CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Mavric, Urska |
|---|---|
| Title | Rethinking the Right to Secession: A Democratic Theory Account |
| Summary | Existing theories of secession take three different paths regarding holders and justifications of the right to secession. The national self-determination theories and the plebiscitary theories both take secession to be a primary right, however identify different groups as holders of the right. According to the national self-determination theories nations are to be allotted the right to secede in virtue of them being a nation and according to plebiscitary theories the holders of the right should be territorially concentrated groups, the majority of members of which vote in favor of secession. On the other hand, the remedial right only theories take the right to secession to be a derivative right upon injustices the state inflicts on specific groups within its boundaries, e.g. gross human rights violations, unjust annexation and violation of intra-state autonomy agreements. All of these theories are faced with more or less damaging objections. While the national self-determination theories and the plebiscitary theories are too permissive and so could lead to limitless fragmentation, strategic bargaining and paralyzing of state functioning, the remedial right theories seem to involve a paradox; though they are designed in a way that would prevent violence, they seem to have a counter effect and promote violence. In addition to this, the former types of theories cannot be seen as good grounds for secession, since they conceive of it as a primary right, which the right to secession cannot be. The latter theories, on closer inspection, turn out to be too narrowly construed, and so only able to address a limited number of cases of justifiable secession. The aim of this dissertation is to develop a new, comprehensive theory of secession, which is able to free itself from the objections raised against the existing theories and can adequately explain how secession is possible considering the claims states have against their people and against other states. It seeks to do so by setting up guidelines for a complete theory by looking into detail into the nature of the right to secession and point out theoretical misconceptions and puzzles of the existing theories. I develop the theory within the framework of democratic theory. The key concept of this dissertation is the concept of legitimate boundaries. I claim that secession is not possible as long as the boundaries of a state are legitimate and vice versa. The state can be said to have legitimate boundaries as long as it has legitimate political authority and I take the best version of it to be democratic authority. Since authority cannot be limitless, I identify the main limits to democratic authority. On my account secession becomes justifiable when the state has lost legitimate authority on both the intrinsic/inherent and instrumental dimension. The notion of legitimate boundaries, in combination with the residual right argument, then explains that even though the state does not have legitimacy of boundaries anymore other states and the state’s population cannot just divide the territory without further ado. However, I identify trumping circumstances that enable certain groups of the failed state to take a part of the territory and create their own state. In addition to developing my own account I also show that secession is not a primary right, since that either entails that the state is seen as a voluntary association, which a state is not and cannot be, or it entails that secession is an instance of self-determination, however even if we can find arguments for understanding self-determination in its external sense, we can only do so in terms of appealing to some injustices thereby rendering it a derivative and not a primary right. |
| Supervisor | Miklosi, Zoltan |
| Department | Philosophy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/mavric_urska.pdf |
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