1. MODES OF ENGAGEMENT
ON THE NATURE OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN CENTRAL GOVERNMENTS
AND SECESSIONIST MOVEMENTS
KARINA A TAYLOR
SETON HALL UNIVERSITY
MAY 10, 2016

2. 1
I. Abstract
What makes a secession legitimate? Where do the limits of sovereignty end
and self-determination begin? And does seceding count as a “win”? This
study posits that the answers to these questions are found in how
secessionist movements interact with the central governments they wish to
grant them political sovereignty. Cases of secession are classified according
to their outcomes (or current statuses) with hypotheses regarding active,
imposed, and martial engagement applied to cases where those interactions
occur. Results are charted (and re-charted) before the research’s conclusions
are applied to current high-profile cases, Catalonia in Spain and Scotland in
the United Kingdom.
II. Problem and Significance
The issue under investigation in this paper is the political legitimacy of
secessionist efforts. When observing the current political landscape of Western Europe,
nations like Spain and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, long accustomed to battling
armed groups’ bids for regional independence, are instead facing challenges to their
political cohesion from within. Political players representing ethnically distinct areas,
such as Scotland in the U.K. and Catalonia in Spain, have taken the ongoing project of
European integration as an opportunity to air their particular discomforts with current
states of governance. Will these largely politically agitations - markedly different from
armed secessionist efforts of the past - succeed? Should they be allowed to? This
paper seeks to debate secessionism’s viability as a means of political self-
determination. Do historical examples provide these emerging movements with a true
blueprint, or a method that is merely deemed acceptable after its success can no longer
be questioned?
To explore this issue of legitimacy, this paper will ask “what is the effect of
political engagement on the political outcomes of secessionist movements?” This
question may alternatively be conceptualized as the equation (outcome of secessionist

3. 2
efforts) = f (type of political engagement). Political engagement, rather than simple
realities of economics or imbalances or socio-political landscape, is taken for granted in
the literature surrounding secession, as the review will later explain.
Political engagement is also critical to the central concept behind this paper’s
hypotheses: that the mode of engagement between secessionist groups and central
governments - be it chiefly diplomatic or more violent in nature - has a direct effect on
secessionist groups’ ability to extract political autonomy from those respective central
governments. With that concept in mind the following three hypotheses will be tested:
H1: If secessionist movements and central governments intentionally
engage via diplomatic means, the secessionists will fail to achieve political
sovereignty
H2: If secessionist movements and central governments are pressured by
extra-national influences to engage via diplomatic means, the
secessionists will achieve political sovereignty
H3: If secessionist movements and central governments forego diplomacy
and engage via martial violence, the secessionists will achieve political
sovereignty
Testing these hypotheses against various cases of well-known engagements between
secessionist movements and their respective central governments will illuminate the
significance of the mode of engagement in the pursuit of political autonomy by these
groups.
In professional terms, the issue of secession as legitimate instrument of political
expression remains relevant to policymakers in this modern era of conflicts rooted in

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ethnic divisions. Multiple battles of this nature continue unabated on a myriad of
international fronts, creating a climate of instability that manifests in human
displacement and infrastructure decimation, exacerbating poverty and stunting political
evolution throughout the developing world. Exploring central government’s role in
creating resolutions - whether they entail granting secession or reinforcing the political
status quo - is crucial to mapping paths to peace for these “intractable” conflicts.
On an academic level, the philosophical tug-of-war between the Wilsonian
concept of self-determination and the Westphalian notion of the nation-state - which
currently undergirds the international system - has yet to be resolved. At what point do
groups decide that it is simply better to separate politically than to continue as one
state? If only one group comes to that conclusion, when should the other side be forced
to accept it? These complex problems of sociopolitical interaction form the basis of this
paper’s inquiry.
III. Literature Review
The gap that this paper proposes to fill is one of cause. Not the cause of
secessionist efforts themselves; such movements have clear antecedents in deep-
rooted ethnic differences and existing political power structures. This paper aims to
approach the question of what causes secessionist movements to succeed or fail. The
choice to posit mode of engagement as a possible answer sprung from the existing
literature prioritizing other factors when discussing political secession.
For many scholars, secessionism and self-determination are inextricably linked in
their questioning of the nature of personal sovereignty. The question of whether or not
secessionism is a politically virtuous course of action appears to be centered on

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another, more philosophical debate about the limits of normative self-determination.
Western nation-states, having promoted the concept in an era of postwar
decolonization, are now loathe to have their rhetoric used against them from within by
groups they considered long subjugated. After centuries of upheaval, much of Europe
has settled into centralized nations of general homogeneity - at least from the
perspective of political elites.
To reconcile this ideological conflict, scholars break down across a spectrum
(rather than sides “for” or “against”) regarding the legitimacy of secession, each
measuring their level of commitment to real-world self-determination in degrees. Hans-
Herman Hoppe’s, “Nationalism and Secession” examines secession in the context of
the liberal capitalist system’s need for diversity. He views secession as a positive,
concluding that it is in fact healthy for the European economy because it allows for the
creation of more markets and limits the illiberal practices of large, centralized
governments. On the other hand, “Self-determination, Yugoslavia, and Europe: Old
Wine in New Bottles?” and “Spectre of Secessionism”, both authored by Hurst Hannum,
explain why the breakup of Yugoslavia was so much more fractious than the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, and subsequently why it is a terrible model for future secessionist
movements. The ultimate theme of both is that self-determination is not applicable to
modern issues of secession because those instances involve a surrender of territorial
sovereignty, as opposed to the withdrawal of a colonizing force1. Michael Keating’s
“Asymmetrical Government: Multinational States in an Integrated Europe” assumes that
1 the use of Yugoslavia as an example of secession, while common in literature regarding this subject, will
not be featured within this paper’s scope. The dissolution of a country is quite different from the secession
of one group or region from a nation that continues to independently exist. For this reason the case of
Czechoslovakia will also be excluded

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sovereignty has always been mutable at best and utterly decentralized at worst, and
base on that assumption the concessions many European states must make in order to
maintain control over disparate groups of citizens. Finally, in “Independence in Europe:
Secession, Sovereignty, and the European Union”, the only one of the articles published
in the 21st century, Christopher Connolly takes three case studies - Catalonia, Scotland,
and Belgium - and examines their possible legal avenues to greater regional autonomy
from their respective governments.
Regarding similarities, all of the opinions examined here agree that regional
political instability, accompanied by the subsequent redrawing of territorial boundaries,
is an acknowledged historical norm in Europe, though this has become less true as
states have settled into their present forms. In 1993 Hoppe alludes to “increased
centralization”2 when discussing secession in terms of economic prosperity, noting that
“[It] is not by accident that capitalism first flourished under conditions of extreme political
decentralization: in the northern Italian city states, in southern Germany, and in the
secessionist Low Countries”3. In his first article (published that same year), Hannum
contrasts that contentious breakup to the relatively peaceful and universally-accepted
dissolution of the Soviet Union4. By 1998, Hannum will acknowledge the weakness of
widespread political centralization, stating “[except] in the smallest or most isolated
environments, there will always be "trapped" minorities, no matter how carefully
2
Hoppe, Hans-Herman. “Nationalism and Secession”. Chronicles, November 1993. p 24.
http://www.hanshoppe.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/nationalism_chronicles.pdf
3
Ibid, p 24
4
Hannum, Hurst. “Self-determination, Yugoslavia, and Europe: Old Wine in New Bottles?”. Transnational
Law and Contemporary Problems [Vol 3:57 Spring 1993]. p.59.
file:///Users/classicalbrownbeauty/Desktop/3TransnatlLContempProbs57.pdf

7. 6
boundaries are drawn”5, though he will still go on to cite Yugoslavia as an erroneous
example for other secessionist movements that arose later in the decade. Keating’s
study of “asymmetrical government” is rooted in the observation of how European states
have changed with time, and were not until recently anything resembling uniform in their
political organization:
“Premodern political systems in Europe were extremely diversified and differentiated, with
overlapping patterns of authority-territorial and personal, economic and political, religious and secular.
There were city states, city leagues, principalities, kingdoms, and empires. There were feudal territories
and non-feudal ones….The rise of the modern state represented a concentration of authority within
territorially defined units and the assertion of a unitary principle of sovereignty.”6
Keating goes on to explain that “[therefore], even in the heyday of the west
European nation-state in the twentieth century, territorial integration was never
complete, and territorial management remained a constant task of statecraft. In the late
twentieth century, however, these forms of territorial management are coming under
considerable strain as asymmetrical pressures are felt for more decentralization....”7
From this we are reminded that all political systems may be rendered temporary in the
face of extra-national shifts in relationships between those states. In a present-day
example, the consolidation of the European Union has in fact reinforced the question of
separate sociopolitical identity in its efforts to be the region’s ultimate unifying force.
Connolly, writing the most recently in 2013, presents the modern era’s short memory
regarding European border shuffling, noting “[a]t first blush, the salience of separatist
5
Hannum, Hurst, “Spectre of Secessionism”. Foreign Affairs Vol 77 No. 2 March/April 1998. p. 16.
file:///Users/classicalbrownbeauty/Desktop/77ForeignAff13.pdf
6
Keating, Michael. “Asymmetrical Government: Multinational States in an Integrated Europe”. The
Journal of Federalism 29:1 (Winter 1999). p. 72. http://publius.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/1/71.full.pdf
7
Keating, p. 74

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nationalism within the democracies of Western Europe might seem anomalous or even
comical. Talk of secession in Europe calls to mind the deadly seriousness of the Balkan
wars of the 1990s…”8 He too, however, acknowledges the European Union’s role in
newer secessionist dramas, asserting that “the incongruity of these nationalist
movements is [underscored by] the ongoing process of European integration, often
viewed as having ushered in a "post-sovereignty era" in which the significance of
statehood is diminished….The paradox of separatism within the EU implicates the
interrelated concepts of sovereignty, self-determination, and the territorial integrity of
states that form a Gordian knot at the core of public international law.”9
Returning to the spectrum of positions on self-determination, there is a
struggle amongst the authors about whether to divorce the norm from the context of its
development. Hannum is the most adamant about the free application of self-
determination remaining a relic of the postwar era. “The principle of self-determination
was the legal and moral foundation of decolonization, but its postcolonial application
was at best uncertain,”10 he begins in “Nationalism and Secession”. “Self-determination
became applicable to three categories of people only: those under colonial, alien, or
racist domination. By contrast, it was ruled that the principle could not apply to the
population of a sovereign State with a Government which, however oppressive and
8
Connolly, Christopher K. “Independence in Europe: Secession, Sovereignty, and the European Union”.
Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law. Vol 24:51 2013. p. 52.
file:///Users/classicalbrownbeauty/Desktop/24DukeJCompIntlL51.pdf
9
Connolly, p 52-53
10
Hannum, “Nationalism…” p. 58

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authoritarian, did not practise systematic racial or religious discrimination…”11 He goes
on to quote Antonio Cassese, who declared “This restriction was plainly due to the fear
of States that by authorizing an unqualified right of self-determination they might allow
secession and dismemberment in sovereign States”12 Later, in “Spectre of Secession”,
Hannum removes any doubt of whether or not those restrictions were apt:
““Outside of the classic context of European decolonization, the free exercise of self-determination
has been constrained historically by great power rivalry, questions about the potential economic and
political viability of new states, and the overarching goal of maintaining order and stability by preserving
existing territorial arrangements wherever possible...Neither sovereignty nor self-determination is an
absolute right. Each is limited by other rights and international obligations. “13
Both Hoppe and Connolly harbor no such qualms about applying principles of
self-determination to the modern era. Hoppe views secessionism as essential to the
success of the liberal economic system: “...it is precisely because Europe possessed a
highly decentralized power structure composed of countless independent political units
that explains the origin of capitalism...in the Western world”14. With this in mind, he
admonishes “the orthodox view” of larger, centralized states winning debates of
economic superiority, which “rather than reflecting any truth... is more illustrative of the
fact that history is typically written by its victors. Correlation or temporal coincidence do
not prove causation. In fact, the relationship between economic prosperity and
centralization is very different from - indeed, almost the opposite of - what orthodoxy
alleges…” As the entirety of Connolly’s paper concerns not only outlining current
11
Hannum, “Nationalism…” p. 58
12
Hannum, “Nationalism…” p 58
13
Hannum, “Spectre…” p. 13
14
Hoppe, p. 13

10. 9
secessionist movements within modern Europe, but also articulating how some level of
further political autonomy may be achieved in each of his chosen cases, shares
Hoppe’s view that current Western attitudes towards self-determination reflect the
worldview of those that benefit from its suppression. “Self-determination exists in
tension with the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that form the foundation
of the international system of states,” Connolly explains. “The international community
has sought to resolve this tension by effectively eliminating the circumstances in which
the right to self-determination equates with a right to secession and independence.”
This is nearly a direct echoing of Hannum’s earlier Cassese quote. It would appear
based on this small sampling that secessionist sentiments, even in the modern era, are
not political abnormalities; their categorization as something outside the norm benefits
existing sovereign states, who view any disruption as a negative. In the face of an
international anarchic system with many norms but few binding laws, such defensive
postures make sense, but will most certainly leave prospective reformers of that system
deeply unsatisfied. This in turn may give their desire for political separation greater
weight, as present politically sovereign entities may have closed off internal avenues to
increased representation or autonomy.
While Connolly’s work comes the closest to asking the question central to this
paper - by bypassing rhetoric for solutions, he implicitly assumes the validity of
secession as a tool of political self-expression. Furthermore, none of the articles
specifically look at secessionist movements’ modes of engagement with central
governments as a factor in the success, failure, or legitimacy of their movement. While
Europe’s shifting political and geographic past is heavily relied upon, much of the focus

11. 10
is on what existing states should or should not do to quell divisive intentions, relegating
the model of engagement to irrelevance regardless of era.
IV. Variables and Measurement
As stated above, the research presented in this paper seeks to answer the question
of whether the mode of engagement informs the outcomes of secessionist efforts. Thus
for the purposes of this paper, the independent variable will be mode of engagement,
and the dependent variable will be the eventual outcome of secessionists’ efforts to
attain political autonomy.
The dependent variable will be divided into three separate categories:
independence, the attainment of a separate, politically sovereign state; incorporation,
where secessionist sentiments are redirected back into the existing political structure,
resulting in perhaps an increase in representation or autonomy but no permanent
political division of territory; and irreconciliation, wherein secessionist movements have
continued without successfully attaining separate states or greater political
representation within the central government. These distinctions are meant to aid in
measuring a secession’s “success” or “failure” vis a vis a particular iteration of the
independent variable, political engagement.
That independent variable will be similarly classified in three different ways:
active engagement, wherein the government drove the pursuit of a peace agreement
via its own political operatives or the request for outside intervention; imposed
engagement, where the central government participated in peace talks imposed,
organized, and possibly arbitrated by a third party; and martial engagement, where the
central government principally interacts with the secessionist movement via state-

12. 11
sanctioned force as opposed to political means. These divisions seek to address not
only the various ways in which governments may handle secession efforts, but also
seeks to place those efforts on a spectrum of most politically engaged (intentional) to
least (martial) in order to measure whether or not methods that changed over time or
even used simultaneously were proven to be the most effective in a given case.
These variable categorizations are meant to echo the premise of the three
aforementioned hypotheses while creating a fuller picture of secessionist efforts’ results
by matching outcomes to the mode of engagement with central governments. This is
significant because despite confounding variables such as economics and international
political realities, the actual act of seceding from an existing state requires that existing
state’s participation. The tenor of central governments’ interaction is key to
understanding why efforts to achieve political sovereignty succeed or fail. Confounding
variables will be analyzed as alternative explanations for presented results.
V. Methodology
The research question is explored qualitatively, via a set of case studies
numbering nine in all. Not all of the cases chosen are successful, or even at the time of
this writing resolved via official ceasefire or peace treaty. The cases sampled to create
this set were deliberately included for their name recognition and the variety of their
outcomes to create a more complete picture of the practice of political secession as a
whole. The cases sampled were drawn from the post-colonial period (mid-twentieth
century to the present day) to better extrapolate results’ possible application to current
events. Data collection was performed electronically via the examination of publications

13. 12
related to secessionist movements. This included physical books as well as scholarly
journal publications.
The nine cases are discussed in groups of three, determined by their dependent
variable classification. Thus there are three cases of secessionist movements achieving
political sovereignty; three cases of secessionist movements that resulted in the
movement’s absorption into the central government structure; and three secessionist
movements whose pursuit of autonomy has yet to be resolved. Within each case the
mode of engagement between the respective secessionist movement and central
government will be examined through the lens of the hypothesis best representing the
variables at play.
Deliberately selected case studies were principally chosen as the best method
for evaluating the data collected because the cases themselves vary enough in detail to
make reducing them to simple binary indicators - such as whether or not the secession
resulted in a new politically sovereign state - an undesirable approach. To simply say a
particular outcome was achieved flattens the dialogue this research attempts to hold
with the subject of secession; the circumstances of that success better inform the
researcher and the reader about the nature of secession itself as a method of political
self-expression. Furthermore, grouping cases under a larger headings of independence,
incorporation, and irreconciliation better allows for the impact of those results to be
explored. South Sudan, for example, succeeded in winning its independence from
Sudan while ultimately failing to establish institutions that maintained the health and
safety of its citizens. Such results further the examination of secessionism as a political

14. 13
tool, and the potential effects (ill or otherwise) of that tool’s implementation on citizens of
both the potential new state and the existing one.
VI. Case Studies: Secessionism’s Three “I” States
A. Independence: Eritrea, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste
These three instances of “successful” secession, wherein separatists achieve their
goal of political independence and geographic sovereignty, share striking similarities. In
all three cases, the new states created from secessionist conflict shared fairly recent
histories of occupation and political subjugation. This understanding within these
societies that in the recent past their political systems had had been dramatically
different from their incorporated state appears to have fostered a sense of cultural
cohesion around the concept of righting a political “wrong” that prevented eventual
secessionists from fully assimilating due to this inability to suppress old sociopolitical
identities.
1. Eritrea. Central government in opposition: Ethiopia; duration of conflict: 30
years (1961-1991); year of secession: 1993 (referendum followed by
international diplomatic recognition); Concluding mode of engagement: active
Eritrea’s pursuit of political autonomy from Ethiopia epitomizes the political
consequences of postwar diplomatic wrangling15. Following over a century as an Italian
colony and a brief stint under British administration in the wake of Allied victory, Ethiopia
(with U.S. support) successfully lobbied the United Nations to federate with Eritrea in
1950. The role of former colony as mere tradeable asset in greater international
dealings is not an uncommon feature in either of the world wars’ diplomatic resolutions -
in this instance, the Allies were willing to support Ethiopia’s bid for control mostly to
15
Eritrea country profile. BBC World News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13349395.

15. 14
reward the east African nation for its efforts against the Italians during the war. The
unusually loose nature of the federation arrangement, however, with its granting of
measured autonomy for Eritreans, would in fact sow ideas of separation that
secessionists would later exploit.
Engagement between Eritrean secessionists and the central Ethiopian
government can be characterized as more cyclical than linear, as interactions
fluctuating between active engagement by government officials on both sides and
outright martial conflict between armed groups over the course of the conflict. These
fluctuations can be credited to a number of factors. First, the political environment within
which secessionist efforts took place. It was Ethiopia’s annexation of Eritrea in 1962 that
prompted the defunct, politically-minded Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) to evolve
into the more military-inclined Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). And in 1974, Ethiopia’s
centuries-old imperial government fell to a Marxist revolt that plunged the country into its
own civil war, meaning for a majority of the secessionist conflict Eritreans (first under
the banner of the ELF, and later the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF)) were
battling an enemy that was itself in flux, altering drastically from the Western-back
Emperor Selassie to the Soviet-back Derg regime. This shifting of regimes
corresponded to less predictable policy priorities, making any suit for peace less likely to
be accepted. A second factor was the ultimate cultural homogeneity of the combatants.
Eritrea and Ethiopia shared a similar demographic makeup in terms of tribes and ethnic
minorities, meaning the opposing sides were never entirely “other” in any significant
capacity save governance. This similarity ultimately contributed to a post-conflict
atmosphere settled enough for Ethiopia’s caretaker government to acknowledge

16. 15
Eritrea’s right to conduct a UN-supervised referendum on secession that was ultimately
honored. In the case of Eritrea, intentional engagement actually solidified secessionist
efforts rather than it undermined them, disproving H1.
2. South Sudan16. Central government in opposition: the Republic of the Sudan;
duration of conflict: 50 years (c. 1955-2005); year of secession: 2011
(referendum followed by independence); Concluding mode of engagement:
imposed.
Between Eritrea and South Sudan exist a number of similarities: geographic
neighborhood (they are separated only by Ethiopia), civil wars within the nation of the
central government, and eventual independence via referendum. These similarities in
fact highlight the peculiar struggle towards self-rule for South Sudan. Where Eritrea
fought to reclaim lost political sovereignty, South Sudan gained autonomy but struggled
mightily to keep it. The South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) made an armed
attempt to win its independence a year before the Republic of the Sudan liberated itself
from British and Egyptian control, and succeeded with the creation of the Southern
Sudan Autonomous Region. The abolition of this autonomy in the wake President
Gaafar Nimeiry’s recasting of Sudan as an Islamic State precipitated a second civil
conflict, with southern Sudanese interests defended by the Sudan People’s Liberation
Army/Movement (SPLA/M) and later the splinter group SPLA-Nasir.
The shifting modes of engagement echo that of Eritrea’s relations with Ethiopia,
as interactions vacillated from martial (the first Sudanese war) to imposed (with the
Addis Ababa Agreement establishing the Southern Sudanese Autonomous Region
initially fostered via third-party mediation) back to martial (the second civil war) then
once again to imposed engagement as the Intergovernmental Authority on
16 South Sudan country profile, BBC World News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14019208.

17. 16
Development aided in the formation of a South Sudanese government that would
remain as the country conducted its 2011 independence referendum. South Sudan’s
history of holding onto its political sovereignty proves H2 – in this case, only third-party
intervention could midwife the cessation in fighting necessary for South Sudan to assert
its identity politically.
3. The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste17 (aka Timor-Leste, aka East Timor).
Central government(s) in opposition: Portugal, Indonesia; duration of conflict:
25 years (c. 1974-1999); year of secession: 1999 (referendum followed by
independence); Concluding mode of engagement: martial/imposed.
Moving away from Africa and into Southeast Asia, some similarities – like
colonial pasts informing present-day sovereignty struggles - remain, while other factors
such as outside intervention and support are more unique. East Timor was a territory
occupied twice in rapid succession, as the abatement of Portuguese colonial control of
Timor in 1974 almost immediately led to civil divisions amongst factions that had battled
together against extraction-oriented policies since the Second World War. The
Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor’s (Frente Revolucionaria de Timore-
Leste, heretofore Fretilin) declared intentions to separate from the Timorese Democratic
Union were almost immediately met with an invasion by neighboring Indonesia, an
incursion that would settle into an occupying annexation of the territory, maintained with
brutal force.
This brutality would go on to gain the international sympathy of former colonizer
Portugal, along with regional Western democracies like Australia. This support would
prove critical to preserving East Timor’s rights to self-determination, as a perceived
series of political breakthroughs (Indonesia’s dictatorial President Suharto resignation,
17 Timor-Leste country profile, BBC World News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-14952883.

18. 17
his being replaced by the more conciliatory J. B. Habibie, and the withdrawal of
Indonesian forces) provided Western advocates an opportunity to campaign for
international protection for East Timor’s self-determination efforts. The aforementioned
referendum was conducted, but not as initially accepted as those in Eritrea and South
Sudan; instead East Timor’s democratic consensus to pursue self-rule was met with
almost immediate violent retribution from Indonesian forces. This necessitated armed
international intervention from UN peacekeeping missions like the International Force
for East Timor (INTERFET) to restore order and safety for those fleeing violence.
The East Timorese case is mostly defined by the martial mode of engagement in
the form of Fretilin’s resistance of Indonesian control via its military arm, Falintil, with
brief utilizations of active engagement and a crucial deployment of imposed
engagement to maintain advances in democratic self-determination. Whether this case
proves or disproves H1 is debatable, since the active engagement that allowed for East
Timor’s referendum to take place so quickly curdled into violence. The case most
certainly satisfies H2, as UN intervention provided the force necessary to enforce
peaceful transition to self-rule.
Additionally, the timing of this case should not be ignored. The decade between the
1991 Dill Massacre that inspired so much international attention and the 1999
referendum and UN peacekeeping deployment coincided with a level of international
engagement in human rights unprecedented during the twentieth century. Following the
collapse of the Soviet Union Western states reoriented foreign policy resources towards
humanitarian causes, leading to the downfall of South African apartheid and
interventions in post-communist regions such as the dissolving Yugoslavia. East Timor

19. 18
benefitted from the West viewing its cause as a simple pursuit of self-rule, rather than
projecting socialist motivations onto the movement as might have occurred even five
years prior. Timing may affect the deployment of particular modes of engagement as
much as economic capacity.
B. Incorporation: Northern Ireland, The Basque Country (Spanish side), and The
Republic of Biafra
As these cases resulted in failure to secede, their similarities and differences
become more apparent in the aftermath of said failure – what measures of political
autonomy were maintained in the face of these losses?
1. Northern Ireland. Central government(s) in opposition: United Kingdom of
Great Britain; duration of conflict: 20 years (c. 1968-1998); year of
incorporation: 1998 (officially acknowledged as part of United Kingdom);
Concluding mode of engagement: active, with martial undercurrents.
Conflict within the British Isles is a well-documented history of provincial
bloodletting as England systematically asserted itself against the ethnic groups that
would form its kingdom. The incorporation of these groups is looser than in other major
European powers such as Spain or France; Andalusia and Aquitaine may be culturally
distinct from the greater nations they are a part of, but neither region asserts its identity
in the manner of Scotland or Wales.18 Nor can Scotland or Wales presently compare
themselves to Ireland, the lone holdout against English expansion – save its northern
region that managed to epitomize the UK’s conflicts of ethnic and religious identity in a
few hundred square miles.
The region now identified as Northern Ireland was born of political manipulation.
In 1921 the British parliament, continuing its pattern of undercutting Irish autonomy,
18 This should not be taken as ignorance of the status of Catalonia in Spain or the Basque region
straddling Spain and France; both will be discussed later in this paper

20. 19
partitioned North from South in an ironic effort to increase self-governance. The south
responded by creating the Free Irish State; the North played host to the Troubles, a
nasty decades-long battle for the region’s identity between the largely Anglican
unionists and Catholic nationalists, represented by the terroristic acts of the Provisional
Ireland Republican Army. Every English effort to constrain anti-union activities –
including disappearances, state-sanctioned brutality, and misinformation campaigns -
resulted in disorienting guerilla attacks that created a climate of counterinsurgency that
would dominate relations for the latter half of the twentieth century. The Belfast (or
Good Friday) Agreement brought official hostilities to a close via referendums in both
areas of Ireland in1998, with Northern Ireland retaining a devolved system of
government as a result.
The modes of engagement – martial, with an actively engaged conclusion – do
not fully communicate the complexities of the Northern Ireland conflict, why it persisted,
or why it ultimately failed. In actuality there was consistent effort on both sides politically
to stem violence. However decades of misconduct by both camps led to many a broken
ceasefire or failed reconciliation. It was the consistent willingness of lawmakers to try
and try again in the drafting of legislation that acclimated the general population (if not
the most hardline members of the Provisional IRA) to the concept of détente.
Considering the fact that many members of that population were born into the defining
context of the Troubles, the difficulty of this feat should not be underestimated. The
British Parliament’s 1998 passage of the Northern Ireland act also should not go
unnoticed for its codification of the cessation of centuries of English political

21. 20
manipulation in Ireland. The case of Northern Ireland proves H1, while outright
disproving H3.
2. The Basque Country. Central government(s) in opposition: Spain, France;
duration of conflict: 52 years (c. 1959-2011); year of incorporation: 2011
(most recent renouncing of armed activities); Concluding mode of
engagement: active – granted nationality status, 1978.
While The Basque country is similar to the Northern Ireland case in a geographic
sense (Western European nation resolving final questions of borders and regional
autonomy), the Basque people differ much more vastly from the Spanish than Northern
Irish do from the English. Their desired territory is transnational, spanning a section of
the Pyrenees Mountains that crosses the French-Spanish border.19 Their language has
been classified a “language isolate”20, utterly unrelated to the surrounding Romantic
languages of Western Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. Use of this language was
viewed as a separatist act during the repressive Franco era of the mid-twentieth
century, years before the rise of terrorist separatist operation Euskadi Ta Askatasuna
(better known as ETA21).
In many ways this cultural otherness worked in the favor of Basque in pursuit of
autonomy. In the early twentieth century the region was much diminished from its
former autonomy, but its industries profited from World War I while largely avoiding the
massive damage it inflicted on the landscape. Life under the mid-century Franco regime
was particularly harsh as Spain’s cultural diversity was flattened for the sake of fascism,
19 This analysis will deal with the Spanish portion of the Basque region due to its more storied history of
separatism and larger number of inhabitants.
20 Mughal, Muhammad Aurang Zeb. 2012. Spain. Steven L. Denver (ed.), Native Peoples of the World:
An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures, and Contemporary Issues, Vol. 3. Armonk, NY: M .E. Sharpe, pp.
674–675.
21 ‘ETA: Key Events” BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/172539.stm

22. 21
and the Basque Autonomous Community was forced to capitulate to the dictator’s
forces. This harrowing experience fostered a divide once authoritarianism in Spain
collapsed. Despite the inclusion of a Statute of Autonomy in the new constitution ratified
a mere three years after Franco’s fall in 1975, ETA’s tactics mimicked that of the IRA’s –
bombings, terror and violence meant to spur a complete political separation between
the region and the country at large. Even after the most recent official cessation of
hostilities in 2011, members of the group’s terror operation were arrested for plotting
destructive public acts, undermining the political wing’s attempts to consolidate its
leadership as a political force in the increasingly self-governing region.
Spain’s mode of engagement in this case provides an interesting contrast to the
U.K.’s in the Northern Ireland case. Over the course of forty years, the central Spanish
government has pursued a primarily active diplomatic relationship, from the
aforementioned inclusion of autonomous rule in constitutional law, to the recent support
of Basques reviving their language, to the utter lack of armed incursion in the region
despite frequent violence from ETA members. There are multiple possible motivations
for this steady policy position, but chief among them is the fact that at the close of the
Franco era the newly restored Spanish government was primarily concerned with the
revival of civic institutional strength and economic rehabilitation. Any region agitating to
govern itself during such a delicate period would surely be granted whatever measure of
autonomy would take the most pressure off the central government. Much like East
Timor, the groundwork of today’s autonomy may credit much of its assistance to a
marriage of cause and moment. The case of the Basque region fulfills H1, with active
engagement leading towards deeper understanding with the central government, and

23. 22
disproves H3, as sustained reigns of terror did not grant the freedom its most extreme
inhabitants sought most.
3. The Republic of Biafra. Central government(s) in opposition: Nigeria; duration
of conflict: 3 years (c. 1967-1970); year of incorporation: 1970 (reabsorption
following ceasefire); Concluding mode of engagement: martial (military
defeat)
The sociopolitical climate that birthed the Republic of Biafra is the same post-
colonial environment that saw the emergence of Ethiopia and the Republic of Sudan.
Nigeria, the central government its proponents opposed, was like many African
countries a mixture of tribal groups carelessly bound together by borders sketched by
European imperialist. The principal conflict – between the Hausa majority in the
northern and the Igbo minority in the southernmost region – was not the first or last to
find their living under one government untenable.
So what caused Biafra to perish at the tender age of three?22 The simple answer
is starvation of its citizens. Following back-to-back counter coups in 1966, a failed
attempt among military leaders to cement a confederation of Nigerian states resulted
in the secession of first the eastern region and then the southeastern region, which
had been known as Biafra long before the creation of Nigeria. While the eastern
secession would be brought to a fairly swift end, the oil-rich lands and effective
military of the newly created Republic of Biafra caused the Federal Military
Government (FMG) to tread more carefully. Blockade was privileged over direct
assault, to devastating effect for the young country: planned airlifts were banned by
the Nigerian central government, who still had control of the national airspace. The
22 Soyinka, Wole. “Biafra Revisted”, BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008kc4b

24. 23
Biafrans were forced to call for a mediated ceasefire, and in January 1970
surrendered to the FMG, a million citizens lost to hunger and their pursuit of
independence ending in reincorporation into the FMG.
Of the three cases of incorporation this is the most overt example of martial
engagement – a straightforward instance of a minority rebellion thoroughly crushed
by the majority. It might have been Eritrea’s story if the Soviet Union had continued
to support Ethiopia, or East Timor’s had the Dill Massacre not captured international
imagination. Biafra, conversely, bore the burden of timing with none of the benefit.
The decolonization wave of the 1960s would in the end largely apply to former
colonies using existing political infrastructure to cast themselves as something new,
not minority groups looking to right the wrongs of the imperialists’ careless carving
up of Africa. With its past tensions between ethnic minorities and majorities, and the
manifestations of those tensions in the butchery of said minorities, Biafra was a
portent of the humanitarian crises the West would fail to stop in the latter half of the
twentieth century, rather than its stabilizing interventions. Put simply, the Biafran
case is an absolute rejection of H3.
C. Irreconciliation: Kosovo, Crimea, and Kurdistan
As these are still ongoing, the following cases will contain predictions instead of
comparing resultant modes of engagement to hypotheses.
1. The declared Republic of Kosovo. Central government(s) in opposition: Serbia;
duration of conflict: 8 years ( 2008-present); year of declaration: 2008
(independence); Current mode of engagement: active
Following the post-Soviet breakup of Yugoslavia, Kosovo remained an unsettled
political question. Even under communism the province had retained a degree of self-

25. 24
rule, a right that would come under threat from Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic
in 1974, during Yugoslav decentralization; in 1990, when it first declared independence;
and finally during the violent period between 1996 and 1999, when NATO was required
to intervene in order to protect Kosovars from Milosevic’s security forces.
The current bid for independence stems from frustration with the 2007 Ahtisaari
plan meant to grant Kosovo a measure of self-rule with oversight; it moved too slowly
for a populace forced to labor under some form of international monitoring for over a
decade, so the people declared themselves independent while pledging to uphold the
plan’s prescriptions. A flood of diplomatic recognitions does not as of yet include
Serbia23, the central government from which Kosovo derived its original autonomous
governance.
As the mode of engagement remains active and not martial, it is logical
considering the growing international recognition of Kosovo’s declaration to foresee
Serbia eventually ceding its authority to the people of Kosovo. The principal reasoning
against this prediction is that Serbia has the backing of Russia, which (as the next case
will reveal) does not support former Soviet provinces gaining more autonomy and
connection to the West. This stance positions these two nations to make Kosovo’s
entrée into the international arena as an independent state very difficult.
2. The Russian-annexed Republic of Crimea. Central government(s) in opposition:
Ukraine; duration of conflict: 2 years ( 2014-present); year of declaration: 2014
(reunification referendum); Current mode of engagement: active
23 Decision of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia regarding the Confirmation of the
Decision of the Government of the Republic of Serbia regarding the Abolition of Illegal Acts of
the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government in Kosovo and Metohia in regards to the
unilateral Declaration of Independence Archived November 28, 2010.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101128220902/http://www.parlament.gov.rs/content/cir/akta/akta
_detalji.asp?Id=367&t=O

26. 25
This case is, like Kosovo, a smaller part of larger post-Soviet diplomatic
maneuvering in Eastern Europe. Simple context for the Crimean choice to vote itself out
of Ukraine and into Russia is as follows: In 2013 an economic deal meant to align
Ukraine more closely with the European Union was scuttled by then-President Viktor
Yanukoyvch in favor of renewed partnership with Russia. Ensuing protests against this
and other perceived dismissals of national desires to turn West twenty years after
Communism culminated in an uprising known as the Maidan Revolution24 and resulted
in the expulsion of Russo-philic Yanukoyvch. In his wake Vladimir Putin’s Russia cast
the uprising as a threat to the millions of ethnic Russians residing in Ukraine, and
pledged to intervene militarily to defend them if necessary. This intervention manifested
as the occupation of Sevastapol, the home port of Ukraine’s navy in the Crimea. Upon
its independence Ukraine was granted the rights to Crimea and its Black Sea ports but
had continued to rent them to the Russian navy, as it had been the country’s only warm
water port when the Soviet Union was still viable. By occupying the base Russia
regained full control of the port and hobbled Ukrainian defenses in a single move.
What occurred next becomes muddled even in international reporting. The
Crimeans, already a semiautonomous region within Ukraine, say their population held a
referendum on whether or not to stay in a West-leaning Ukraine (as it looked to become
under new president Petro Poroshenko). The Russians concur, saying they welcome
any former satellite provinces looking to rejoin their motherland. Ukraine and the
Western diplomatic establishment has accused Russia of forcing an irredentist act in an
effort to destabilize a fragile country, an accusation that has only grown louder as
24 “What happened to Ukraine’s Maidan?” BBC News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35636568

27. 26
protests in eastern Ukraine morphed into armed opposition seemingly overnight. This
international intrigue provides a fascinating – if troubling – glimpse into the gulf between
how the West viewed post-Soviet Russia and how Russia views itself. As Russia
continues to assert its influence via opposition – to intervening in Syria and Ukraine, to
urging the disparate parts of Ukraine to reunite, to any imagined imposition on its
perceived sphere of influence – Western states, particularly the United States, must
reevaluate what self-determination is worth in the face of resumed tension with a
crippled superpower. The grimmest prediction is that Crimea will succeed in its
secession because the greater international community is not prepared to force it to do
otherwise.
3. Kurdistan. Central government(s) in opposition: Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria;
duration of conflict: 45 years ( c. 1970-present); year of declaration: 1970
(gained autonomy from Iraqi government); Current mode of engagement:
martial/active (Turkey/Iraq)
While the modern concept of a homeland for the world’s Kurdish population stems
back to at least the First World War, the Middle East’s current state of disarray have
provided a context for Kurdish autonomy’ resurgence into the international discussion.
Kurdish populations residing within Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria are involved in nearly
every major military conflict involving these four countries. The Peshmerga25
that held
the Syrian border town of Kobane against Islamic State (IS) were of Iraqi and Iranian
extraction; Kurds are present in Iranian Shi’a militias battling IS in Iraq and Syria; and,
most contentiously, the Turkish government encouraged Kurdish fighters to cross its
25 Taylor, Karina. “Kobane and the Realities of Modern Victory”. Seton Hall Journal of Diplomacy blog.
http://blogs.shu.edu/diplomacy/2015/02/kobane-and-the-realities-of-modern-victory/

28. 27
porous border to fight IS long before Turkey itself committed to military involvement in
the conflict.
It is this final central government-minority group relationship that possesses the most
potential for volatility and (in the minds of Turkish officials) the greatest chance for
secessionist efforts. While Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed (and at the hands of Saddam
Hussein, suffered) a measure of self-rule since 1970, and both Iraqi and Syrian Kurds
have taken recent disorder in Syria as an opportunity to hold territory for a potential
autonomous region after the war concludes, Turkey’s relationship with its Kurdish
population is suspicious at best, and virulently bigoted at worst. This enmity does not
entirely stem from nowhere. The Kurdistan Workers’ People (PKK)26 has actively
pursued a politically sovereign state inside Turkey since the mid-eighties, precipitating
state-sanctioned violence against Kurdish communities in an attempt to root them out.
Since the 1999 arrest of leader Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK has waxed violent and waned
diplomatic in an unpredictable fashion that provides the Turkish central government with
political cover to prosecute Kurds within the political opposition under anti-terror
statutes. Neither Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani’s recent call for a vote on
Iraqi Kurdish independence, nor current Kurdish efforts to protect Turks against Islamic
State likely sway the international community towards advocating for a permanent
homeland in the near future. Given the current political disasters that are Syria’s and
Iraq’s central governments, the Kurds look to once again find themselves passed over
in favor of existing states.
26 Profile: Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). BBC World News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-
20971100

29. 28
VII. Results and Alternative Explanations
The cases presented provide results somewhat out of step with the hypotheses
presented:
- H1: If secessionist movements and central governments intentionally engage
(active engagement), then secessionists will not achieve political sovereignty.
- The Eritrean case (independence grouping), and (independence grouping)
proved this hypothesis incorrect, while the Northern Ireland and the Basque
region cases (incorporation grouping) and the Crimean, Kosovo, and Iraqi-
Kurdistan cases (irreconciliation grouping) appear to prove the hypothesis
correct. Six applicable cases, with hypothesis correct in 4/6 cases. Correct about
66.6 % of cases involving the active mode of engagement.
- H2: If secessionist movements and central governments are pressured by extra-
national influences to engage via diplomatic means, the secessionists will
achieve political autonomy.
- The South Sudan and East Timor cases (independence grouping) are the
only applicable cases, with hypothesis correct in both. Two applicable cases, with
hypothesis correct in 2/2 case. Correct about 100% of cases involving the
imposed mode of engagement.
- H3: If secessionist movements and central governments forego diplomacy and
engage via martial violence, the secessionists will achieve political autonomy
- The results of this study call the significance of H3 into question. While the
Biafra case (incorporation grouping), and Turkish-Kurdistan case (irreconciliation
grouping) are both conclusive examples of martial modes of engagement was

30. 29
incorrect in both cases, correct 0%. However, in four of the preceding cases (the
Eritrea, South Sudan, and East Timor cases from the independence grouping;
the Northern Ireland case from the incorporation grouping) martial engagement
was the defining mode for much of the conflict. This invites the question of
whether martial engagement was responsible for getting parties to the
negotiation table (either by outside forces, or the sides themselves no longer
being able to stomach the violence) or if this is simply a coincidence inherent in
deliberately choosing cases for the study.
The result as collected conclude that active engagement often does not lead to political
sovereignty for secessionists, while the arbitrating/mediating involvement of parties
outside the conflict can lead to secessionists achieving their goals. The martial mode of
engagement provided inconclusive evidence as to whether or not it has any influence
on the other two, but based on the evaluation of the cases selected the mode of
engagement made a difference in secessionists’ achievement of their goal of political
sovereignty.
Alternative explanations for secessionist efforts resulting in political sovereignty
are numerous and diverse. A frequently cited reason for secessionist efforts succeeding
or failing is economics. The level of control secessionists exert over economic assets
may “make or break” a movement due to a loss of resources usually provided by the
state once the movement declares itself in direct opposition to a central government.
The Basque region case displays an example of an autonomous region that largely
avoids this, due to its early industrialization. Beyond that, the economic value of a
region or labor force attempting to secede may lead to central governments intensifying

31. 30
its attacks on the opposition in order to prevent an irretrievable loss of revenue. This
was true in the case of Biafra and Nigeria – the oil-rich southern territory the separatists
wished to control was simple too lucrative to part with. Similarly in the case of Crimea,
to lose access to the Black Sea would be a blow to Ukraine’ shipping interests as much
as its naval concerns.
Another explanation for secessionists’ success or failure in achieving political
sovereignty is the demographic size of the movement. Minority voices that are too
outnumbered to effective change through force (Northern Ireland, Biafra) or are too
disparate to create a cohesive point of view (the differing priorities of Iraqi and Turkish
Kurds).
A final alternative to political engagement features in cases such as Kosovo or
Timor-Leste: the level of international support for the secessionists’ efforts. External
diplomatic pressure in the form of armed support, intervention by international
organizations, or bilateral acknowledgements of sovereignty may play a significant role
in reducing a central government’s resistance to a loss of territory. These maneuvers by
international actors can leave the central government isolated past the point of
diplomatic discomfort as the socio-political cost of secession shifts from separatists to
the existing country, as the plight of separatists gains traction in international circles.
VIII. Discussion
The data collected and analyzed here introduces a crucial evolution in the
conceptualization of modes of engagement as research for this project progressed.
Initially, the results were projected to fall into a matrix-like pattern, where independent

32. 31
and dependent variables would align in a manner that could be easily charted, in a table
something like this:
Independence Incorporation Irrenconciliation
Active engagement Eritrea Northern Ireland,
Basque Country
Republic of Kosovo,
Republic of Crimea,
Kurdistan (Iraq)
Imposed
engagement
South Sudan, East
Timor
Martial engagement Republic of Biafra Kurdistan (Turkish)
In reality, analysis of these nine cases has presented interaction between secessionist
movements and central governments as far less static in terms of approach, with modes
of engagement altering fluidly along a spectrum, rather than fitting into easily
triangulated policy positions. In multiple cases the modes of engagement changed over
time, occasionally resulting in actors in the conflicts switching back and forth until a
satisfactory mode was chosen to bring the conflict to a satisfactory conclusion. That
series of policy shifts results in a spectrum of engagement that looks more like this:
Eritrea Biafra
Active-----------Imposed-----------------------------------------------------------Martial
South Sudan Kurdistan (Turkish)
Even without all cases present, the realities of engagement between secessionist
movements and central governments being less concrete and more complex than
initially hypothesized is unsurprising. It is however a critical reminder that academic
models may serve as poor predictors of real-world policy, or that researchers must
conceptualize world events as more than linear notches on a continuous timeline.

33. 32
Finally, this study inspires questions regarding the inherent utility of secession as a
tool of self-determination. Is a secession that results in political sovereignty “good”? If
so, for whom – the secessionists, the central government, or both? In the independence
grouping, East Timor has enjoyed relative peace since gaining sovereignty – but only
after a tense period of violence following its referendum. Eritrea and South Sudan both
returned to conflict soon after declaring their sovereignty – Eritrea with Ethiopia27, and
South Sudan with itself28. These two nations also reside in a dangerous geographic
neighborhood, where they must now face conflict spillovers from Central Africa or the
Gulf region without the guaranteed support and protections of their former central
governments. In the incorporation group, devolved governance in Northern Ireland and
the Basque region frees central governments of many administrative burdens while
provinces enjoy a measure of insulation from the greater economic and political
upheavals of the greater state. Finally, in the cases of the irreconciliation grouping, a
‘successful’ secession would be a win for Kosovo and the post-Soviet eastern bloc while
Crimea’s “success’ would achieve the very opposite, confirming that imperialist acts are
still to be the possible fate of small, strategic provinces. The cases within the final
grouping also invite the question of the limits of self-determination: should the Kurdish
diaspora, for example, be allowed to take pieces of all the Middle Eastern nations they
currently occupy, or should one of the four states cede territory to them? How would
that single state be chosen, and how could international actors prevent that unlucky
state from taking the loss of territory as a slight, sowing seeds for a later conflict? While
27 ‘Eritrea broke law in border war”. BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4548754.stm
28 Martell, Peter. “50,000” dying and not counting: South Sudan’s War Dead”. Agence France-Presse.
http://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/50000-and-not-counting-south-sudans-war-dead.

34. 33
the international sphere has supposedly formed a consensus on human rights, the limits
of those rights are often whatever requires the actor in question to sacrifice as little as
possible.
IX. Predictions
How may policymakers apply these results to other current secessionist movements – for
example, the cases of Scotland and Catalonia? Using this study’s classifications, both would be
classified as objects of active engagement, with conflicts that are currently not reconciled. In our
(simplistic) table, they would be here:
Independence Incorporation Irrenconciliation
Active engagement Eritrea Republic of Kosovo,
Republic of Crimea,
Kurdistan (Iraq),
Catalonia, Scotland
Imposed “ South Sudan, East
Timor
Martial “ Republic of Biafra Kurdistan (Turkish)
Neither would move much along the spectrum, as neither region’s central government has
altered its approach of active engagement very drastically since the mid-twentieth century (the
scope of this research). This leaves us to evaluate alternative factors to form a better predictive
picture. The Catalonia case, as the richest region of Spain, has a better chance of economically
sustaining itself, but at present it is highly unlikely to conclude in ‘successful secession’ due to
the Biafra example – a small yet vocal minority in possession of wealth-generating territories will
find themselves overwhelmed by a central government not inclined to lose revenue and tax
bases to ideals of self-determination. Scotland, while not as wealthy, would be a similarly
impossible loss to conceptualize.
And yet the United Kingdom especially must conceptualize this possibility if it is to make
a clear-eyed decision about its role in Europe. Chafing under the strictures of Continental

35. 34
supranationalist organizations, the U.K. will hold its own referendum29
this June to decide
whether or not to remain within the European Union. Those in the “In” camp bemoan the very
real isolation and loss of standing in the region were this to go through, while the “Out” camp
yearns for a Great Britain that is free to act on its own, as in the imperial days of old. What the
“Out” group must also keep in mind is just what version of Great Britain would move forward into
that independent future. Scotland built up enough momentum in recent years to hold a vote on
staying united to England any longer, and one of its core complaints was English
Euroskepticism. Should the U.K. leave the E.U., the U.K. may lost Scotland. Vocal minorities
become much louder, and stronger, with the support of a multicultural continent cheering them
along.
29 EU Referendum, The Guardian coverage. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum

36. 35
X. Bibliography
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Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law. Vol 24:51 2013
Hannum, Hurst. “Self-determination, Yugoslavia, and Europe: Old Wine in New Bottles?”. Transnational
Law and Contemporary Problems [Vol 3:57 Spring 1993].
Hannum, Hurst, “Spectre of Secessionism”. Foreign Affairs Vol 77 No. 2 March/April 1998.
Heraclides, Alexis. The Self-Determination of Minorities in International Politics Ch 4 International
Involvement in Secessionist Movements p 46
Hoppe, Hans-Herman. “Nationalism and Secession”. Chronicles, November 1993. p 24.
http://www.hanshoppe.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/nationalism_chronicles.pdf
Keating, Michael. “Asymmetrical Government: Multinational States in an Integrated Europe”. The Journal
of Federalism 29:1 (Winter 1999).
Martell, Peter. “50,000” dying and not counting: South Sudan’s War Dead”. Agence France-Presse.
http://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/50000-and-not-counting-south-sudans-war-dead.
Mughal, Muhammad Aurang Zeb. 2012. Spain. Steven L. Denver (ed.), Native Peoples of the World: An
Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures, and Contemporary Issues, Vol. 3. Armonk, NY: M .E. Sharpe, pp.
674–675
Taylor, Karina. “Kobane and the Realities of Modern Victory”. Seton Hall Journal of Diplomacy blog.
http://blogs.shu.edu/diplomacy/2015/02/kobane-and-the-realities-of-modern-victory/
Soyinka, Wole. “Biafra Revisted”, BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008kc4b
Webb, Matthew J. Kashmir’s Right to Secede: A Critical Examination of Contemporary Theories of
Secession
BBC World News profiles and timelines