National Secession

Author(s):  
Philip G. Roeder

National Secession asks which projects for new nation-states give rise to campaigns that cause discord—and sometimes mayhem—in the politics of existing states. This has been explained by identities, grievances, greed, and tactical-logistical opportunities. Yet, under the strategic constraints faced by most national-secession campaigns, the essential element in almost all campaigns is the ability of the campaign’s program to coordinate expectations within a platform population on a common goal so that independence becomes the only viable option. In their strategy of programmatic coordination, which has guided the most important national-secession campaigns, the critical task of campaign leaders is propagating an authentic and realistic nation-state project. This explains which campaigns are most likely to draw attention in the capitals of the great powers that control admission to the international community, bring their disputes with their central governments to an intractable deadlock, and engage in protracted intense struggles to convince the international community that independence is the only viable option.

Exchange ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 360-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abamfo Atiemo

AbstractA revolutionary development that resulted from Africa's experience of colonialism was the emergence of the nation-state made up of previously separate ethnic states. By the end of the colonial period the rulers of these ethnic states — the chiefs — had lost most of their real political and judicial powers to the political leaders of the new nation-states. But in spite of the loss of effective political power the chiefs continued to wield moral influence over members of their ethnic groups. The limited reach of the nation-state in the post-colonial era has also meant a dependence on the chiefs, in many cases, for aspects of local governance. This, for example, is the case of Ghana. However, in the modern context of religious pluralism the intimate bond between the chiefs and the traditional religion exacerbates tension in situations of conflict between people's loyalty to the traditional state and their religious commitment. In some cases, chiefs invoke customary laws in attempt to enforce sanctions against individuals who refuse to observe certain customary practices for religious reasons. But this has implications for the human rights of citizens. This article discusses the implications of this situation for the future of chieftaincy as well as prospects for the protection of the human rights of citizens who for religious reasons choose to stay away from certain communal customary practices.


2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 1423-1463 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL EILENBERG

AbstractPost-independence ethnic minorities inhabiting the Southeast Asian borderlands were willingly or unwillingly pulled into the macro politics of territoriality and state formation. The rugged and hilly borderlands delimiting the new nation-states became battlefronts of state-making and spaces of confrontation between divergent political ideologies. In the majority of the Southeast Asian borderlands, this implied violent disruption in the lives of local borderlanders that came to affect their relationship to their nation-state. A case in point is the ethnic Iban population living along the international border between the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan and the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Based on local narratives, the aim of this paper is to unravel the little known history of how the Iban segment of the border population in West Kalimantan became entangled in the highly militarized international disputes with neighbouring Malaysia in the early 1960s, and in subsequent military co-operative ‘anti-communist’ ‘counter-insurgency’ efforts by the two states in the late 1960–1970s. This paper brings together facets of national belonging and citizenship within a borderland context with the aim of understanding the historical incentives behind the often ambivalent, shifting and unruly relationship between marginal citizens like the Iban borderlanders and their nation-state.


1978 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
James V. Schall

During the past half-century or so, the world has seen the formation of some one hundred new nation-states, while many of the other fifty-odd political entities have radically altered their previous form of constitution by force, revolution, conquest, election, or change of political philosophy. This has given renewed life to the classical issue about what is the best form of rule under which men ought to live. Political modernization has become a crucial aspect of political science. The external form of almost all these new nation-states, to be sure, even of the most absolute, has almost invariably been some legal variety of “constitutional democracy,” the wording commonly given in modern times to the structure of the best state.


2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietmar Müller

AbstractThe process of assigning the place for Jews in the Romanian nation code and for (Albanian) Muslims in the Serbian one is analyzed as Orientalistic. While the Great Powers served as role models in the Romanian and Serbian identity construction, these principal Others were represented as uncivilized and non-European, preventing the nation-states from their European destiny. This discursive construction of the nation in major debates is identified as a first step which was followed by policy recommendations from intellectuals and actual attempts to fulfill the dream of an ethnically homogenous nation-state. This sequence's latter parts are represented by a number of case studies, such as citizenship regulations in the Constitution and other laws, the possibilities for representing political interests and cultural rights for Jews and Muslims, colonization projects in Kosovo and Dobrudja, and measures to “protect Romanian labor”.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-75
Author(s):  
Vladimir Biti

In the post-imperial East Central Europe after the dissolution of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires, disappointment was commonplace. The imperial successor states were involved in revengeful animosities with neighbouring states, torn by their majority population’s hatred of domestic minorities, bereft of tens of millions of their co-nationals who had remained in now foreign nation-states, exposed to huge influxes of refugees, and embittered by the territorial concessions that they were forced to make. By contrast, the newly established nation-states were plagued by miserable social and economic conditions, poor infrastructures, unemployment, inflation, rigid and immobile social stratification, and corrupt and inefficient administrations. Such developments gave rise to huge and traumatic deportations and migrations of populations, which, paradoxically, simultaneously immensely increased the mobility of their imagination. Using the technique of ‘subversive mimicry’, these nationally indistinct elements established cross-national transborder communities as the zones of ‘national indifference’ within the new nation-states. Carried by the energy of their longing, these communities introduced imbalances, fissures, and divisions into the nation-state communities, which determined their belonging.


Author(s):  
Jaime E. Rodríguez O.

The collapse of the Spanish monarchy in 1808 precipitated a political revolution that shattered that worldwide polity into new nation-states, among them Spain itself. In the wake of France's invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, three broad movements emerged in the Spanish world: the struggle against the invaders, the great political revolution that sought to transform the Spanish monarchy into a modern nation-state with one of the most radical constitutions of the nineteenth century, and a fragmented insurgency in America that relied on force to secure home rule. Elections to form a representative government for the Spanish world were held in the midst of a crisis of confidence. As their first act, the deputies to the Cortes of Cádiz declared themselves representatives of the nation and assumed sovereignty. The insurgencies and civil wars that engulfed some regions of Spanish America were a response to the same events that generated the constitutional political revolution. Both movements sought to maintain the Spanish monarchy as an independent political entity and to expand local political authority and representation.


2019 ◽  
pp. 91-97
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Kucheruk

The article deals with the establishment of national states and formation of the state border between the Ukrainian National Republic and the Republic of Lithuania. In late 1917, a need to end the war and conclude a peace treaty was obvious, which resulted in the first negotiations between representatives of the Bolshevik government and Germany, joined by Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The Ukrainian National Republic also got a chance to become an actor of European politics and participated in the peace negotiations in Brest-Lytovsk. The system of the Brest-Lytovsk peace treaties legalized the separation between Russia and its national entities, recognized the independence of the Ukrainian National Republic as well as Lithuania and Latvia. The details of the negotiations remain unknown, but in the context of the establishment of relations with great powers and new nation-states, the Ukrainian-Lithuanian contacts were not in the foreground, although remained relevant. In the summer of 1918, Lithuania was preparing to become a full-fledged monarchy and the final establishment of state borders was postponed. In October 1918, the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Ukrainian State established a commission dealing with the issue of the border line between Ukraine and Lithuania. However, the plans were not meant to be realized due to the revolution in Germany, the anti-Hetman uprising in Ukraine, the restoration of the republic, the next wave of the Russian aggression against the newly formed states and the Polish invasion against Ukraine and Lithuania. Consequently, the western territories of the Ukrainian National Republic as well as the Lithuanian capital Vilnius with the Vilnius Region came under the control of Poland. Thus, the delineated Ukrainian-Lithuanian border remained on paper and on new maps of Europe. Keywords: Ukrainian-Lithuanian border, monarchy, revolution, peace negotiations in Brest-Lytovsk.


2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 672-684
Author(s):  
Ripu Sudan Singh

Ever since the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the process of state and nation making in modern times is going on. The collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and post-Cold War period saw the emergence of fifteen new states and several other sovereign states from the ruins of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia in Eastern Europe. The problems of governance and political legitimacy are directly linked with the demand for new nation-states globally. The threats unleashed by interstate Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq have substantially posed problems of governance and legitimacy threatening the survival of several states in the Middle East. The question of nation-state was almost accepted as resolved and settled in the region but the end of Cold War and Soviet collapse again brought the issue on the global forefront and the political structure of several states have been challenged. The state-centred, faith-centred and ethnicity-centred forces are confronting each other and the nation-state dilemma has got more pronounced and complicated, as states are not in a position to manage the nations within. This article tries to probe the issues of governance, political legitimacy and gross violation of basic human rights of the ethno-national groups, minority ethnic groups and weaker sections of society. It also makes an attempt to look for and devise certain alternatives and methods to resolve the dilemma of nation-state in the Middle East in general and drawing lessons for the rest of the globe. The Kurdish issue may be taken as a case study which has once again become a matter of deep concern and its timely resolution has drawn worldwide attention and concern. The survival of a large number of people is at stake as a result of the nation-state dilemma, and if this is not properly taken care of, it will spread globally and affect world peace and order.


Author(s):  
Ken Peach

This chapter discusses the process of building research teams. Increasingly over the past three-quarters of a century, science has become a collective activity, with teams of tens, hundreds or even thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians working together on a common goal. Consequently, almost all research involves building, motivating and maintaining a research team. Even a theoretical group is likely to have one or two postdocs, graduate students and visitors, but research teams will, in addition, have engineers and technicians, as well as, possibly, research administrators. The chapter also addresses the importance of creating and maintaining a good team and team spirit, as large projects are assembled from a large number of small teams working on common goals, usually in a loose federated structure with some overall coordination and leadership.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5582
Author(s):  
Daniele Conversi

This article argues that we need to look at living examples provided by non-state communities in various regions of the world that are, perhaps unwittingly, contributing to the maintenance of the Earth’s optimal thermal balance. These fully sustainable communities have been living outside the mainstream for centuries, even millennia, providing examples in the global struggle against the degradation of social–ecological systems. They have all, to varying degrees, embraced simple forms of living that make them ‘exemplary ethical communities’ (EECs)—human communities with a track record of sustainability related to forms of traditional knowledge and the capacity to survive outside the capitalist market and nation-state system. The article proceeds in three steps: First, it condenses a large body of research on the limits of the existing nation-state system and its accompanying ideology, nationalism, identifying this institutional–ideological complex as the major obstacle to tackling climate change. Second, alternative social formations that could offer viable micro-level and micro-scale alternatives are suggested. These are unlikely to identify with existing nation-states as they often form distinct types of social communities. Taking examples from hunter-gatherer societies and simple-living religious groups, it is shown how the protection and maintenance of these EECs could become the keystone in the struggle for survival of humankind and other forms of life. Finally, further investigation is called for, into how researchers can come forward with more examples of actually existing communities that might provide pathways to sustainability and resistance to the looming global environmental catastrophe.


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