Separatism and the State
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Separatism and the State

Damien Kingsbury

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Separatism and the State

Damien Kingsbury

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About This Book

This book proposes and tests a 'theory of separatism' to determine if there are key commonalities as to why separatist movements rise and what fuels them.

In the post-Cold War period separatism has been on the rise. Today, there are more than 100 active separatist movements, with around 70 of them engaging in violence. This book focuses on examples from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia to highlight the commonalities found across the case studies. It examines the idea of separatism, to better understand what drives movements to break away from preexisting states; demonstrates the factors which produce both violent separatism and the rise of armed non-state actors; and shows the options for the resolution of such conflict, based on considering claims for separatism from the perspectives of separatist movements.

This book will be applicable for undergraduate and postgraduate students of International Relations and International Politics as well as Conflict/Peace Studies, Anthropology and Post-Colonial Studies.

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Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2021
ISBN
9781000368741

1 Introduction

The state and non-state actors
A remarkable feature of separatist movements, including armed separatist movements, is their optimism and high morale. Even when separatist movements are losing their struggle for a separate state, or the end point in the struggle remains distant and uncertain, separatists usually retain a bright idealism about that end state and are thus optimistic about achieving it.
Such optimistic idealism contrasted with how separatists are commonly portrayed, as mistaken if not deluded and, when violence is involved, usually as ‘terrorists’. Yet to meet them, not just their leaders but their ordinary members, is to be struck by their willingness to give their all, all too often including their lives.
It requires courage to be a separatist, particularly an armed separatist, to struggle against an established state. It also takes a particular clarity of will or commitment to rise above the fear and confusion that so often accompanies opposing the state. This courage and clarity is sometimes characterized as an irrational zealotry, or a commitment to a cause less noble than self-determination, such as greed or self-benefit. There is strength of purpose, no doubt, that might conform to a type of zeal, but rarely are such struggles waged for the purposes of financial gain, given the privations that usually accompany them. Rather, separatism is usually a rational response to types of structural marginalization, all too often accompanied by boots and guns on behalf of a government less inclined to accommodate than it is to repress.

A rise in separatism

Separatism has increased since the end of the Cold War. The relative internal stability – or well-supported oppression – enjoyed by many client states of the two great superpowers has long since disappeared and, in the global re-ordering, often age-old grievances have manifested as conflicts, or at least contested claims to separate state identity.
Of 275 major events of civil violence from 1945 to 2004, 113 of them were a consequence of secessionist or separatist claims (Gates and Strand 2004). According to the Correlates for War database (2011), separatist conflicts constitute at least 38 per cent of all intra-state wars in the period 1990–2007 (although they appear to have declined slightly since 2007) (see also Siroky 2011:46 on similar assessments). Depending on one’s perspective, separatism is a major threat to regional and global stability and security, or it is the legitimate expression of self-determination of aggrieved peoples. Into the 21st century, ethnic conflicts – principally around separatist claims – were expected to be the dominant form of conflict. Separatism also reflects the tensions inherent in globalization, with separatist groups at once retreating to the local but at the same time appealing to Universalist values of self-determination and human rights. Separatism rejects the idea of the antecedent state, regarding it as illegitimate in relation to its representation of a particular group of people within a defined territory.
Legitimacy is understood here as the lawful governance of a people with their consent. By contrast, separatist movements regard themselves as the legitimate representation of such people. This is despite separatist movements almost always being defined as illegal within the terms of the state and, in case of armed separatism, criminal by definition rather than seeking to legitimately pursue an alternative vision for a people and their geo-institutional representation. With very few exceptions, separatist claims and state sovereignty are irreconcilably opposed, frequently leading to conflict.

Legitimacy and violence

There are, within this context, four basic types of violence: legitimate state violence, illegitimate state violence, illegitimate non-state violence and legitimate non-state violence. The key point of contention here is not the meaning of violence but that of ‘legitimate’ or ‘illegitimate’. Legitimacy is etymologically derived from lex (law) but in a more common sense could be said to be the application or enforcement of laws agreed to and on behalf of the people. In this respect, legitimacy can be understood as the political manifestation of justice.
Legitimate state violence accords with Weber’s definition of the state claiming a monopoly on the ‘legitimate use of force’ (2004:1). That is, the state may use force legitimately when it is enforcing laws that are intended to maintain public order and security, or when defending the state from attack. Illegitimate state violence is where the state employs force or violence in pursuit of illegitimate control or power or in ways which are not consented to by the population in question. The indiscriminate use of violence would apply to this category, as would the use of violence to repress legitimate dissent or dissent viewed by dissenters as a legitimate expression of their grievances.
Illegitimate non-state violence refers to common criminal violence but may also imply political violence if that violence or its purpose is not supported by a large majority of the population. Legitimate non-state violence, on the other hand, is a highly contested concept given that any non-state violence is viewed by many as lacking in legitimacy.
From the perspective of separatists in the field, the extent to whether the state has legitimacy or not is not a question – the state may or may not have legitimacy in its ‘own’ territory but, prima facie, does not have legitimacy in the territory claimed by the separatist organization. Indeed, there is invariably a ready explanation as to how the separatist territory in question was always sovereign and independent in its own right and that it being brought under the administrative control of a colonial power or the successor state was a historical wrong in the process of being corrected.
As representatives from each separatist movement will confirm – and they will first say they are not ‘separatists’ because the term legitimizes the political entity they seek to separate from – that each situation is different. It is true that the specifics of each individual case of separatism have their own history, material circumstances, trajectory and so on. Each will, if they are to find resolution to their claims, accept or impose an outcome that is specific to the situation. And, in most cases they will maintain, morph or meld such claims to suit wider prevailing circumstances, for example to more volubly embrace democracy in a pro-democratic era.
Most separatists can give a potted history of their territory, even if such ‘histories’ leave out some features or over-emphasize others; such embellishment of histories is neither novel nor exclusive to separatist organizations, given that virtually all states have preferred histories or mythologies which seek to legitimize the present. Add to that what is usually a strong sense of connection to community, either directly, assumed or ‘imagined’ (Anderson 1991) and a deeply entrenched and often bitter sense of grievance, and the claims of the ‘state’ quickly appear from that perspective as illegitimate.
Violence or the use of force by the state, then, in these circumstances is regarded from the perspective of separatists as not just lacking in legitimacy but as the imposition of illegitimacy. By way of contrast, then, separatist claims and actions in support of such claims, up to and including violence, are from their perspective entirely legitimate; the state is something to be resisted, opposed and defeated.
In the post-Westphalian era, however, states have not accepted the compelled devolution of their sovereignty to a separate body. Indeed, they have actively and often violently resisted devolution implying a reduction of sovereignty. Facing the threat of such loss of territorial integrity, it has been common for states to engage in higher-level force or violence, even where there is no threat of violence against them, and where such force or violence actually entrenches separatist sentiment.
The break-up of state has not been resisted, however, where the state is in agreement with such regional separation. The departure of Singapore from the Malaysian Federation is a case in point, as is the territorial devolution USSR, Czechoslovakia and Eritrea (from Ethiopia), each of which was agreed. More to the point, where there is state opposition to secession, few such attempts to secede are successful.
Of the dozens of attempts at compelled secession in the post-World War II era, only a handful have been successful. Through the direct intervention of a powerful neighbor, India, Bangladesh left Pakistan, through local rebellion and then international intervention, Kosovo left Serbia, as noted Eritrea left Ethiopia after an internal agreement to be realized at the end of the Ethiopian civil war, South Sudan left Sudan with agreement, but only after an alliance which sustained Sudan’s territorial integrity collapsed and a key party switched sides. East Timor achieved independence after a UN-supervised vote followed by UN-sanctioned military intervention.

This book

The idea for this book arose out of more than two decades of firsthand experience in countries in which there were, or are, separatist claims, in a number of cases working with or having close access to separatist organizations. This experience has offered a nuanced understanding of the claims of such organizations than is sometimes offered from a more distant remove. In particular, it has revealed, time and again, the depth of commitment that accompanies fighting against the odds for a cause the meaning of which, for them, redresses sometimes extremes of exclusion and repression.
The purpose of this book is to examine commonalities and distinctions between separatist movements. It asks if there are some common sets of circumstances that give rise to separatist movements and which thereafter characterize them, and what they might be, and what differences might exist between them that cast separatist movements as distinct from one another.
Critically, too, separatist movements do not generally achieve their goals, which raises questions about why they embark on such seemingly hopeless causes and what factors tend to preclude their success. But, perhaps, most importantly, this book looks at what factors have been critical – and often common – to the handful of successful separatist movements. The book employs a multiple structure framework in order to analyze and evaluate the different circumstances in which separatist claims come into being and are sustained (Sartori 1970:1039; Horowitz 1985:16).
The book’s main units of analysis include (i) systemic/structural conditions that contribute to separatist conflict; (ii) host state behavior towards minorities and its consequences; (iii) self-identifying groups and in relation to host states as the catalyst for separatism; and (iv) the role of external actors in shaping separatist outcomes.
To try to achieve these inter-related goals, this book starts with a brief history of separatism before proposing a general theory of what conditions appear to be necessary for, and give rise to, separatist movements. This chapter goes to the core of the book’s purpose, to propose an understanding of the conditions that are necessary for a separatist movement to arise and of the circumstances which bring them into being. By understanding these conditions and circumstances, it may be possible for states that actually or potentially face separatist claims to resolve such claims through constructive and peaceful means. This assumes, of course, that the logic of the state is to seek inclusion, equity and volition rather than exclusion, inequity and compulsion. This then goes to the nature of the state and its relationship with its citizens. It is where that relationship collapses that, specifically defined, separatism is likely to occur, which claims to devolve part of the state as an independent entity.
With competing claims to statehood and hence a monopoly on the use of force, many separatist claims evolve into violence, by both the state and separatist movements. Here separatist movements often share commonalities with other forms of political violence, in particular asymmetric warfare and, on occasions, proxy warfare on behalf of or strongly supported by an external state. Given the preponderance of violence in separatist claims and the type of conflict which often has a material outcome on the success or failure of separatist claims, the next chapter, Chapter Four, considers the types of wars that separatist organizations tend to become engaged in.
A study of this type must necessarily acknowledge that a handful of separatist movements have been successful in securing their claims; Chapter Five therefore considers the cases of those successful separatist movements, as with other claims assessing whether they support or otherwise the preceding theory of separatism before focusing on the key elements that contributed to their success.
Having considered case studies of successful separatist movements, the book then goes to a number of current separatist claims as case studies. These case studies are not exhaustive, but they are intended to be illustrative of the types of claims that occur in various regions. To this end, Chapter Six looks at a handful of separatist case studies in Europe, Chapter Seven considers case studies in the Middle East, Chapter Eight highlights a diverse range of case studies of separatism in Africa, Chapter Nine focuses on cases of separatism in South Asia while Chapter Ten scans a group of case studies of separatism in the Southeast Asia and Pacific region.
Chapter Eleven is intended to bring together the key themes and ideas that emerged from the case studies and to return to the initial proposition concerning a general theory of separatism to see if it has held true and, if not, what the exceptions to it might be.

A note on terminology

While the term ‘separatist’ or ‘separatism’ is obvious enough and the term is used in common parlance, to mean to break away from the state, there is debate among some scholars on the terminology, to which there is no settled answer. In short, the debate revolves around the term ‘separatism’, meaning to leave the state, or forms of government other than that of actually leaving the state. To leave the state is, in this view, ‘secessionism’. This may be a matter of semantics, but it is worth clarifying at the outset.
Both ‘separatism’ and secessionism’ derive from the Latin ‘se’ (himself/itself, i.e. not of others but alone), although to translate both words into Latin and then translate back produces different meanings – to ‘secede’ produces deficio – to fade or diminish, while ‘separate’ produces seperatum – to separate, to be apart from. Contemporary meanings, however, change with usage, although ‘separatism’ and ‘secessionism’ are common enough synonyms for each other.
Writing about Quebec, Woods (1981:110) defined ‘separatism’ to mean forms of association with the state other than full unity. Pavkovic (2011) similarly defined separatism as aimed ‘only at a reduction of the central authority’s control over the targeted territory and its population’ (see also Cabestan and Pavkovic 2013). To parallel Woods, Pavkovic and Cabestan’s meaning of ‘separatism’, and in agreement with Goumenos (2015) and Heraclides (1992:400), to mean self-government but not necessarily implying the creation of a new state, this book uses the term ‘autonomy’. Goumenos (2015), Doyle (2018) and Heraclides (1992) fall on the other side of the definitional debate from Woods, Cabestan and Pavkovic, identifying ‘secessionism’ and ‘stricto sensu separatism’ as synonymous. Gammer suggests the two terms are ‘practically synonymous’ but prefers ‘separatism’ for its simplicity (2014:37).
To that end, the terms ‘separatist’ and ‘separatism’ are intended to have the same meaning as ‘secessionist’ and ‘secessionism’ – in this context to leave the state entirely. This book primarily uses the terms ‘separatist’ and ‘separatism’ rather the ‘secessionist’ and ‘secessionism’ simply because they are the terms more commonly used and understood. This use of the term, and understanding of it, is not least based on the firsthand data that has informed a number of the case studies, by people involved in such mov...

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