Browsing by Subject "Secession"
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Item The aberration of Eritrean secession, 1961-1993(2011-05) Thomas, Charles Girard; Falola, Toyin; Vaughn, James M.Despite its reputation for instability and weak states, the continent of Africa has seen very few attempts at secession. The 1960s saw the early attempts of Katanga and Biafra to split away from their host states, only for these attempts to be crushed in short order. Since then there have only been a handful of notable attempts at secession: the early attempts by the Southern Sudan to split from the North, the secessionist desires of Cabinda to separate from Angola, the Casamance separatists of Senegal, and finally the long and still unrecognized separation of Somaliland from the failed state of Somalia. What is notable is that none of these have borne permanent fruit despite the persistence of the separatist fronts (although the Southern Sudan may now finally be embarking on its own separate existence). In each case, from Katanga to Somaliland, the theoretical state has encountered resistance on the national, regional, and global scale to their existence and have never yet been recognized. However, despite these setbacks, there currently has been one successful secession in Africa: that of Eritrea. Eritrea faced the same political and military difficulties that all other secession attempts have faced in Africa. Their host state of Ethiopia was perhaps the most revered on the continent and throughout the thirty year conflict had the international support of alternatively the United States and the USSR. The Organization of African Unity and its members remained unrelentingly in favor of territorial integrity for all African States. The Eritreans could not even gain regional recognition for their struggle. Despite all of this, they prevailed in their thirty-year struggle for independence. Critical to their success were four interwoven factors that allowed them to overcome those barriers that had stopped their secessionist predecessors: the anomalous history of Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Eritreans' practice of the theories of protracted war, the simultaneous social revolution the Eritreans carried out, and finally the Eritreans' pragmatic relations with their surrounding dissident groups. This work argues that these four central factors were the keys to Eritrea's aberrant and so far unique victory in their struggle for secession.Item Explaining ethnopolitical mobilization : ethnic incorporation and mobilization patterns in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Turkey, and beyond(2014-05) Alptekin, Huseyin; Madrid, Raúl L.Why do some ethnic groups mobilize in violent ways whereas some others mobilize by using peaceful methods? And why do some ethnic groups seek integration while some others pursue separatist goals? This dissertation proposes a theoretical framework to answer these questions. It suggests that a state’s ethnic incorporation policies shape both why (centripetal or centrifugal aims) and how (peaceful or violent methods) ethnic groups mobilize. It argues that (1) consocitionalism recognizes ethnic groups and grants a degree of political autonomy to them, yet limits individuals’ political participation via non-ethnic channels of political participation; and, therefore, it leads to peaceful and moderately centrifugal ethnic mobilizations; (2) liberal multiculturalism recognizes ethnic groups, grants a degree of political autonomy to them, and allows individuals to participate in politics via non-ethnic channels; and, therefore, it leads to peaceful and moderately centripetal mobilizations; (3) civic assimilationism neither recognizes ethnic groups nor grants a degree of political autonomy to them, yet allows individuals to participate in politics via non-ethnic channels; and therefore it leads to peaceful and centripetal mobilizations of groups which lack pre-existing ethnic mobilization; but it leads to moderately violent and centrifugal mobilizations of groups which have strong pre-existing ethnic mobilizations; and (4) ethnocracies neither recognize ethnic groups nor grant a degree of political autonomy to them, and they also limit individuals’ political participation via non-ethnic channels. Therefore, they lead to centrifugal and violent ethnic mobilizations. The dissertation uses a mixed method research design. The hypotheses are tested based on the Minorities at Risk data as well as the case studies of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria and Cyprus, and Kurds and the Roma in Turkey. The case studies benefit from an extensive field research in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Turkey using original interviews with former and current guerillas, guerilla families, political activists, and politicians from each ethnic group under scrutiny and archival research on newspapers and legal documents. The findings indicate that politics of ethnic accommodation are not only an explanation for the causes of different ethnic mobilization patterns, but also a feasible remedy for ethnic disputes spanning all over the world.Item "She is waiting" : political allegory and the specter of secession in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a yellow sun(2012-05) Coffey, Meredith Armstrong; Harlow, Barbara, 1948-Though the Nigerian-Biafran War has been the subject of numerous literary and other artistic representations in the four decades since its conclusion, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2006 novel Half of a Yellow Sun has recently received tremendous international attention for its treatment of the 1967-1970 conflict. Contrary to the assertions of many critics, the novel’s complex representation of the war functions as much more than a setting for a series of family dramas at the foreground. Providing a counterargument to such readings, which emphasize the personal over the political in Half of a Yellow Sun, this paper will propose and trace a political allegory legible within the characters’ personal relationships and historical circumstances. Specifically, I will argue that the relationship between two protagonists, the twins Olanna and Kainene, aligns with the relationship between (Northern) Nigeria and the Eastern Nigeria, known as Biafra between 1967 and 1970, during its attempt to secede. In the way that Kainene grows emotionally distant from Olanna, eventually stops speaking to her, and suddenly disappears, so Eastern Nigeria increasingly clashed with Northern Nigeria during the early 1960s, seceded as the Republic of Biafra in 1967, and eventually “disappeared” at the end of the war in 1970, as it was absorbed back into Nigeria. Rather than indicating a sense of finality, however, Adichie’s text refuses closure in ways that ultimately suggest an alternative both to the notion that the novel has an apolitical, purely tragic ending, and to dominant narratives about the Biafran secession’s “inevitable” failure. This reading thus intervenes in critical conversations about Half of a Yellow Sun, the Biafran state, and secession and self-determination throughout Africa. If Kainene’s disappearance does not only testify to the tragedies of war, and if her character allegorically corresponds to Biafra, then what political possibilities might her disappearance allow? Does Biafra—and in turn, the possibility of secession—remain at large too? Far from the prevalent scholarly and political rhetoric that relegates Biafra to a narrow three-year time frame, Adichie’s novel conceives of a Biafran existence beyond the pages of some finalized history.