Contextualizing Secession Normative Studies in Comparative Perspective [Hardcover]

Bringing together a range of specialists in their respective fields, the book provides a combination of original research with fundamental questions about why states stay together, and above all why sometimes they fall apart. When and under what conditions is the separation of one part of a state from another justified? Written in an accessible and informed manner, the authors seek to answer this question on the basis of ten case studies and a general review of the literature and theories of the question.

1. Introduction,Bruno Coppieters
2. A nation Confronting a Secessionist Claim: Italy and the Lega Nord,Michel Huysseune
3. Discussing Autonomy and Independence for Corsica,Gunter Lauwers
4. Self-Determination in Cyprus: Future Options within a European Order,Nathalie Tocci
5. Britain and Iralnd: Towards a Postnationalist Archipelago,Richard Kerney
6. The Right to Self-Determination and Secession in Yugoslavia: a Hornets' Nest of Inconsistencies,Raymond Detrez
7. A Special Status for Tatarstan: Validity of Claims and Limits on Sovereignty,Alexei Zverev
8. Chechnya: A Just War Fought Unjustly?,Richard Sakwa
9. War and Secession: A Moral Analysis of the Georgian-Abkhazian Conflict,Bruno Coppieters
10. Unravelling Dichotomies: Ethnic and Civic understanding of the Nation in Quebec Nationalist Discourse,Ronald Rudin
11. A Unified China or an Independent Taiwan? A Normative Assessment of the Cross-Strait Conflict,Xiaokun Song
12. Conclusion: Just War Theory and the Ethics of Secession,Bruno Coppieters

Bruno Coppieters is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent at Canterbury