Voting under the Threat of Secession: Accommodation vs. Repression

We build a model of secession crises where voters may wish to accommodate the minority to prevent secession. We show the existence of a majority voting equilibrium with a government’s type biased in favor of the minority. We propose a measure of secession risk and perform the comparative static analysis of the equilibrium policy location and of the secession risk with respect to the cultural distinctiveness of the two regions, the relative weight attached by voters to economic factors, the relative size of the minority region, the probability that a secession attempt is successful, and the intra-regional heterogeneity of preferences.majority voting, secession risk, cultural distinctiveness, conflict, overlapping regional preferences

Voting under the threat of secession: accommodation vs. repression

We build a simple model of secession crises where a majority of voters may wish to accommodate the minority in order to prevent a secession attempt. We first show the existence of a majority voting equilibrium, where the median voter is decisive and most prefers a government’s type that is biased in favor of the minority. We then propose a measure of the secession risk at equilibrium and perform the comparative static analysis of the equilibrium policy location and of the secession risk with respect to several parameters: the cultural distinctiveness of the two regions, the relative weight attached by voters to economic (centripetal) -as opposed to (centrifugal) ideological- factors, the relative size of the minority region, the (exogenous) probability that a secession attempt is successful, and the intra-regional heterogeneity of preferences.Majority voting, secession risk, cultural distinctiveness, conflict, overlapping regional preferences

Optimal secession rules

Should the constitution of a federation allow for peaceful secession? Constitutionally defined secession rules are optimal ex post if the federation breaks down. However, they may be suboptimal ex ante if the member countries receive a benefit from the perceived long-term stability of the federation and constitutionally defined secession rules increase the probability of a break-up. The optimal social contract trades off ex ante benefits and ex post losses, and it may avoid explicit secession rules. If transfers are costly, the trade off is present even if ex post renegotiation is allowed. Finally, we show that under asymmetric information it is more difficult to keep the federation together and that a secession war may occur. --

National Identity and the Preference for State Opting-Out in the Basque Country

We argue that preferences for secession are the expression of common unobserved factors determining national identity, and accordingly that identity matters. This paper examines the hypothesis of support for secession (independent Euskadi) and Basque national identity as being dependent in the light of a reformulation of Akerloff and Kranton (2000). We examine observed economic determinants of individuals national identity (and their perceived imagined community or nation) formation as well as those that influence the propensity of individuals to support the secession.. We undertake econometric survey analysis for the Basque Country using a bivariate probit model and publicly available data from the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research. Our results suggest evidence of a common determination of national identity and political preferences for the secession of the Basque Country consistently with Akerloff and Kranton model.basque country, secession, national identity, imagined community

Recognizing Kosovo’s independence: Remedial secession or earned sovereignty?

This paper examines the main justifications for recognising Kosovo’s ndependence: ‘remedial secession’ and ‘earned sovereignty’. Our paper begins by examining the applicability of the doctrine of remedial secession to Kosovo, the justifications for which can be seen clearly in the decade from 1989 to 1999. However, we argue that the doctrine of remedial secession was insufficiently ripe, in political and legal terms, to be used in 1999 to support Kosovo’s independence. An opposing approach is that of ‘earned sovereignty’ which aims to provide for the managed devolution of sovereign authority and functions from a state to a sub-state entity, resulting either in independence or rehabilitated autonomy within the host state. Based on the case of Kosovo, we propose an alternative explanation to this observed path towards recognisable’ statehood: ‘remedial sovereignty’ whereby a people realise statehood by invoking remedial secession and undergoing a transitional period of mediated international administration, characterized by elements of sovereignty which are externally designed and internally earned. Therefore, we propose ‘remedial sovereignty’ as a useful paradigm to provide the international community with a framework to confer statehood on those peoples for whom there is no other choice, thereby resolving the ‘recognition dilemma’ experienced in the aftermath of the Kosovo’s declaration of independence

Secessionism and Minority Protection in an Uncertain World

With the changing economic circumstances confronting their countries, regionally concentrated minorities have been facing a strategic problem, important aspects of which can be stylized as a situation in which a minority leader is uncertain about the costs of secession for her community. This paper shows that this uncertainty is a central cause of secession, using a model which incorporates both policies to appease secessionist aspirations and informational asymmetries. In a situation of asymmetric information, in which the policy-maker is better informed about the consequences of separation than the minority leader, signaling incentives make secession the unique equilibrium outcome, whether mutually advantageous compromises exist or not. We also show that the ruling majority may seek to maintain political unity by pre-committing to minority protection rules which prevent bluffing by the informed policy-maker. Additionally, the model generates comparative statics results on the question of which states are most likely to adopt constitutional rules protecting the minorities living within their borders.Constitutional commitment, secession, signaling, regional redistribution

Municipalities secession and uncertainty on public goods provision

This paper investigates the causes of municipalities secession in Brazil. The theoretical modelproposes that the median voter is not fully informed about the efficiency effect of secession on publicgood provision and uses the break up decision undertaken by neighbor’s municipalities within thestate to account for his voting. Our empirical results confirms that prediction

The Art of Making Everybody Happy: How to Prevent a Secession

In this paper we examine compensation schemes that prevent a threat of secession by any of a country's regions. We prove that, under quite general assumptions on the distribution of citizens' preferences, there exist transfer schemes that are secession-proof. Moreover, we show that these compensation schemes entail a degree of partial equalization among regions: the gap between advantaged regions and disadvantaged regions has to be reduced but it should never be completely eliminated. We demonstrate that in the case of a uniform distribution of the nation's citizens, the secession-proof conditions generate the 50 percent compensation rule for disadvantaged regions. Copyright 2003, International Monetary Fund

Stability of Nations and Genetic Diversity

This paper presents a model of nations where culturally heterogeneous agents vote on the optimal level of public spending. Larger nations benefit from increasing returns in the provision of public goods, but bear the costs of greater cultural heterogeneity. This tradeoff induces agents' preferences over different geographical configurations, thus determining the likelihood of secession or unification. We provide empirical support for choosing genetic distances as a proxy of cultural heterogeneity and by using data on genetic distances, we examine the stability of the current map of Europe. We then identify the regions prone to secession and the countries that are more likely to merge. Furthermore, we estimate the welfare gains from European Union membership.nation formation, genetic diversity, cultural heterogeneity, secession, uniï¬cation, European Union

Commentary: California Secessionists Channel Logic of Southern Slaveholders

\u27Thursday night the streets were filled with excited crowds. No one talks of anything but the necessity for prompt action. . . . It is hardly prudent for any man to express his opinion adverse to immediate secession, so heated are the public passions, so intolerant of restraint is the popular will. You would probably assume that this report came from California in the wake of the 2016 election, right? After all, Alex Padilla, the California secretary of state, has now authorized the Yes California Independence Campaign to begin collecting signatures for a state referendum on California\u27s secession from the United States. [excerpt