Self Determination And Collective Responsibility In The Secessionist Struggle

Self-Determination and Collective Responsibility in the Secessionist Struggle

The often violent emergence of new independent states following the end of the Cold War generated discussion about the normative grounds of territorial separatism. A number of opposing approaches surfaced debating whether and under which circumstances there is a right for a community to secede from its host country. Overwhelmingly, these studies placed emphasis on the right to secession and neglected the moral stance of secessionist movements as agents in international relations. In this book Costas Laoutides explores the collective moral agency involved in secessionist struggles offering a theoretical model for the collective responsibility of secessionist groups. Case-studies on the Kurds and the people of Moldova-Transdniestria illustrate the author’s theoretical arguments as he seeks to establish how, although the principle of self-determination was envisaged as a means of gradually bestowing political power upon the people, it never managed to realize its full potential because it was interpreted strictly within a framework of exclusionary politics of identity.

Self-determination and Collective Responsibility in the Secessionist Struggle

The Routledge Handbook of Self-Determination and Secession

The Routledge Handbook of Self-Determination and Secession explores the various debates surrounding the issues of self-determination and secession, and the legal, political, and normative implications they give rise to. Offering a broad survey of the state of the sub-discipline today, the chapters are divided into seven key parts: an Introduction, Self-Determination, Explaining and Justifying Secession, Secession Strategies, Counter-Secession Strategies, International Law and Secession, and Constitutional Law and Secession. The authors, from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, explore all the recent approaches to secession and self-determination based on strategic interaction of major actors in a secession process. This handbook will be of great interest to students and researchers from a variety of disciplines including politics and international relations, security studies, and law.