Violent Action against Secession: Security, Redistribution, and Culture

• In Event: Territorial Disputes

Abstract

Why do states sometimes allow secessionist regions to secede without war? Previous researchers emphasized the role of institutions, elites, international actors, and attributes of peripheral groups in predicting violence during secession. This study focuses on public opinion in the core state and elucidates the role of cultural differences and income redistribution in explaining popular support for secession. Subsidies of the central government for the secessionist region that is unlikely to reciprocate antagonize the dominant ethnic group of the country and make its members more willing to part with the region. The more the core state redistributes toward the secessionist region, and the higher the awareness of such redistribution among the population of the state, the higher the popular demand to part with such a region. The isolationist trend among the dominant ethnic group of the country is mediated by the rigidity of the political system and external security threats. I use economic, and survey data to show the evolution of the attitudes of Russians toward secession of Chechnya to provide support for the proposed theory.

Author

• Valery Dzutsati, University of Kansas