Secessionism and secession: between theory and practice

The field of theories of secession has experienced a boom during the last decade (Griffiths 2016; Dalle Mulle and Serrano 2019; Griffiths 2020; Griffiths and Muro 2020; Kartsonaki and Pavković 2021; Sanjaume-Calvet 2020; 2021).There is, however a clear distinction between normative and practical approaches to secession.. Normative theories generally pay little attention to evidence from empirical findings on secession and vice versa. Further, there is little dialogue between explanatory and normative approaches to secessionist demands. The former focus on the causes of secessionism while the latter on the right to secede. Few publications bring together normative and explanatory theories (Requejo and Sanjaume-Calvet 2021). Normative theories of secession focus on the right to secede. A well-established typology distinguishes between (i) national identity, (ii) consent and (iii) justice as the justifications of this right (Moore 1998). However, recent contributions highlight the importance of cross-fertilization in theory building and the need to combine findings and causal mechanisms from the political science and the international relations fields (Dalle Mulle and Serrano 2019, Sanjaume-Calvet 2020). This would produce more middle-ground approaches are required to that would offer an evidence-based approach a secession conflict. Secessionist conflicts emerge when a political community S belongs to the State P and members of community S and/or its rulers’ campaign to withdraw from P and create a new independent State X. P ruler and/or members oppose this political will and react against these demands, typically members of community S react as well against secessionists in their own community. Therefore, in any conflict of this nature we observe the existence of secessionist and counter-secessionist strategies. Generally, secessionism occurs in an intersecting zone between domestic and international politics. To put it simple, a secession is a complex interaction of domestic effectiveness over the territory and international recognition (Griffiths 2016). From Western Sahara to Quebec, both parent states and secessionists never forget to mobilize the external front to fight local battles in secessionist conflicts while keeping in mind the necessity of territorial control through coercion and/or legitimacy. Both parent states and international actors remain rigidly attached to realpolitik considerations. Parent states systematically oppose to their disintegration. The black swan is the rare expulsion of Singapore from the Malaysian federation in 1964. In general, a majority of Constitutions in the World have specific clauses regarding territorial integrity combined with more or less aggressive counter-secessionist policies depending on the case (Weill 2018; Griffiths and Muro 2020).