre of a separate state” (237).
3. Involvement of outside powers is often decisive.
4. Separation tends to recreate old problems with reversed roles: members of old majority group become new minority in secessionist state.
5. New borders are required as part of a radical plan for change: aim – “to leave as few people as possible in the “wrong” state” (238): move towards homogeneity required.
   1. Equal number in each state;
   2. Natural border.
6. Both states may benefit by having a unified population (239). Three principles:
   1. Each state is responsible to accept people of its own nationality;
   2. Each state entitled to evict members of the other group;
   3. Each individual may emigrate to the ‘right’ state. (239)
7. “An examination of the alternatives reveals that nothing comes close to solving the problems in the long run.” (239).
8. Fundamental incompatibilities require a civilised divorce.
9. Power-sharing arrangements are difficult to achieve and incompatible with democratic principles and methods (239) based on the basic value of equal citizenship rights. Consociationalist solutions are temporary, not long-term. (240).
10. Group egoism and cohesiveness to gain strength in conflict with other human groups not necessarily based on kinship ties. (241). Four categories based on human’s ‘selfish genes’ (241) – drive for genetic self-interest:
    1. Egoism;
    2. Kin selection;
    3. Reciprocity;
    4. Group egoism: product of natural selection – rational because it increases individual survival and reproduction: “it is hard to see how humans could abandon this way of functioning”; futile to even try: ethnocentric rationality (241).
11. Altruism: results not from natural selection, but from cultural factors.
12. Manipulation: deception by promising advantages that are not delivered. People are smart enough to eventually detect this because they are zoon politikon (241).
13. How to distinguish between real group interests and deceitful claims? People’s democratically-expressed judgement should do so. (241).
14. “to promote interests through ethnic alliance has been a reality in history and will continue to be so. It seems futile to try to rid humankind of ethnocentrism by declarting it outmoded or calling it a mental malady, xenophobia” (241).
15. “A monolingual society has an obvious practical advantage over a multilingual society” (242).
16. Outside control of resources and job competition with immigrants can be harmful to the welfare of one’s own group (242).
17. “That irredentas are so seldom chosen is hard to explain for any reason other than that the leadership of the minority prefers being the ruling elite of a small entity to being integrated into a larger unity of the common creed, language, etc.” (242).
18. Origins of ethnic oppositions lie on long-standing conflicts: historic animosity between neighbours outweighs difference; ‘contact-hypothesis’ not enough to remedy this.
19. Nationalism is a modern variant of ethnocentrism. (243).
20. “One way to compensate for low rank is to emphasize superiority versus the out-group.” (243).
21. A group’s dissatisfaction capable of triggering separatism is rooted in exploitation by another group. Such inter-ethnic antagonism is composed both or real historical facts and constructed myths. (245). To avoid conflict, retaliation, violence, separation is a possible solution when there is no trust, belief and passion for a new start.
22. Four types of objections:
    1. Time: globalisation and emergence of a single international culture. This runs against realities of fragmentation, disintegration, nationalism, new states’ creation, supranational organizations providing for security and prosperity assuring viability of smaller states.
    2. Sympathy: ‘pity priority rule’: support weak against strong group. This is disastrous for peace. Also, roles can easily be reversed -today’s victims can become tomorrow’s villains, whilst certain groups can play both roles.
    3. Authority: the real problem is central governments’ (or the UN’s) lack of authority to impose peace. Authority is not enough; solutions must also be legitimate, and in accordance with recognised and certain rules and principles.
    4. Jurisdiction: limit ethnic demands past a certain level and in effect outlaw secessions. This does not really address the underlying problem and requires an alternate plan. “Separatism cannot be transformed from a political choice to a matter of policing” (246).
    5. Even democrats do not want to apply a democratic solution if they believe democracy will not only not solve the problem, but bring about more conflict, violence, and death. Such pessimism is not justified, and solutions such as the one proposed here of ‘civilised divorce’ can be found.

Sambanis, N. and Schulhofer-Wohl, J. (2009) ‘What’s in a Line? IS Partition a Solution to Civil War?’, International Security 34 (2), 82-118.

1. Partition promises a clean and simple solution to war – but does it work?
2. Arguments for partition:
   1. Ethnic identities are hardened by war;
   2. This makes interethnic cooperation difficult;
   3. It increases risk individuals will be targeted for violence because of their ethnicity;
   4. Separating ethnic groups in conflict reduces risk of escalating violence.
3. Partitions has costs:
   1. Changes political boundaries;
   2. Forcibly relocates populations.
4. Empirical evidence in favor of partition is weak.
5. Chapman and Roeder (2007) (‘C&R2007’) reanalyses data generated by Sambanis (2000) to show partitions have strong pacifying effect after civil wars.
6. This article will demonstrate the fragility of pro-partition empirical results: on basis of available evidence, partition does not have the pacifying effect C&R2007 claim it does.
7.  Necessary to pay attention to data coding issues, historical and political contexts, rigorous theory building.
8. We “find that partition does not work in general and that the set of conditions under which it is likely to work is very limiting” (83).
9. Kaufmann claims partition is a good solution if groups can’t live together in ethnically hetereogeneous states because it resolves the ethnic security dilemma: it reduces threats each group poses to the other.
10. Partition: “a civil war outcome that results in territorial separation of a sovereign state” (84).
11. “Redrawing borders, with or without substantial physical separation of people, is often unsuccessful in reducing the risk of war recurrence” (85).
12. Three historical examples indicate that partition might work under certain conditions: Cyprus, Bangladesh, Croatia, Eritrea, Somaliland.
13. C&R2007 develop an “institutional bargaining” model arguing that de jure partitions resulting in creation of new sovereign states reduce likelihood of escalation in hostilities in short run.
14. Their results are due to methodological mistakes. Their claim that partitions should outperform all other solutions to civil wars over competing nation-state projects because “they simplify the nature of bargaining between elites of the secessionist region and elites of predecessor state, reducing opportunities for violence escalation” (87).
15. Ethnic Security Dilemma (‘ESD’) set out by Posen (1993):
    1. Without impartial state policing, ethnic groups become responsible for own security and risk escalation because of “tactical offensive advantage” (94). Therefore, each group attempts to ethnically cleanse its territory of potentially hostile ethnic groups, leading to rapid escalation of violence in a preemptive war.
    2. ESD puts political geography at the centre and claims that partition removes tactical offensive advantage if near-complete physical separation of antagonist ethnic groups is achieved.
    3. ESD asserts that ethnic power sharing is particularly unstable, that ethnic identity is easily identifiable, and that this makes targeting of individuals for violence after an ethnic war particularly easy.
16. Unstated key condition: presence of powerful coethnics in a neighbouring state is a key component of the escalation logic of the security dilemma; this implies against logic of partition “that neighboring states can both deter and catalize an escalation of violence regardless of demographics” (95).
17.  “Ethnic power sharing need not be inherently unstable; conflict escalation often results from external intervention and not from the country’s ethnic demography. Focus on ethnic demography assumes fixity of ethnic identities and ease of ethnic identification, which underpin position that partition is potentially useful only in ethnic wars (96).
18. “The ethnic security dilemma applies only under conditions of state weakness, and the argument boils down to a credible commitment plan” (96). Partition is only one of several ways through which the credible commitment problem might be addressed” (98).
19. Security dilemma does not apply only to ethnic wars, but also to those arising out of political beliefs and affiliations to any number of social groups (97). It ceases to apply to residual minorities and is exacerbated by certain demographic patterns, all of which must be taken into account when evaluating conditions under which partition might work.
20. Institutionalists argue that partition is supposed to have a pacifying effect and reducing hostility by simplifying postwar bargaining between elites of a secessionist state and elites in the predecessor state (98). They opine that partition eliminates conflict by:
    1. Strengthening the collective identity of the secessionist region’s inhabitants and reducing the claims of the rump state to its territory and inhabitants;
    2. Eliminating causers of conflict by minimizing joint decisions that need to be taken jointly by the central government of the rump state and the leaders of the secessionist region;
    3. Raising the costs of escalating conflict by transforming it into an international one;
    4. Giving both sides more visible and defensive military positions, thus achieving ‘a balance of capabilities’ (99).
21. These arguments rest on ad hoc assumptions that are not proven.
22. Even if partition solves a conflict by separating populations that do not trust each other to cooperate in a unitary post-war state, it can generate new incentives for new identity or distributional conflicts in bot rump and secessionst states (101):
    1. Within new state for government control;
    2. With new group trying to secede from new state and join rump state;
    3. Within rump state over government control;
    4. Within rump state for distributional resources after departure of a resource-rich territory;
    5. Between rump state government and other minorities as result of secondary consequences of partition.
23. Data shows that partitions do not have the anticipated positive and significant effect on post-war peace. (107).
24. Peace transitions are nonlinear processes: one step forward – two steps back.
25. “The best available evidence shows no significant association between partition and postwar stability, defined as a lower risk of a return to war” (116).
26. “Ethnic cleansing, once considered a humane way to manage conflict, has fallen out of favour. In many ways, partition just takes the problem and calls it a solution” (117).
27. The ‘institutional model’ offers weak foundations for arguments in favor of de jure partition as a solution to civil war (118).
28. “Institutional arguments assume that contentious identities will be quickly transformed by partition, whereas security dilemma arguments assume that contentious identities cannot be transformed. Yet neither argument has dealt with the institutional effects of partition on ethnic identity properly; both assume away the problem that new identities and distributional conflicts can be created by partition” (118).

Weller, M. (2005) ‘The self-determination trap’, Ethnopolitics 4 (1), 3-28.

1. The Classical doctrine of Self-determination (‘SD’) disenfranchises populations and does not satisfy those struggling for sovereign statehood., resulting in prolonged and bloody armed conflicts.
2. The emerging doctrine of constitutional self-determination could point the way out of this deadlock.
3. International system balances ideology of free will and need to maintain order, stability and peace by ensuring that the doctrine of SD is constructed in a way that limits or denies choice. However, this dynamic does not prevent conflict – it sustains it: state will label groups asking for recognition as secessionists and rebels, whilst opposition movements will radicalize their demands and see armed struggle as only way forward.
4. Virtually all opposed unilateral secessions resulted in violent conflict and were either defeated in a violent conflict or festered for decades.
5. In recent years, central governments, SD movements and international actors have tried to escape the SD trap by devising new settlements attempting to reconcile SD and territorial unity through complex power-sharing agreements such as constitutional self-determination (‘CSD’).
6. SD disenfranchises populations by proceeding in 5 steps:
   1. SD is linked with the doctrine of territorial unity;
   2. SD limits the type of ‘people’ entitled to exercise this right;
   3. SD scope of application is very narrow;
   4. SD is not a continuous process, but a one-time event;
   5. Modalities of achieving the point of SD.
7. SD: right of all peoples to freely determine their political, economic and social status both internally (choice of system of governance) and externally (secession). It has various sub-meanings:
   1. SD as an individual right;
   2. SD as congruent with minority rights (individuals or groups);
   3. SD for indigenous peoples;
   4. SD in cases of limited territorial change;
   5. External SD.
8. Focus here will be on SD as entitlement of ‘peoples’ to determine the international legal status of a territory.
9. International law protects claims of existing states’ governments to their territories and will only grant Secession demands if the government concerned consents. There are three instances when this can happen:
   1. When one state joins another (GDR joining FRG);
   2. Dissolution of composite states (Czechoslovakia, USSR);
   3. Instances of secession (Eritrea).
10. Manifestation of popular will is necessary even when the central government agrees to secession.
11. Traditional SD right asserts its validity irrespective of the wishes of the central government – ie. right to unilateral and mostly opposed secession.
12. First element of disenfranchisement:
    • States have enshrined doctrine of territorial unity in international law and connected SD only with an exceptional right to secession, only available in cases of decolonization of state consent. All other Secessions are considered unlawful – thus effectively disenfranchising populations that want to exercise SD.
13. Second element of disenfranchisement:
    • Opposed unilateral secessions that do not involve the unlawful use of external force, genocide, apartheid, etc. are not internationally unlawful (9).
    • An entity that secedes and effectively maintains itself over time can eventually obtain statehood and extinguish the claims of the original state over its territory. But this is difficult to determine, and original states can always attempt to reincorporate break-away entities.
    • SD entities are internationally privileged before they obtain their effective independence in a way ‘effective entities’ are not: the latter must fight forcible reincorporation and win decisively over time to mature into recognized states.
14. Third element of disenfranchisement:
    • Colonial SD has been recognized only for a limited category of entities (overseas colonies in the global South, alien occupation – Palestine -, racist regimes -South Africa, secondary colonies – East Timor – , and does not extend to territorially contiguous imperial states (Chechnya, Kosovo).
    • “While self-determination is an activist right that is intended to overcome the evils of colonialism, it is in fact administered in a wat that is consistent with the territorial designs and administrative practices imposed by colonizers” (11).
    • The ‘people’ entitled to SD are those living within colonial boundaries drawn by colonial powers.
    • Aim of decolonization is not restoration of situation before colonialism, but reshaping of facts based on reality of colonial administration. It is the territorial shape of that administration that defines the SD entity, not the will of the people.
    • African states accepted these colonial boundaries upon independence and “fiercely defended them” in the name of stability and order (12).
    • Badinter Commission endorsed this doctrine of uti possidetis as a universal principle across the world.
15. Fourth element of disenfranchisement:
    • Colonial SD occurs only once – not an on-going process.
    • Subunits have to similar SD rights (Badinter Commission).
16. Fifth element of disenfranchisement:
    • Imbalance in status of those struggling for independence outside the colonial context;
    • Those within colonial context but which are subunits of colonial administrative entities achieving independence;
    • Entities that oppose initial SD act integrating them with another entity and seeks independence.
    • Entities that qualify under classical SD are legally entitled to struggle for independence and receive international assistance; those who do not, cannot.
    • In cases within colonial context, the system ensures the liberation struggle will be a success; outside it, “the system is rigged in order to ensure that the state prevails” (14): the struggle is classified as a purely internal domestic rebellion and rebels can be treated as criminals.
    • Double disenfranchisement: domestic and international.
    • Two recent exceptions:
      1. Stalemate no longer acceptable domestically (Northern Ireland);
      2. Humanitarian suffering results in external armed intervention (Bosnia).
17. Emergence of doctrine of constitutional SD.
18. Colonial SD is based in international law; Constitutional SD is based on a constitutional arrangement establishing separate legal personality for component parts of an overall state.
19. Four types of Constitutional SD:
    1. Express SD status: specified in a state’s constitution (Ethiopia): very restrictive;
    2. Effective dissolution of a federal-type state (USSR; Yugoslavia): with conditions attached:
       1. SD right constitutionally specified;
       2. Only constituent federal republics possessed SD rights (excludes Kosovo, Chechnya);
       3. Free and fair referendum;
       4. Acceptance of minority rights guarantees.
    3. Implied SD status:
       1. when a ‘nation’ or ‘people’ inhabit a constitutionally defined territory and the central government or constitution grant SD referendum rights (Scotland, Quebec)
       2. Independence not automatic: both parties must engage in ‘good faith’ negotiations about implementation of decision to secede.
    4. SD though adverse conduct by central authorities:
       1. Badinter Commission: federal-type entities denied effective representation in political structure of federation;
       2. Entity suffered genocide or ethnic cleansing or deliberate campaign to destroy its population.
20. Effective entities: No SD status, but de facto statehood: untested theory.
21. SD through Internationalized Settlements: self-government of secessionist units coupled with power-sharing mechanisms in the larger state, under international supervision, allows escape from SD trap (Northern Ireland, Bougainville)
22. “The existence of the right to self-determination therefore served as a convenient legitimizing myth for the existing state system” (26).
23. “The state was given a carte blanche in dealing with groups seeking to assert their separate identity” (26-7).
24. SD is mostly a hollow promise – even a curse: the system is rigged in favor of central governments: by privileging stability over ‘justice’ it sacrifices peace (27).
25. Settlements are being achieved in instances of mutually harmful stalemates through various power-sharing arrangements or long-term possibilities of separation: necessary to escape the current SD trap though new forms of co-governance or eventual secession.

Sambanis, N. (2000) ‘Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War: An Empirical Critique of the Theoretical Literature’, World Politics 52 (4), 437-483

1. Partition theorists have not produced operational criteria for applying their theories consistently across cases.
2. Empirical testing could help elucidate these theoretical debates.
3. Focus on claims that once ethnic violence starts, civil politics can only be restored if ethnic groups are demographically separated into ‘defensible enclaves’ (438) and solutions aiming to restore multi-ethnic civil politics will not work because they do not resolve existing security dilemmas (‘SD’).
4. SDs are at heart of partition theory: when communities distrust each other, one community’s actions to increase its own security is seen as threatening to security of others.
5. Therefore, the claim is that partition in homogenous separate regions becomes inevitable to end conflict.
6. No proof for this has been provided.
7. Will test three core hypotheses:
   1. Partitions facilitate post-war democratization;
   2. Partitions prevent war recurrence;
   3. Partitions significantly reduce low-level ethnic violence.
8. Result: Partitions do not prevent recurrence of ethnic war and may not even be necessary to stop low-level ethnic violence.
9. Criticism of partition:
   1. too limiting a solution: ethnic cooperation may be possible even after a civil war.
   2. too severe a solution: forced population movements cause tremendous human suffering.
   3. Will create undemocratic successor states: repression of residual minorities.
   4. Endorsing some partition will encourage others, leading to wars: not true; this is rare.
10. SD ignores the fact that conflict is often due not to ethnic groups’ security needs, but to ‘predatory’ goals of their leaders; therefore, partition will not solve the SD of partitioned ethnic groups if it exacerbates ‘predatory’ incentives of predecessor states.
11. Civil wars tend not to end in negotiated settlements, unless supported by external security guarantees that prevent predatory predecessor states from restarting wars against successor states (442).
12. Alternative to both Partition (‘P’) and creating a new balance of power is to create a regional hegemon responsible for regional peace.
13. Ethnic diffusion might mitigate the SD (Byman) because it reduces the possibility that a single ethnic group might become dominant (443): ‘ethnic balancing’ against threatening groups is both possible and stabilizing.
14. “The probability of civil war drops significantly at very high levels of ethnic diversity and it is greatest in ethnically polarised societies” (443).
15. Four key questions related to partition must be investigated:
    1. What are the main determinants of P?
    2. Does P create democratic or undemocratic states?
    3. Does P prevent war recurrence?
    4. Does P end low-level ethnic violence?
16. Complied data set with 125 civil wars and 21 partitions.
17. Testable hypotheses.
18. Findings:
    1. Type of war is a significant determinant of partition: ethnicity matters for the onset of partition.
    2. As ethnic heterogeneity increases, probability of partition decreases significantly; as size of ethnic groups increase, so does likelihood of partition.
    3. Partitions are positively and significantly correlated with levels of violence; but violence may well be caused by partition itself.
    4. “Partition is more likely after identity than ideological war, after truce or rebel victory following war, in a country with large ethnic groups and little heterogeneity, and higher levels of economic development.
19. Three critical hypotheses of P theory:
    1. Ps create successor states that are at least as democratic as predecessors: evidence unclear; more research needed.
    2. Ps reduce risk of war recurrence: evidence does not support this. Therefore, separating ethnic groups does not resolve the problem of violent ethnic antagonism.
    3. Ps reduce low-level ethnic violence after war ends: very weak evidence in favor.
20. Ps are coerced, painful, costly, may saw seeds for future conflicts. International policy towards P must rely on rigorous, empirical testing and arguments.
21. New Hypothesis: “The strategy of supporting ethnic diffusion by combining rather than partitioning large ethnic groups may be worth pursuing” after a civil war: “If borders can be credibly and securely redrawn, then combining several large ethnic groups in a larger multiethnic state may reduce the probability of new wars” (479).
22. “Partition, as we have seen, does not help reduce the risk of war recurrence. Partitions are in fact positively (though not significantly) associated with recurrence of ethnic war. The probability of a new war rises in tandem with the human toll of the previous war and with non-decisive outcomes to the war” (480).
23. “Negotiated settlements, a strong government army, and a lengthy previous war all reduce the probability of war recurrence” (481).
24. “To reduce residual violence, it is important to prevent war recurrence, as patterns of large-scale violence over time seem to encourage lower-level violence” (481).
25. “Strategies to support the government’s prewar institutions and its military may also achieve peace, but they may do so at the expense of justice” (481).
26. Empirically-derived strategy for resolving ethnic war: “This strategy demands action by the international community, which must promote democracy as its number one conflict-prevention strategy. If violence does erupt, its priority should be to facilitate a negotiated settlement, as well as to integrate and downsize the government’s military… If border redefinition is a viable option – and it should be an option only if it does not assist one party at the expense of another – then ethnic integration rather than ethnic partition may be a winning strategy. In addition to having the potential for greater success than partition, this strategy is also not loaded with subjective and arbitrary assumptions about the necessity for ethnically pure states and about the futility of interethnic cooperation” (481).
27. “On average, partition may be an impossible solution to ethnic civil war” (482).

Kumar, R. (1997) “The Troubled History of Partition’, Foreign Affairs 76 (1) (Jan./Feb. 1997), 22-34.

1. 1995 Dayton Peace Accord: a partition agreement with an exit clause for outside powers.
2. Claim that partitions as solutions to ethnic conflicts save lives, safeguard rights of contending ethnic groups through intervention of impartial outside power, and create homogenous territories through population transfers.
3. Instead of doing so, partitions “fomented further violence and forced mass migration” (24).
4. Partition assumes irreconcilable ethnic identities and capacity to separate ethnic groups.
5. Usually, partitions are “driven by considerations extraneous to the needs and desires of the people displaced” and “end up stimulating further and even new conflict” (26).
6. Case studies of Cyprus, Palestine, Northern Ireland, India, Bosnia show that partitions are seen as temporary solutions to crises; however, once implemented “ethnic partitions have never been reversed; their implementation has inexorably driven communities further apart”. (33).
7. Ethnic partition can hamper development of postwar economies.
8. “Divide and Quit” approach rarely works: it turns into “Divide and Be forced to stay” (34).
9. “Investment in reintegration may be discovered as the easier route to withdrawal.” (34)

Horowitz, D.L. (2003) ‘The Cracked Foundations of the Right to Secede’, Journal of Democracy 14 (2), 5-17.

1. Two international legal developments in regulation of conflict and warfare between ethnic groups:
   1. Tribunals to punish genocide and crimes against humanity;
   2. Elaboration of various doctrines of human rights, including a possible right of ethnic groups to secede.
2. Such a right is ill-considered and dangerous.
3. Certain theorists see secession as answer to problems of ethnic conflict and violence; that is wrong: it is likely to make such problems worse.
4. Secession does not create homogenous successor states or reduce conflict, violence, or minority oppression in successor states (5-6).
5. Minorities’ condition can best be improved by devising institutions to increase their satisfaction within existing states.
6. “Partition can be accomplished reluctantly, as a matter of prudence, without recognizing a right to secede” 96).
7. Atlantic Charter, 1941: self-determination limited to peoples living under foreign domination, resulting in decolonization.
8. From the end of WWII to end of Cold War territorial boundaries were remarkably stable.
9. After the end of the Cold War boundaries became less stable. Badinter Commission on Yugoslavia legitimised breakup of this federation.
10. Various theories of self-determination leading to secession:
    1. An integral right of peoples to be free of authoritarian oppression: right to live under a democratic regime;
    2. Right of people in general of with common group characteristics to choose with whom they wish to associate politically – although collective identity fluctuates;
    3. Remedial right: last-ditch response to discrimination or oppression by central government;
    4. All assume secession can result in homogenous successor states or at least ones that will guarantee minority rights.
11. Treatment of minorities in new states will not improve if minorities were not respected in undivided state.
12. “Secession merely proliferates the arenas in which the problem of intergroup political accommodation must be faced” (9).
13. Secession encourages the former minority, now a majority, to cleanse the secessionist state of its own minorities and induces the rump state to do the same.
14. There are no truly natural boundaries that secession can institutionalise.
15. Secessions and partitions convert domestic ethnic disputes into more dangerous international ones and trigger irredentist claims that often are followed by ethnic cleansing.
16. A right to secede will undermine efforts to achieve interethnic accommodation within states (10).
17. Devolution efforts are most effectively undermined by a right, recognised under international law, to secession.
18. “A right to secession effectively advantages militant members of ethnic groups at the expense of conciliators.” (11)
19. A right to secession grounded in extreme oppression of minorities derives from an alleged commitment of international law to democracy. Such a commitment is tenuous at best.
20. Self-determination for peoples or groups within a state is to be achieved by participation in its constitutional system, on the basis of respect for its territorial integrity.
21. Secession is an anti-state movement and undermines the very foundation of current international legal order – state sovereignty.
22. Solution is to foster interethnic accommodation within states, through institutions that can mitigate conflict:
    1. Consociational democracy: neglect of democratic opposition and propensity for excessively limited government and immobilism; it is attractive to minorities, not majorities.
    2. Use of political incentives to encourage ethnic moderation: electoral systems capable of inducing moderate behaviour by politicians.
23. Political engineering can work in specific circumstances, but is no panacea.
24. “Efforts at conciliation will not be helped by providing either a liberal or constrained right to secede” (15).

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.

Horowitz, D.L. (2015) ‘Irredentas and secessions: Adjacent phenomena, neglected connections’, in K. Cordell and S. Wolff, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict, 2.ed., London, Routledge, 155-164.

1. Secessions and irredentas have traditionally not been treated together, but they are deeply interconnected: the strength of one movement is related to the fact that the other may well rise – they are plausible alternatives to each other.
2. Secession: attempt by an ethnic group claiming a homeland to withdraw with its territory from the authority of a larger state of which it is part (155).
3. Irredentism: a movement by members of an ethnic group in one state to retrieve ethnically kindred people and their territory across borders.
4. Both secession and irredentism contain various levels of intensity and various strategies (irredentism: incorporation into another state; creation of a new state from various irredentist groups).
5. Secession: subtracting from an existing state; Irredentism: subtracting from one state and adding to another.
6. There have been very few irredentas in postcolonial states, but many secessionist movements.
7. Some international border disputes have no ethnic component; others contain compact ethnic groups that nevertheless do not dominate their region.
8. When faced with a choice between the two, groups find secession the more satisfying choice. “Indeed, the potential for irredentism may increase the frequency and strength of secession, but not vice-versa” (157).
9. Three issues that connect S and I:
   1. Convertibility of S and I:
      1. violence is convertible from one to the other;
      2. so is mutability of ethnic group claims and of trans-border affinities.
      3. State policies towards both also change over time: they tend to be inconstant towards I, which drives groups towards S.
      4. Ethnic affinity in one state may not extend to the irredentist group, also favoring S.
   2. Relative frequency of S and I:
      1. Irredentist action by the potential retrieving state is uncommon.
      2. Aid to S movements can be strategically terminated; aid to I movements cannot because they are underpinned by “an ideology of common fate” that does not lend itself to abrupt termination (160).
      3. In turn, irredentist groups find retrieval by another state undesirable because of their own personal interests as political leaders. S given them a better access to power, whilst I allows them to be challenged by leaders of retrieving state.
      4. Retrieving state itself may be heterogenous.
      5. Multiple secessions to build a new state (eg. Kurdistan) is almost impossible.
      6. In practice, even groups that have theoretically an I option do not really have it in practice and end up opting for S.
      7. “In short, all else being equal, the fewer the irredentas, the larger the number of secessionist movements” (161).
   3. Relative strength of S and I:
      1. Relative strength of a movement I affected by whether they chose S or I and whether the other is also available.
      2. States that are reluctant to engage in I claims may assist groups to achieve S (India / Bangladesh).
10. When will an ethnoterritorial separatism movement take S or I courses? It’s a strategic choice based on calculations of rational interest.
11. However, emotional factors cannot be discounted (eg. Ethnic affinity): secession movements continue to arise although secession almost always fails.

McGarry, J. (1998) ‘Orphans of Secession: National Pluralism in Secessionist Regions and Post-Secessionist States’, in M. Moore, ed., National Self-Determination and Secession, Oxford, OUP, 216-28.

1. National pluralism problem: many states, even while respecting individual rights, do not treat all national groups with equal respect.
2. ‘New liberalism’ school attempts to remedy this, but do not extend their analysis to debate on self-determination and secession: still offer a restrictive view of right to secession (eg. A. Buchanan: only if group is victim of injustice). They do not consider the nationalist basis of most secession movements (216)
3. Neither do they think adequately about national pluralism in post-secession states, even when they recognize a broader right to self-determination (eg. D. Philpott: right to self-determination, including secession, grounded in expression of autonomy).
4. Not helpful to elaborate theoretical principles that make abstraction from national diversity, diversity of seceding area, majority – minority relations, type of existent group identities, which are all critical to each specific secession case.
5. Problems involved in governing in post-secession states rooted in fact that these regions were seriously divided on the secession project. The new states are probably just as heterogenous as predecessors and just as likely to abuse their own minorities and engage in conflict.
6. Solution: move away from nation-state model and towards that of a ‘multinational state’ in which all groups are treated equally. “[T]he principle of equal treatment involves moving away from idea of independent states and embracing transborder or supra-state political institutions” (217).
7. Secessionism is usually highly contested not just by remainder state but also within secessionist region, by local ethnic minorities, against the largest regional ethnic group that achieved secession.
8. Secessions usually occur along administrative rather than national lines; therefore, national heterogeneity continues. Administrative boundaries did not create homogenous subunits on purpose, to better “control minority passions” (219).
9. Sometimes ethnic minorities do support secession (eg. Baltic Countries and Ukraine in former USSR). In other cases opposition can come even from large sections of local ethnic majority against the elite driving the project.
10. Conclusion: “demands of these groups for autonomy can be satisfied short of secession, and that if secession is to occur, it is unlikely that there will be a consensus behind it”. This is because “[o]utside of polarized conflict zones, individuals frequently have nestled identities, and feel part of several communities simultaneously” (220).
11. In many cases, “secession does not solve the problem of national diversity: it merely places it in a different state context.”
12. New states are often ‘nationalizing states’ seeking to promote interests of national majorities (language, culture, symbols) at the expense of their own minorities (Brubaker).
13. Most new minorities do not revolt; many migrate back to the rump state where they are in the majority. Those who remain mobilize to secure their individual and group rights.
14. Members with dual identities accept the new state but “regret the passing of the old” (222).
15. Two key issues arise out of attempt to reconcile nationally-defined self-determination with liberal values of equal respect and individual autonomy:
    1. Do these dynamics, present especially in Eastern Europe, apply to Western Europe and North America as well? There is no clear East-West dichotomy: cases are rather on a continuum, depending on their specific circumstances (eg. Quebec has its own minorities opposed to secession that are highly mobilized).
    2. Is the focus on the pre-and post-secession periods an unfair context for theorizing, rather than taking a longer-term approach to allow identities to adjust to the new state? Conditions which produce conflict during state formation may be durable (eg. Northern Ireland, Israel, Romania). Triadic Nexus will continue to evolve in a vicious circle of conflict (new states worry about minority revols and frontiers security; minorities continue to withhold their loyalty; neighboring states continue irredentist claims).
16. Similar problems may continue in rump states as well, where remaining minorities may be subjected to ‘nationalizing projects’ of remaining majority (eg. Catholics in Northern Ireland).
17. Need to address causes of minority discontent before support for secession reaches a tipping point because the original state continues behaving like a nation-state with only one nation. Timely and genuine decentralization often effectively addresses the causes of such grievances. Extensive decentralization is consistent with state unity.
18. Arrangements should be also made for minorities to be represented in central governments, through partnership strategies resulting in power-sharing regimes.
19. Nationalizing states and even liberal nation-states are not suitable frameworks for this: need to develop institutions based on accommodating all national groups.
20. Breakaway states should seem to win support from their own minorities by adopting similar decentralist and consociationalist strategies.
21. “The appropriate way to address these problems of parallel and overlapping national loyalties is to move beyond the notion of traditional ‘Westphalian-style’ independent states and construct supra-state partnerships and institutions” (227).
22. “Such accommodation of minority nations is, however, very much the ideal, and rarely the practice” (228).