A Liberal Theory of Secession
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1984.tb00163.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1984 |
| Author | Harry Beran |
| Date | 01 March 1984 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
PoliticalStudies
(1984),
XXXII,
21-31
A
Liberal Theory
of
Secession*
HARRY BERAN
University
of
Wollongong
Separatism is a major contemporary socio-political problem and
a
basic but
neglected problem of political philosophy.
An
attempt is made here to rescue the
topic of secession from philosophical neglect and to demonstrate its theoretical
importance by developing a liberal normative theory
of
secession. The claim is made
that liberalism requires that secession be permitted if it is effectively desired by a
territorially concentrated group and is morally and practically possible. This, it is
argued, is required by the value liberalism places
on
freedom, by a liberal theory of
popular sovereignty and by a presupposition of legitimate majority rule. The
argument is put that the permissive principle
of
secession asserted
is
neither
theoretically
nor
practically unacceptable and some
of
the conditions which may
make secession impossible are specified.
I
Secession is a forgotten problem of political philosophy. By secession
I
mean
the withdrawal, from an existing state and its central government,
of
part of
this state, the withdrawing part consisting of citizens and the territory they
occupy. The seceding part lays no claim to the legal identity
of
the existing
state and usually is the smaller part of it. If the part of the state which
challenges its unity includes the central government and lays claim to the legal
identity
of
the existing state, we have a case
of
expulsion rather than secession.
It would not be worth noting that secession is
a
neglected philosophical
problem, if hardly any separatist movements existed at present and secession
were theoretically unimportant. In fact separatism is one of the major socio-
political problems in the contemporary world. Katanga, Biafra, Bangladesh,
Eritrea, Sudan and Northern Ireland are only the tragically prominent instances
of a worldwide phenomenon. Almost daily the media report on some
separatist struggles around the world: be it those of the Quebeckers,
Croatians, Scots and Welsh, Corsicans and Bretons, the Basques
of
Spain and
France, the Somalis
of
Kenya and Ethiopia, the Kurds
of
Iran, Iraq, Turkey
and Syria, or the Nagas and Mizos of India. Not mentioned are the former
colonies which have gained independence in the last decades, since
I
wish to
draw attention to a political problem of which decolonization is only a
particular and in some ways peripheral form. The theoretically most
*
I
am grateful to John Charvet, Brenda Cohen,
H.
J. McCloskey, Neil MacCormick, Hong
Kong, Frances Snare, Chin Liew Ten, to Jack Lively as editor, and to colleagues at the Universities
of
Kent at Canterbury, St. Andrews, Sydney and Wollongong for helpful comments
on
earlier
versions of this paper.
0032-3217/84/01/0021-11/$03.00
CI
1984
PoliticulStudies
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