De Facto State Identity and International Legitimation

Sebastian Klich

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032014142
• eBook ISBN: 9781000484533
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Examining the state identity formation and international legitimation of de facto states, this book provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between de facto states, the international state system and international society.

The book integrates International Relations theories to construct a framework of normative standing for de facto states, to better understand the social system they inhabit and the stasis in their relationship with international society, demonstrated through detailed case study analysis. Klich appraises the recognition narrative of de facto states in order to analyse their state identities, and constructs a framework for normative standing in an original synthesis of English School, constructivism and legitimacy scholarship. The explanatory utility of that framework is then applied and analysed through detailed fieldwork conducted across an original set of case studies ? Nagorno Karabakh, Somaliland, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq ? that have varying degrees of international engagement and parent state relationships.

It will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations, International Relations theory, Peace and Conflict studies, Comparative Politics, as well as Middle Eastern studies, East African studies, and Post-Soviet studies.

1 De Facto States and the International System

DOI: 10.4324/9781003178521-2

De Facto States and Sovereignty

A key component of de facto state research that grounds its importance within the discipline of International Relations concerns how the existence of de facto states informs conceptions of statehood and sovereignty. Since the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, contrasting interpretations of sovereignty have proliferated.¹ An exhaustive analysis of the evolution of interpretations of sovereignty is beyond the scope of this chapter; it is a clear conceptualisation of sovereignty in relation to de facto states that is crucial.

The classical view of sovereignty perceives it as an absolute and exclusive authority covering a clearly demarcated territory.² This view is mirrored by the constitutive approach to international law, claiming that if a polity’s juridical independence is not recognised, then it cannot be a state.³ Supporters of this view, such as Kalevi Holsti, claim that sovereignty is an externally recognised legal status that is an “absolute category and not a variable”.⁴ Others, such as Robert Jackson, analyse the internal and external components of sovereignty, but claim that it is not divisible because external recognition is intrinsic and enabling, arguing that “supremacy and independence cannot exist separately”.⁵ Jackson’s view enables the analysis of juridical states lacking internal sovereignty, which he refers to as “quasi-states”.⁶

The existence of autonomous unrecognised territories challenges the classical perception of sovereignty. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is a de facto state that has not even declared independence,⁷ yet due to the empowered position of wielding a relatively stable state-like entity in a rather anarchic neighbourhood, it is not only reshaping the regional balance of power between Iraq, Iran, Turkey and the Government of Syria, but the extensive foreign support in Syria means that the KRI is now also wedged between the great power struggles of the United States and Russia. This exemplifies the need to challenge the classical view of juridical states as the only territorially defined, authoritative agents in international politics. Post-Cold War scholarship has paralleled the opposing legal opinions represented by the constitutive and declaratory approaches to statehood. Attempts to develop a more sophisticated comprehension of de facto states has led to the challenging of the belief that sovereignty is indivisible and absolute.

Scott Pegg uses Jackson’s notions of positive and negative sovereignty to ground his analysis of de facto states.⁸ Positive sovereignty is a political and logistical rather than legal quality, describing a government that “possesses the wherewithal to provide political goods” to its populace.⁹ Negative sovereignty refers to external recognition by other states, in theory providing assurance of non-intervention.¹⁰ Pegg’s definition of de facto states classifies them as having achieved the former but not the latter.¹¹ This distinction has been employed elsewhere, where it is referred to as the difference between empirical sovereignty and juridical sovereignty.¹²

Nina Caspersen and Deon Geldenhuys divide sovereignty into internal and external categories. Caspersen’s external sovereignty is the same as Jackson’s negative sovereignty: the recognition of juridical independence. Caspersen’s definition of internal sovereignty is similar to Jackson’s positive sovereignty, though it moves beyond “formal authority” to include “the supply of public services and the enjoyment of popular legitimacy”.¹³ Similar to those who consider domestic sovereignty and legitimacy to be inseparable, Caspersen argues that recognition by the populace – and not just control – is a key component of internal sovereignty (which is occasionally deemed to be popular sovereignty).¹⁴ Where Jackson has shown the existence of states possessing external sovereignty without its internal counterpart, thus allowing the view of sovereignty as indivisible because only recognition matters, Caspersen has shown that internal sovereignty can exist without external recognition.¹⁵

Divisibility of sovereignty is closely associated with the work of Stephen Krasner, especially his seminal text Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy.¹⁶ In their analysis of unrecognised states, James Harvey and Gareth Stansfield utilise Krasner’s division of sovereignty into the components of international-legal, Westphalian, domestic and interdependence.¹⁷ International-legal sovereignty is the legal recognition by other states and international organisations.¹⁸ Westphalian sovereignty refers to the authority of an entity to prohibit the interference of actors over the domestic authority structures within its territory.¹⁹ Domestic sovereignty refers to structures of authority within a state and their ability to regulate behaviour.²⁰ Interdependence sovereignty is the ability of states to control their borders and movement across them.²¹ Krasner contends that the different components are not mutually constituted; one can exist on its own or in combination with others.²²

Krasner also challenges the notion that sovereignty is absolute, underpinning his contention that states have never been as sovereign as has often been assumed.²³ Krasner argues that Westphalian sovereignty has been compromised through contracts, conventions, coercion and imposition.²⁴ The latter two are also violations of international-legal sovereignty, whereas the former two confirm it because entering into a convention is voluntary and a state has the right to exit a contract.²⁵ Any variation in these circumstances would equate to imposition or coercion.

Krasner’s Westphalian, international-legal and domestic sovereignties are concerned primarily with authority. Interdependence sovereignty refers only to control. Although Krasner’s segmenting of sovereignty deviates from the classical conception from which the term originates, I argue that to create a category of sovereignty purely about control is a bridge too far. Positive, negative, internal, external, domestic, Westphalian and international-legal are categories of sovereignty that are employed in an attempt to comprehend the evolution of the concept. These terms all have one characteristic in common: the primacy of authority. The focus of Krasner’s Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy is Westphalian and international-legal sovereignty. Krasner dedicates barely two pages to analysing interdependence sovereignty, telling how scholars have claimed that the decreasing ability of states to control the movement of people, goods, diseases and ideas across borders has been described as a loss of sovereignty.²⁶ In alignment with Holsti’s interpretation of authority as the defining characteristic of sovereignty,²⁷ this book argues that interdependence sovereignty is not sovereignty at all. Krasner has developed a phrase to describe an idea that stemmed from misguided interpretations.²⁸

The resilience of de facto states has inspired a sustained problematisation of the condition of sovereignty, a nebulous concept that de facto state experts continue to grapple with. A position on this defining agential criterion cannot be reached independently from considering the structure within which it operates.

In order to clarify the relationship of de facto states with international society, the social system that they occupy must be considered. The de facto state literature refers to “international society”,²⁹ the “international system”³⁰ and the “international community”³¹ almost interchangeably. Pegg grounds his analysis in a Grotian-inspired, English School interpretation of international society, which, although more specific than much of the literature, does not state precisely what it is that de facto states inhabit.³² Eiki Berg and Ene Kuusk offer an “empirical approach” to international society that provides a more detailed systems-level schematic;³³ however, I argue that their approach is premised on a misunderstanding about what constitutes a society by overlooking the intrinsic, normative component of rightful membership.³⁴ Chapter Two explores the concept of an international society specifically, settling on Ian Clark’s legitimist interpretation, which provides the most insightful explanation of the social constituency that de facto states are excluded from. Detailing the social system that they actually inhabit, though, is the task to which this chapter now turns.

Defining the De Facto State

Defining the social system of which de facto states are a functioning part requires first asking: what exactly constitutes a de facto state? The growing body of literature that examines territorially defined, self-governing entities that lack juridical recognition in the international system has developed with minimal definitional consensus to encompass the growing number of anomalous entities. Providing an important and recognised “starting point”, Pegg centres his definition of the de facto state on secessionist origins.³⁵ Pegg’s definition is one of the most widely cited:

Organized political leadership which has risen to power through some degree of indigenous capability; receives popular support; and has achieved sufficient capacity to provide government services to a given population in a specific territorial ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. De Facto States and the International System
• 2. International Legitimacy and the Normative Standing of De Facto States
• 3. The Nagorno Karabakh Republic
• 4. The Republic of Somaliland
• 5. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq
• Conclusion
• Index