The Fragmentation of Geopolitical Space

Editor’s Note: Today's special feature lays the foundations for our week-long look at how separatist and secessionist movements may be impacting upon regional and global security dynamics, both now and in the future. Indeed, as a counter to last week’s state-centric meditation on grand strategy, we present today excerpts from Simone Florio's "The Fragmentation of Geopolitical Space: What Secessionist Movements Mean to the Present-day State System." The article not only charts the growing clamor for political secession since the end of the Cold War, it also explores its deeper implications for international security. In doing so, it then sets the stage for a follow-on series of case studies on secessionist movements in Europe, China and the wider Middle East.

The last century witnessed an extraordinary multiplication of sovereign states. Epochal changes such as the dissolution of 20th century empires, the decolonization process, and the end of the Cold War determined the division of the world landscape into nearly two hundred separate polities. But the trend to geopolitical fragmentation still has momentum: partially recognized and de facto states constitute a big challenge for international order, while a conspicuous number of active secessionist projects continue to threaten the territorial integrity of many countries. This article reviews the complex questions that the trend to geopolitical fragmentation is posing to global society, reviewing a number of normative secession theories and evidencing in them a more hospitable approach to new state formation. Given the current regime of sovereign states, framing a global approach to the problems posed by separatist groups seems almost inconceivable; for the time being, it seems likely instead that the international community will continue accepting new states on a case-by-case basis, often in response to Great Power interests or non-negotiable nationalist projects, without advancing international law on state creation or global standards of statehood as a whole. This article provides support for the claim that adopting a global perspective and more functional attitudes towards geopolitical restructuring are paramount for effectively dealing with violence deriving from the clash of nationalist separatist drives and state-centric conservatism.

The Fragmentation of Geopolitical Space: What Secessionist Movements Mean to the Present-Day State System

Throughout the last century, the society of sovereign nations has grown steadily, giving rise – for distinct reasons and under different modalities – to our present-day international structure comprised of almost 200 sovereign states, the primary geopolitical units of the world system. Epochal changes in the international order, such as the disintegration of European empires in the early 20th century, the decolonization process, and lastly the end of the Cold War, brought about an extraordinary proliferation of independent states: during the past twenty years, full independence was accorded – through United Nations membership – to twenty-five former sub-state entities. Although such major geopolitical reconfiguration undoubtedly followed events of an exceptional nature, these events have severely destabilized the idea (dominant in the second half of last century) that international borders should not – or could not – be modified to create new states. As is widely acknowledged, this is nowadays achieved mainly by way of secession, intended as the process by which a political community seeks to detach part of an existing state in order to establish a separate sovereign entity.

The tendency to fragmentation becomes relevant most notably: a) when effective control is established on part of a sovereign state on behalf of a secessionist community, with the aim of fostering international recognition of the new polity; and b) when separatist politics – with differing degrees of legitimacy and success – are pursued within the territory of a sovereign state in order to achieve political goals, including the chance of seceding from the state. (1) To the first category belong those independent territorial entities – so-called de facto states (2) — which rely on the ‘principle of effectiveness’ to support their claim to sovereign statehood. (3) Especially when patronized (more or less officially) by external actors – and especially by Great Powers (4) –de facto states pose a dramatic challenge to the international system, since they operate in a grey area of international relations and international law. To the second category belong a great variety of territorially organized sub-state entities (federal/confederal entities, autonomous regions, etc.) and non-state actors (stateless nations, indigenous peoples, national and ethnic minorities) which – in different capacities and on various grounds – actively seek to increase their sovereign powers to possibly attain title over the territory they occupy, most commonly by appealing to the right of self-determination.

While it seems inappropriate to establish a causal relation between secessionism/separatism and armed conflict or the outbreak of ethnic violence, external page(5)call_made as of 2009 secessionism and separatism considered together constitute the second most frequent source of conflict. (6) In plenty of cases secessionism is connected to practices of both terror and terrorism, respectively, on behalf of states –whose institutions tend to dispose of disproportionate military means to crush insurgents – and non-state groups –whose unscrupulous leaders may resort to terrorism as an opportunistic strategy to escalate and internationalize conflicts. (7) Furthermore, since the creation and maintenance of states is always cemented through specific nation-building policies, secessionist/separatist conflicts often arise along dangerous ethno-nationalist fault lines and perpetuate ethno-political confrontation. Finally, the salience of the trend to fragmentation is confirmed not merely by the progressive enlargement of the society of states, but rather by the fact that – in spite of such enlargement – the number of secessionist movements has at the same time remained practically constant. external page(8)call_made These indications suggest that separatism – and secessionist politics in particular – is one of the most serious challenges to both state institutions and the international order as a whole: in fact, secessionist projects are pursued worldwide, under both democratic and non-democratic regimes, by both violent and non-violent means.

Notwithstanding the apparent contradiction, the sustained tendency toward smaller geopolitical units in our age of growing interdependence will arguably continue to be a crucial feature marking the passage from the ‘international’ order to an incipient ‘global’ order. In this sense, the threats and the opportunities of fragmentation are not to be underestimated, inasmuch as the underlying claims are not to be neglected. external page(9)call_made As a matter of fact, in recent times the topic of secession has gained considerable attention and there have been several attempts at developing comprehensive frameworks to address it in global perspective. (10) It goes without saying that this task is extraordinarily complex and multifaceted, yet it remains of the greatest importance. For obvious reasons, statesmen, the society of states, international legal scholarship and intergovernmental organizations have in general showed bitter hostility to separatist groups. However, the post-Cold War international environment has proved far less unified in its opposition to geopolitical fragmentation, absent the fundamental ideological constraint provided by bi-polar thinking. external page(11)call_made Whether such a constraint can be replaced by new bi-polar ideological winds – such as the war against terrorism – is at least debatable. In any case, an increasing disposition is evident to consider secession – in theory and practice – in a way which was previously unknown, providing more space for critical positions with respect to basic features of the international order such as self-determination, state sovereignty and territorial integrity. Even so, the international divide over recognition of new sovereign entities and their status in international law remains unchanged; (12) the need for shared vision and acceptable norms governing the processes of state creation and dissolution thus deserves the greatest attention and efforts from the international community as a whole.

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The discussion is articulated in three sections: the first examines the changing features of the inter-state order throughout the last century, pointing to a number of questions arising from the processes of state creation throughout this period. The second section supports the idea that the international attitude towards secession – as exemplified in normative theory– has undergone fundamental changes in recent years, eventually paving the way for more favorable positions on secession. The third section broadly addresses the threats and the opportunities which geopolitical fragmentation – that is, greater tolerance at a global level of state creation via secession– will present to the global community, supporting procedural/functional approaches to secession as a necessary step towards a more just and representative international system.

The full article is available external pageherecall_made.

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If it [is] correct to link the increasing acceptance of secession to the historical trend of state multiplication, it appears likely that in the years to come the inter-state community will eventually accept the emergence of new sovereign entities which are now part of recognized states. The issue of secession is thus seems likely to continue to play a crucial role in the international realm, with all the difficulties deriving from its complex interaction with key legal, political, ethical and identity issues. Despite commitment to the continuity of the existing geopolitical order, the reality of a dynamic system of international relations suggests that change is the rule, rather than the exception. As was argued above, the conservative attitude of international actors is usually defended by appealing to arguments about the preservation of peace; nonetheless, artificially maintaining the status quo often requires violent over-reactions on behalf of state institutions vis-à-vis separatist groups.

Drawing on these premises, if geopolitical reconfigurations can bring about more peaceful, representative and functional entities, the historical opposition to secession and border-redrawing processes may in the future be regarded as an old-fashioned perspective in international relations. The increasing acceptance of secession in normative and procedural theories of political decentralization apparently points in this direction. In this article, an effort has thus been made to avoid both over-conservative continuity and unregulated change in global geopolitics. Minimal realism suggests that in the present state-centric world order, secession will continue to attract the favor of discontented groups, since political loyalties –and ethno-political identities – change over time and boundaries tend to follow. Ideally, international agreements should be implemented to prevent a single national project from prevailing in the bosom of a multinational state, possibly moving in the direction of de-nationalized states working as functional units in a cosmopolitan system. At the global level, it is likely that the interests of Great Powers will further complicate already complex challenges to the international order, as was evident in the disagreement between the US and Russia over recognition of Serbian and Georgian breakaway territories.

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The trend toward geopolitical fragmentation seems also connected to rising democratization and popular representation on the global stage. One challenge of the 21st century will be to develop a global administrative framework in which the rationale for the redrawing of borders and state creation is more clearly outlined. This will necessarily imply a redefinition of the basic features of states as primary geopolitical units. If states are to maintain as their prerogative the monopoly on the internal use of force, a strong international pledge to make them accountable for violations of basic human rights – particularly with respect to the human and environmental security of groups – is of fundamental importance. While it is clear that no theory, no matters how comprehensive, can claim absolute validity in addressing such issues, it is probably time to start to frame a systemic approach that aims at reducing both violent attempts at separatism and violent central reactions. This would seem to require the creation in the future of a new adjudicative body – and new global instruments to give it effect – as a recourse against unlawful acts by both states and mobilized groups. A guiding principle towards a procedural perspective on secession could be based on setting reciprocal patterns of checks and balances on exclusive areas of sovereignty; this would accordingly impose on states, sub-units and supranational organizations the duty and responsibility to negotiate their respective influence on each other without resorting to military coercion. In this way, distinct local communities would be allowed to freely determine their status – in accordance with the principle of self-determination – but at the same time would not be allowed to pursue their self-interest by discrediting other groups. In the still unfolding global order, the principle of interdependence will likely carry much more meaning than that of independence. Such interdependence should also lead to the progressive elimination of unjust and asymmetrical relations between and within states.

(1) Separatism is theoretically wider than secessionism, secession being a form of separatism. Nonetheless, separatist politics, as a way to gain more autonomy within the borders of an established state, may contain elements of secessionism, or may develop into a secessionist project afterwards. On the other hand, a secessionist project may be eventually accommodated through autonomy when there might be not enough power to achieve secession. Throughout this article I make indistinct reference to secessionism and separatism to acknowledge their theoretical contiguity. Cf. Mancini (2008, p. 566): “Secession is the definitive, but certainly not the only, step toward political separation...”.

(2) For a starting point on the subject see Bahcheli, Tozun, et al. (2004); different definitions which describe roughly the same phenomenon were provided by Kingston and Spears ('states-within-states', 2004) and Geldenhuys ('Contested States', 2009).

(3) Effectiveness refers to the capacity of the government to enforce the rule of law. Arguably, de facto states may also count on the principle of prescription to support their claim to sovereignty. See Castellino (2008), p. 516.

(4) Coggins argued that since statehood is relational rather than substantive, recognition from Great Powers is most likely to attract further international recognition and thus is alone capable of evolving a secessionist situation into jointly claimed statehood: “Recognition by other States then, rather than (and sometimes in spite of) simple de facto control and authority, is an important initial distinction between States and non-State ‘others’ in the international system”… “The Great Powers act as the gatekeepers of Statehood. Their decisions play a decisive role in recognition and, consequently, in defining ‘Statehood’s’ meaning for its aspirants”. Coggins (2006, p. 10 and 13).

(6) Data extrapolated from the Conflict Barometer 2009 (Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research).

(7) According to Galtung (2008, p. 202-203) the intensification of state terror and terrorism marks the transition from a modern to a post-modern type of warfare, whereas conventional confrontation between professional armies gives way to greater involvement of civilians for purposes of political violence.

(10) For a general treatment of secession theories, see Pavković with Radan (2007, Chaps. VI- VII-VIII); and infra Par. 2.

(12) The nature of recognition – constitutive or declaratory – is quite contested in international law and politics, being an apparently eminent case oftertium non datur. The theory of Great Powers' attraction (supra, note 4), the theory of legitimacy in international relations ( infra, note 34) and recent practice of new state recognition (infra, note... ) seem to indicate a revival of the constitutive theory. For an alternative perspective see Schoiswohl (2004).