This volume examines the various aspects of territorial separatism, focusing on how and why separatist movements arise. Featuring essays by leading scholars from different disciplinary perspectives, the book aims to situate the question of separatism within the broader socio-political context of the international system, arguing that a set of historical events as well as local, regional, and global dynamics have converged to provide the catalysts that often trigger separatist conflicts. In addition, the book marks progress towards a new conceptual framework for the study of territorial separatism, by linking the survival of communities in international politics with the effective control of territory and the consequent creation of new polities. Separatist conflicts challenge conventional wisdom concerning conflict resolution within the context of international relations by unpacking a number of questions with regard to conflict transformation. Through the use of case studies, including Cyprus, the Rakhine state in Myanmar, the Shia separatism in Iraq, the Uighurs in China and the case of East Timor, the volume addresses key issues including the role of democracy, international law, intervention, post-conflict peacebuilding and the creation of new political entities. The book will be of much interest to students of Intra-StateConflict, Conflict Resolution, International Law, Security Studies and International Relations.

This comparative study examines the dialectical tensions between global and regional interdependence and the fragmentation of humankind into territorial entities. Political authority may remain territory-bound, but borders increasingly are penetrated by pollutants, individuals, noncentral governments in search of foreign trade and investment, and transnational corporations, as well as the traditional exchanges of trade, media, and culture. The result of these transborder flows, accelerated by new technologies, is a new variety of international relations among “perforated sovereignties.†Dr. Duchacek analyzes the territorial organization of political authority in both democratic and authoritarian frameworks as well as in unitary and federal systems. Case studies focus on new forms of transborder interactions between neighboring countries, especially in North America and in Western Europe. The book is of major interest to scholars in the fields of political science and political economy. Quotations from a variety of political theorists and practitioners, illustrative diagrams, and maps make the book suitable for students of comparative politics, international relations, comparative federalism, and public policy.

Partition--the physical division of territory along ethno-religious lines into separate nation-states--is often presented as a successful political "solution" to ethnic conflict. In the twentieth century, at least three new political entities--the Irish Free State, the Dominions (later Republics) of India and Pakistan, and the State of Israel--emerged as results of partition. This volume offers the first collective history of the concept of partition, tracing its emergence in the aftermath of the First World War and locating its genealogy in the politics of twentieth-century empire and decolonization. Making use of the transnational framework of the British Empire, which presided over the three major partitions of the twentieth century, contributors draw out concrete connections among the cases of Ireland, Pakistan, and Israel--the mutual influences, shared personnel, economic justifications, and material interests that propelled the idea of partition forward and resulted in the violent creation of new post-colonial political spaces. In so doing, the volume seeks to move beyond the nationalist frameworks that served in the first instance to promote partition as a natural phenomenon.

The USSR’s dissolution resulted in the creation of not only fifteen recognized states but also of four non-recognized statelets: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria. Their polities comprise networks with state-like elements. Since the early 1990s, the four pseudo-states have been continously dependent on their sponsor countries (Russia, Armenia), and contesting the territorial integrity of their parental nation-states Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova. In 2014, the outburst of Russia-backed separatism in Eastern Ukraine led to the creation of two more para-states, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), whose leaders used the experience of older de facto states. In 2020, this growing network of de facto states counted an overall population of more than 4 million people. The essays collected in this volume address such questions as: How do post-Soviet de facto states survive and continue to grow? Is there anything specific about the political ecology of Eastern Europe that provides secessionism with the possibility to launch state-making processes in spite of international sanctions and counteractions of their parental states? How do secessionist movements become embedded in wider networks of separatism in Eastern and Western Europe? What is the impact of secessionism and war on the parental states? The contributors are Jan Claas Behrends, Petra Colmorgen, Bruno Coppieters, Nataliia Kasianenko, Alice Lackner, Mikhail Minakov, and Gwendolyn Sasse.

The many questions that surround movements for secession and self-determination are both practically urgent and theoretically perplexing. The United States settled its secession crisis in the 1860s. But the trauma and unfinished business of those events are still with us. Around the world secession and self-determination are the key issues that cause strife and instability. This volume provides an unusually comprehensive consideration of the many challenges of law and political philosophy that accompany them, and offers theoretical insights that provide guidance for policy. Among the questions considered are: should the international community recognize a right to secede and, if so, what conditions must be satisfied before the right can be asserted? Should secession and its conditions be recognized within domestic constitutions? Secession is the most extreme form of political separation and there are modes of self-determination short of it, including indigenous peoples' self-government and minority language rights. To what degree can these intrastate autonomy arrangements help ameliorate the injustices faced by indigenous groups?