Nonstate Order, Power, and Legitimacy: The Survival and Disappearance of De Facto States
The nation-state remains the dominant political unit in the post-WWII system. However, in a post-1945 environment so adverse to nonstate territorial units, we observe the existence of a few de facto states – polities, like Abkhazia (Georgia) or Northern Cyprus (Cyprus), that display many statelike accoutrements except for international legal sovereignty. Some de facto states survive for a long period of time while others are forcefully or peacefully reintegrated into their parent states, or make the transition to full-fledged statehood. What explains the variation in de facto state trajectories?
This is the main question underlying my first book project. To answer it, I construct an original dataset with all de facto states in the 1945-2016 period, and look at three cases: Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka) - a de facto state that was forcefully reintegrated into the parent state in 2009; Gagauzia (Moldova) - a de facto state that was peacefully reintegrated into the parent state in 1995; and, South Sudan - a de facto state that “graduated” to statehood in 2011. The quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that the survival and disappearance of de facto states are driven by the extent of military assistance received from outside actors, their degree of state-building, the level of fragmentation of the rebel movement, and the presence of veto players in the parent state.
The findings have relevance for the literature on separatism, civil war, rebel governance, state making, and state failure.
This is the main question underlying my first book project. To answer it, I construct an original dataset with all de facto states in the 1945-2016 period, and look at three cases: Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka) - a de facto state that was forcefully reintegrated into the parent state in 2009; Gagauzia (Moldova) - a de facto state that was peacefully reintegrated into the parent state in 1995; and, South Sudan - a de facto state that “graduated” to statehood in 2011. The quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that the survival and disappearance of de facto states are driven by the extent of military assistance received from outside actors, their degree of state-building, the level of fragmentation of the rebel movement, and the presence of veto players in the parent state.
The findings have relevance for the literature on separatism, civil war, rebel governance, state making, and state failure.
