Description: Produces a clear and original edited volume on the strategies of secession and counter-secession.
Brief description: Ryan Griffiths is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He has held previous posts at the University of Sydney, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (IBEI). He completed his PhD at Columbia University in 2010. His research focuses on sovereignty, international order, and the dynamics of secession. He is the author of Age of Secession: The International and Domestic Determinants of State Birth (Cambridge University Press, 2016). He has published articles in various journals including International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and Security Studies.
Review Quotes: One of the tensions at the heart of international law is that between the norms of sovereignty and self-determination. Griffiths (Syracuse Univ.) and Muro (Univ. of St. Andrews, UK) have assembled a collection that explores "what leads to success when a territory or people attempts to secede and what accounts for the very low probability of success." The essays examine dynamics between states in the international realm and between governments and their people. Electoral strategies, universal declarations, protest movements, demonstrations, and violent uprisings are looked at both theoretically and in the context of specific case studies, as movements appeal to popular, governmental, and international actors for recognition. States, for their part, play a game of blocking in both domestic and international realms. In the end success is extremely rare and seems to honor no general formulas. Cases examined range both temporally and geographically: Europe (Flanders, Scotland, Catalonia, Kosovo), North America (Québec), Asia (Bangladesh, Abkhazia, East Timor, Aceh, and West Papua), and Africa (Somaliland) all factor in comparative analysis. Relevant for theorists and empiricists, this volume prepares the ground for future work. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.-- "Choice Reviews"