Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T12:25:14.757Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Between Dissolution and Blood: How Administrative Lines and Categories Shape Secessionist Outcomes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2015

Ryan D. Griffiths
Get access

Abstract

Common 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.

Type
Research Note
Information
International Organization , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , Summer 2015 , pp. 731 - 751
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armitage, David. 2007. The Declaration of Independence: A Global History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Armitage, David. 2010. Secession and Civil War. In Secession as an International Phenomenon, edited by Doyle, Don H., 37–55. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Aspinall, Edward. 2007. The Construction of Grievance: Natural Resources and Identity in a Separatist Conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution 51 (6):571–85.Google Scholar
Bartkus, Viva O. 1999. The Dynamic of Secession. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Studies.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beissinger, Mark R. 2002. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bunce, Valerie. 1999. Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carter, David B., and Goemans, H.E.. 2011. The Making of the Territorial Order: New Borders and the Emergence of Interstate Conflict. International Organization 65 (2):275–310.Google Scholar
Coggins, Bridget L. 2011. Friends in High Places: International Politics and the Emergence of States from Secessionism. International Organization 65 (3):433–68.Google Scholar
Collier, Paul, and Hoeffler, Anke. 2006. The Political Economy of Secession. In Negotiating Self-Determination, edited by Hannum, Hurst and Babbitt, Eileen F., 37–60. Oxford, UK: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Crawford, James. 2006. The Creation of States in International Law. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Kathleen G. 2011. Divide and Conquer or Divide and Concede: How Do States Respond to Internally Divided Separatists? American Political Science Review 105 (2):275–97.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Kathleen G. 2013. Understanding Strategic Choice: The Determinants of Civil War and Nonviolent Campaign in Self-Determination Disputes. Journal of Peace Research 50 (3):291–304.Google Scholar
Fabry, Mikulas. 2010. Recognizing States: International Society and the Establishment of New States Since 1776. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fazal, Tanisha M., and Griffiths, Ryan D.. 2014. Membership Has Its Privileges: The Changing Benefits of Statehood. International Studies Review 16 (1):79–106.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D., and Laitin, David D.. 2003. Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. American Political Science Review 97 (1):75–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gartzke, Eric, and Rohner, Dominic. 2011. The Political Economy of Imperialism, Decolonization, and Development. British Journal of Political Science 41 (3):525–56.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, Benjamin E., and He, Baogang. 2008. Letting Go Without a Fight: Decolonization, Democracy, and War, 1900–94. Journal of Peace Research 45 (5):587–611.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Ryan D. 2014. Secession and the Invisible Hand of the International System. Review of International Studies 40 (3):559–81.Google Scholar
Hale, Henry E. 2008. The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: Separatism of States and Nations in Eurasia and the World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hechter, Michael. 1992. The Dynamics of Secession. Acta Sociologica 35 (2):267–83.Google Scholar
Hechter, Michael. 2000. Containing Nationalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heraclides, Alexis. 1991. The Self-Determination of Minorities in International Politics. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. State Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald L. 2000. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Robert H. 1990. Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Robert H. 1993. The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization: Normative Change in International Relations. In Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, edited by Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O., 111–38. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jenne, Erin K., Saideman, Stephen M., and Lowe, Will. 2007. Separatism as a Bargaining Posture: The Role of Leverage in Minority Radicalization. Journal of Peace Research 44 (5):539–58.Google Scholar
Ker-Lindsay, James. 2012. The Foreign Policy of Counter Secession: Preventing the Recognition of Contested States. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lincoln, Abraham. 1953 [1861]. Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861. In The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Vol. 4, edited by Basler, Roy P.. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Lustick, Ian S. 1993. Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank–Gaza. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, Monty G., and Jaggers, Keith. 2011. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2011. Dataset Users' Manual. Center for Systemic Peace. College Park: University of Maryland. Available at <http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html>. Accessed 15 December 2013.. Accessed 15 December 2013.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Marshall,+Monty+G.,+and+Jaggers,+Keith.+2011.+Polity+IV+Project:+Political+Regime+Characteristics+and+Transitions,+1800–2011.+Dataset+Users'+Manual.+Center+for+Systemic+Peace.+College+Park:+University+of+Maryland.+Available+at+.+Accessed+15+December+2013.>Google Scholar
Milgrom, Paul, and Roberts, John. 1982. Predation, Reputation, and Entry Deterrence. Journal of Economic Theory 27 (2):280–312.Google Scholar
Minahan, James. 1996. Nations Without States: A Historical Dictionary of Contemporary National Movements. London: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
O'Leary, Brendan, Lustick, Ian S., and Callaghy, Thomas, eds. 2001. Right-Sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Österud, Öyvind. 1997. The Narrow Gate: Entry to the Club of Sovereign States. Review of International Studies 23 (2):167–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paquin, Jonathan. 2010. A Stability-Seeking Power: US Foreign Policy and Secessionist Conflicts. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Pavković, Aleksandar, and Radan, Peter, eds. 2011. The Ashgate Research Companion to Secession. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Radan, Peter. 2008. Secession: A Word in Search of a Meaning. In On the Way to Statehood: Secession and Globalization, edited by Radan, Peter and Pavković, Aleksandar, 17–32. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Ratner, Steven R. 1996. Drawing a Better Line: Uti Possidetis and the Borders of New States. American Journal of International Law 94 (4):590–624.Google Scholar
Roeder, Philip G. 2007. Where Nation-States Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Saideman, Stephen M. 1998. Is Pandora's Box Half Empty or Half Full? The Limited Virulence of Secessionism and the Domestic Sources of Disintegration. In The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, edited by Lake, David A. and Rothchild, Donald, 127–50. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Saideman, Stephen M. 2001. The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy and International Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saideman, Stephen M. 2002. Discrimination in International Relations: Analyzing External Support for Ethnic Groups. Journal of Peace Research 39 (1):27–50.Google Scholar
Sambanis, Nicholas, and Milanovic, Branko. 2011. Explaining the Demand for Sovereignty. Policy Research Working Paper 5888. Washington, DC: Development Research Group, World Bank.Google Scholar
Schelling, Thomas C. 1960. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Selten, Reinhard. 1978. The Chain Store Paradox. Theory and Decision 9 (2):127–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharman, Jason C. 2013. International Hierarchies and Contemporary Imperial Governance: A Tale of Three Kingdoms. European Journal of International Relations 19 (2):189–207.Google Scholar
Shaw, Malcolm N. 1997. Peoples, Territorialism, and Boundaries. European Journal of International Law 8 (3):478–507.Google Scholar
Sorens, Jason. 2012. Secessionism: Identity, Interest, and Strategy. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Spruyt, Hendrick. 2005. Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterio, Milena. 2013. The Right to Self-Determination Under International Law: “Selfistans,” Secession, and the Rule of the Great Powers. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Themnér, Lotta, and Wallensteen, Peter. 2012. Armed Conflict, 1946–2011. Journal of Peace Research 49 (4):565–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toft, Monica D. 2002. Indivisible Territory, Geographic Concentration, and Ethnic War. Security Studies 12 (2):82–119.Google Scholar
Walter, Barbara F. 2006a. Information, Uncertainty, and the Decision to Secede. International Organization 60 (1):105–35.Google Scholar
Walter, Barbara F. 2006b. Building Reputation: Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but Not Others. American Journal of Political Science 50 (2):313–30.Google Scholar
Walter, Barbara F. 2009. Reputation and Civil War: Why Separatist Conflicts Are So Violent. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeltsin, Boris N. 2000. Midnight Diaries. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar