Self-Determination and Collective Responsibility in the Secessionist Struggle Non-State Actors in Global Governance Series

The often violent emergence of new independent states following the end of the Cold War generated discussion about the normative grounds of territorial separatism. A number of opposing approaches surfaced debating whether and under which circumstances there is a right for a community to secede from its host country. Overwhelmingly, these studies placed emphasis on the right to secession and neglected the moral stance of secessionist movements as agents in international relations. In this book Costas Laoutides explores the collective moral agency involved in secessionist struggles offering a theoretical model for the collective responsibility of secessionist groups. Case-studies on the Kurds and the people of Moldova-Transdniestria illustrate the author?s theoretical arguments as he seeks to establish how, although the principle of self-determination was envisaged as a means of gradually bestowing political power upon the people, it never managed to realize its full potential because it was interpreted strictly within a framework of exclusionary politics of identity.

Introduction; Part I Theory and Practise of Self-Determination and Secession; Chapter 1 The Evolution of Self-Determination in World Politics; Chapter 2 Theorizing Secession in the Post-Cold War Era; Part II Secession as Responsible Emancipation: Processes and Collective Action; Chapter 3 The Process of Secession as Emancipation; Chapter 4 Collective Agency and Collective Responsibility in Secessionist Politics; Part III Collective Responsibility in Real Cases; Chapter 5 The Kurdish Separatist Movement in Turkey and Iraq; Chapter 6 The Moldova-Transdniester Conflict; Conclusion;

Costas Laoutides is a Lecturer in International Relations at Deakin University.