Suchergebnisse

A rarely explored subset of territorial disputes is that of domestic-level territorial disputes. In such a dispute, a substate group disagrees with the country's central government over whether the government should have sovereign control over the entire territory of the state; that is, the dissatisfied group is demanding independence. If the independence-minded group prevails, new boundaries and states are created through a territorial change known as secession. This study explores secession's track record (i.e., how often secessions have been successful in resolving the underlying territorial disputes) and reasons why some secessions are followed by militarized conflict over the new boundary. The results—based on an examination of the aftermath of all twentieth century secessions and the application of more sensitive criteria than those used in prior research—reveal that while most secessions leave unresolved territorial disputes in their wake, these disputes are not particularly prone to escalate into militarized confrontations. Moreover, intangibly (i.e., ethnically) based disagreements over the new boundary play a much greater role in militarized conflict onset than do tangibly (i.e., economically or strategically) based territorial disputes. Finally, contrary to expectations from the ethnic secession literature, peaceful secessions significantly decrease the likelihood that the new boundary will be contested militarily.

Secession is an attempt to resolve a domestically based territorial dispute by dividing a country's homeland territory into new, secessionist (e.g., Eritrea) and rump (e.g., Ethiopia) states. Yet, the secession may not have resolved the original dispute to the states' satisfaction. In the aftermath of a secession, the leader of the rump state is motivated to use force by the benefits of retaking (some of) the land lost to the secessionist state, while the secessionist state's leader is motivated by the benefits of acquiring even more land. The peaceful versus violent secession process further affects whether these desires escalate into the use of force. The results—based on the examination of the consequences of all twentieth-century secessions—reveal that ethnically based territorial disputes play a much greater role in conflict onset than do their economically or strategically based counterparts and that peaceful secessions lead to peaceful relations.

This article examines the prospects for long-term success of an internally motivated division of a country's homeland territory - a process known as partition or secession - into rump and secessionist states. The question investigated is why, in the years after the partition, some partitioned countries are able to avoid serious domestic-level violent conflict - operationalized as armed conflict and civil war onset - while others are not. The core logic of the article argues that partition-related factors affect the extent of support for extremist (i.e. conflictual) versus moderate (i.e. accommodative) policies, which in turn determine the prospects for future peace. Aftermaths of all 20th-century partitions are used to examine the related hypotheses. Contrary to the arguments found in much of the extant scholarship, the findings indicate (1) that peaceful partitions are more beneficial than their violent counterparts; (2) that secessionist states are less likely to experience conflict than rump states; and (3) that partitioning for ethnic - as opposed to non-ethnic - reasons does not increase the likelihood of future conflict. Finally, (4) the results reveal a lower than expected degree of support for the common claim that partitioning leads to failure because partitioned countries tend to be ethnically diverse. These findings shed new light on the circumstances under which partitioning may be a useful policymaking tool.