Secession and the sovereignty game : strategy and tactics for aspiring nations /

Tensions between the norms associated with sovereignty, including territorial inviolability, and liberalism, particularly national self-determination, define the current international system. Sovereignty privileges the state and liberalism the individual. Griffiths (Syracuse Univ.) lays out the strategic landscape for secessionist movements, defined by the international "[state] recognition regime." Such movements aspire to convince their governing states--and the international system--to recognize their independence. Governing states and the international system are "rigged" to prefer territorial stability. Tactics aimed at compelling a governing state to remove its veto and making a normative appeal for self-determination to the international community change depending on the structures of power and interest in which the movement is embedded. Griffiths delineates six scenarios governing this tactical terrain: democratized and indigenous legal movements, weak and strong combative movements, and decolonial and de facto state movements. Each situation calls for different tactics, ranging from violence to nonviolent action and electoral appeal. This is by far the clearest iteration of these themes for Griffiths, who has been publishing in this area since 2014. Practitioners and scholars alike will appreciate this work, which is well connected to the work in IR theory. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, researchers, and practitioners. --Sean P. Duffy, Quinnipiac University