Political scientists

Political scientists

Jeremy Reed
Senior Seminar
March 19, 1998

One of the most daunting tasks facing political scientists and students of international relations today is the effort to develop clearly defined parameters of when a group of people has the right to self-determination.   With the global rise of ethnic and nationalist conflict precipitated by the fall of the Soviet Union and the resultant end of the bipolar international system, groups such as the Kurds in the Middle East are staking claims to sovereignty and self-rule.   These clams for greater self-government, whether they be for autonomy, consociasionalism, or total sovereignty, are challenging an international system that must determine how to acknowledge the individual rights and freedoms of the world’s people, while at the same time maintaining some semblance of order and stability.   In the essay that follows, I intend to examine the concept of secession in the hopes of coming to a better understanding of when and what kind of self-determination a people such as the Kurds should or should not be able to exercise.
Before beginning a discussion of why and to what extent a gruop may secede, it is vital that I offer a few definitions of some of the terms mentioned in the previous paragraph.   Secession is the process of formal withdrawl from an alliance, federation, or political association (Lapidoth p168).   When a group secedes from a nation they are asserting their independence or striving to exercise sovereign control over their own political, economic, and cultural affairs.   The end result of secession is sovereignty over, or complete control within, the borders of an internationally recognized state.   Sovereignty has both an internal dimension (absolute control of internal affairs, jurisdiction over its citizens, and the ability to make and exercise foreign policy programs) and an external dimension (recongnized internationally to be independent from the control of outside infuences) (Lapidoth p169).   Beyond...