Secession and the Sovereignty Game offers a comprehensive strategic theory for how secessionist movements attempt to win independence. Combining original data analysis, fieldwork, interviews with secessionist leaders, and case studies on Catalonia, the Murrawarri Republic, West Papua, Bougainville, New Caledonia, and Northern Cyprus, Ryan D. Griffiths shows how the rules and informal practices of sovereign recognition create a strategic playing field between existing states and aspiring nations that he terms "the sovereignty game." To win sovereign statehood, all secessionist movements have to maneuver on the same strategic playing field while varying their tactics according to local conditions. To obtain recognition, secessionist movements use tactics of electoral capture, nonviolent civil resistance, and violence. To persuade the home state and the international community, they appeal to normative arguments regarding earned sovereignty, decolonization, the right to choose, inherent sovereignty, and human rights. The pursuit of independence can be enormously disruptive and is quite often violent. By advancing a theory that explains how sovereign recognition has succeeded in the past and is working in the present, and by anticipating the practices of future secessionist movements, Secession and the Sovereignty Game also prescribes solutions that could make the sovereignty game less conflictual.

Secession is the creation of a new independent state out of an existing state. This key volume examines the political, social and legal processes of the practice of secession. Following an analysis of secessionist movements and their role in attempts at secession, eight case studies are explored to illustrate peaceful, violent, sequential and recursive secessions. This is followed by a look at the theoretical approaches and a discussion that focuses on the economic causes. Normative theories of secession are discussed as well as the status of secession in legal theory and practice. The book systematizes our present knowledge of secessions in an accessible way to readers not familiar with the phenomenon and its consequences. It is ideal as a supplementary text to courses on contemporary political and social movements, applied ethics and political philosophy, international relations and international law, state sovereignty and state formation.

Secession and the Sovereignty Game offers a comprehensive strategic theory for how secessionist movements attempt to win independence. Combining original data analysis, fieldwork, interviews with secessionist leaders, and case studies on Catalonia, the Murrawarri Republic, West Papua, Bougainville, New Caledonia, and Northern Cyprus, Ryan D. Griffiths shows how the rules and informal practices of sovereign recognition create a strategic playing field between existing states and aspiring nations that he terms "the sovereignty game." To win sovereign statehood, all secessionist movements have to maneuver on the same strategic playing field while varying their tactics according to local conditions. To obtain recognition, secessionist movements use tactics of electoral capture, nonviolent civil resistance, and violence. To persuade the home state and the international community, they appeal to normative arguments regarding earned sovereignty, decolonization, the right to choose, inherent sovereignty, and human rights. The pursuit of independence can be enormously disruptive and is quite often violent. By advancing a theory that explains how sovereign recognition has succeeded in the past and is working in the present, and by anticipating the practices of future secessionist movements, Secession and the Sovereignty Game also prescribes solutions that could make the sovereignty game less conflictual.

A novel analysis of secessionist movements, explaining state response, the likelihood of conflict, and the proliferation of states since 1945.

Using innovative methods to analyze both advanced democracies and developing countries, Jason Sorens shows how central governments can alleviate or increase ethnic minority demands for regional autonomy. He argues that when countries treat secession as negotiable and provide legal paths to pursuing it rather than absolutely prohibiting independence, violence is far less likely. Additionally, independence movements encourage government policies of decentralization that may be beneficial to regional minorities. An informative investigation of the root causes of political violence, Secessionism provides a clear-eyed look at independence movements for both governments and secessionists.

How do some national-secessionist campaigns get on the global agenda whereas others do not? Which projects for new nation-states, Philip Roeder asks, give rise to mayhem in the politics of existing states? National secession has been explained by reference to identities, grievances, greed, and opportunities. With the strategic constraints most national-secession campaigns face, the author argues, the essential element is the campaign's ability to coordinate expectations within a population on a common goal—so that independence looks like the only viable option. Roeder shows how in most well-known national-secession campaigns, this strategy of programmatic coordination has led breakaway leaders to assume the critical task of propagating an authentic and realistic nation-state project. Such campaigns are most likely to draw attention in the capitals of the great powers that control admission to the international community, to bring the campaigns' disputes with their central governments to deadlock, and to engage in protracted, intense struggles to convince the international community that independence is the only viable option. In National Secession, Roeder focuses on the goals of national-secession campaigns as a key determinant of strategy, operational objectives, and tactics. He shifts the focus in the study of secessionist civil wars from tactics (such as violence) to the larger substantive disputes within which these tactics are chosen, and he analyzes the consequences of programmatic coordination for getting on the global agenda. All of which, he argues, can give rise to intractable disputes and violent conflicts.