Secession

Secession (derived from the Latin term ) is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity (a country), but also any organization, union or military alliance. Threats of secession can also be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.

Theories of secession relate to a fundamental question of political philosophy: the basis of the state's authority.

In his 1991 book Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce From Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec, philosophy professor Allen Buchanan outlined limited rights to secession under certain circumstances, mostly related to oppression by people of other ethnic or racial groups, and especially those previously conquered by other peoples.

In July 1998 the Rutgers University journal "Society" published papers from a "Symposium on Secession and Nationalism at the Millennium" including the articles "The Western State as Paradigm" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "Profit Motives in Secession" by Sabrina P. Ramet, "Rights of Secession" by Daniel Kofman, "The Very Idea of Secession" by Donald Livingston and "Secession, Autonomy, & Modernity" by Edward A. Tiryakian. In 2007 the University of South Carolina sponsored a conference called "Secession As an International Phenomenon" which produced a number of papers on the topic.

Some theories of secession emphasize a general right of secession for any reason ("Choice Theory") while others emphasize that secession should be considered only to rectify grave injustices ("Just Cause Theory"). Some theories do both. A list of justifications may be presented supporting the right to secede, as described by Allen Buchanan, Robert McGee, Anthony Birch,Jane Jacobs, Frances Kendall and Leon Louw,Leopold Kohr,Kirkpatrick Sale, and various authors in David Gordon's "Secession, State and Liberty", includes:

Aleksandar Pavkovic, associate professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Macquarie University in Australia and the author of several books on secession describes five justifications for a general right of secession within liberal political theory:

Secession theorists have described a number of ways in which a political entity (city, county, canton, state) can secede from the larger or original state:

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