Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-qhdkw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-18T10:17:14.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Partition as a Solution to Wars of Nationalism: The Importance of Institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2007

THOMAS CHAPMAN  and
PHILIP G. ROEDER
THOMAS CHAPMAN
Affiliation:
Chapman Sustainable Business and Development
PHILIP G. ROEDER
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Civil war settlements create institutional arrangements that in turn shape postsettlement politics among the parties to the previous conflict. Following civil wars that involve competing nation-state projects, partition is more likely than alternative institutional arrangements—specifically, unitarism, de facto separation, and autonomy arrangements—to preserve the peace and facilitate democratization. A theory of domestic political institutions as a constraint on reescalation of conflict explains this unexpected relationship through four intermediate effects—specifically, the likelihood that each institutional arrangement will reinforce incompatible national identities, focus the pursuit of greed and grievance on a single zero-sum conflict over the allocation of decision rights, empower the parties to the previous conflict with multiple escalatory options, and foster incompatible expectations of victory. The theory's predictions stand up under statistical tests that use four alternative datasets.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 101 , Issue 4 , November 2007 , pp. 677 - 691
Copyright
© 2007 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Benson Michelle, and Jacek Kugler. 1998. “Power Parity, Democracy, and the Severity of Internal Violence.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42 (April): 196– 209.Google Scholar
Byman Daniel L. 1997. “Divided They Stand: Lessons about Partition from Iraq and Lebanon.” Security Studies 7 (Autumn): 1– 29.Google Scholar
Byman Daniel L. 2000. “Forever Enemies? The Manipulation of Ethnic Identities to End Ethnic Wars.” Security Studies 9 (Spring): 149– 90.Google Scholar
Chapman Thomas. 2003. Dividing Partition: A Case for Partition as a Solution to Civil War. Senior honors thesis. La Jolla: University of California, San Diego, Department of Political Science.
Christie Clive J. 1992. “Partition, Separatism, and National Identity: A Reassessment.” Political Quarterly 63 (January–March): 68– 78.Google Scholar
Coakley John. 1992. “The Resolution of Ethnic Conflict: Towards a Typology.” International Political Science Review 13 (October): 343– 58.Google Scholar
Collier David, Henry E. Brady, and Jason Seawright. 2004. “Sources of Leverage in Causal Inference: Toward an Alternative View of Methodology.” In Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, ed. Henry E. Brady and David Collier. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 229– 66.
Collier Paul. 2000. “Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy.” Washington, DC: World Bank.
Connor Walker. 1972. “Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?” World Politics 24 (April): 319– 355.Google Scholar
Cornell Svante E. 2002. “Autonomy as a Source of Conflict: Caucasian Conflict in Theoretical Perspective.” World Politics 54 (January): 245– 276.Google Scholar
Dion Stephanie. 1996. “Why is Secession Difficult in Well-Established Democracies? Lessons from Quebec.” British Journal of Political Science 26 (April): 269– 83.Google Scholar
Downes Alexander. B. 2001. “The Holy Land Divided: Defending Partition as a Solution to Ethnic Wars.” Security Studies 10 (Summer): 58– 116.Google Scholar
Dunlop John. 1997. “Russia: In Search of an Identity?” In New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations, ed. Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras. New York: Cambridge University Press, 29– 95.
Emizet Kisangani N., and Vicki L. Hesli. 1995. “The Disposition to Secede: An Analysis of the Soviet Case.” Comparative Political Studies 27 (January): 493– 536.Google Scholar
Etzioni Amitai. 1992–3. “The Evils of Self-Determination.” Foreign Policy No. 89 (Winter): 21– 35.Google Scholar
Fearon James D., and David D. Laitin. 2003. “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.” American Political Science Review 97 (February): 75– 90.Google Scholar
Figueiredo Rui J. P. de Jr., and Barry R. Weingast. 2002. “Self-Enforcing Federalism.” Unpublished paper. Berkeley: Hass School of Business and Department of Political Science, University of California. Stanford: Hoover Institution and Department of Political Science, Stanford University.
Filson Darren, and Suzanne Werner. 2002. “A Bargaining Model of War and Peace: Anticipating the Onset, Duration, and Outcome of War.” American Journal of Political Science 46 (October): 819– 38.Google Scholar
Gerth H. H., and C. Wright-Mills, eds. 1948. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Gleditsch Kristian D., and Michael D. Ward. 1999. “A Revised List of Independent States Since the Congress of Vienna.” International Interactions 25, 393– 413.Google Scholar
Gurr Ted Robert. 1970. Why Men Rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hartzell Caroline, and Matthew Hoddie. 2003. “Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management.” American Journal of Political Science 47 (April): 318– 32.Google Scholar
Horowitz Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Huntington Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Jones Stephen F. 1997. “Georgia: The Trauma of Statehood.” In New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations, ed. Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras. New York: Cambridge University Press, 505– 43.
Kahn Herman. 1965. On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios. Baltimore: Penguin Books.
Kaufmann Chaim D. 1996. “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars.” International Security 20 (Spring): 136– 75.Google Scholar
Kaufmann Chaim D. 1998. “When All Else Fails: Ethnic Population Transfers and Partitions in the Twentieth Century.” International Security 23 (Fall): 120– 56.Google Scholar
King Charles. 2001. “The Benefits of Ethnic War: Understanding Eurasia's Unrecognized States.” World Politics 53 (July): 524– 52.Google Scholar
King Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 2004. “The Importance of Research Design.” In Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, edited by Henry E. Brady and David Collier. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, Publishers, 181– 92.
Kumar Radha. 1997. “The Troubled History of Partition.” Foreign Affairs 76 (January–February): 22– 34.Google Scholar
Kuperman Alan J. 2004. “Is Partition Really the Only Hope? Reconciling Contradictory Findings About Ethnic Civil Wars.” Security Studies 13 (Summer): 314– 49.Google Scholar
Lake David A., and Donald Rothchild. 2005. “Territorial Decentralization and Civil War Settlements.” In Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars, ed. Philip G. Roeder and Donald Rothchild. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 109– 32.
Luttwak Edward N. 1999. “Give War a Chance.” Foreign Affairs 78 (July–August): 36– 44.Google Scholar
Marshall Monty G., and Keith Jaggers. 2005. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2003. Available on line at http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity/.Google Scholar
Marshall Monty G., Ted Robert Gurr, and Barbara Harff. 2002. State Failure Problem Set: Internal Wars and Failures of Governance, 1955–2002. Available online at http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/stfail/.Google Scholar
Milne R. S. 1989. “The Relevance of Ethnicity.” Political Science 41 (December): 30– 50.Google Scholar
O'Leary Brendan. 2001. “The Elements of Right-Sizing and Right-Peopling the State.” In Right-sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders, edited by Brendan O'Leary, Ian S. Lustick, and Thomas Callaghy. New York: Oxford University Press, 15– 73.
Posen Barry R. 1993. “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict.” Survival 35 (Spring): 27– 47.Google Scholar
Przeworski Adam, Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi. 1996. “What Makes Democracies Endure?” Journal of Democracy 7 (January): 39– 55.Google Scholar
Roeder Philip G. 1991. “Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization.” World Politics 43 (January): 196– 232.Google Scholar
Roeder Philip G. 2005. “Power-Dividing as an Alternative to Ethnic Power Sharing.” In Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars, edited by Philip G. Roeder and Donald Rothchild. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 51– 82.
Roeder Philip G. 2007. Where Nation-States Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Roeder Philip G., and Donald Rothchild. 2005. Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Rothschild Joseph. 1981. Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework. New York: Columbia University Press.
Russett Bruce, and John O'Neal. 2001. Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. New York: Norton.
Sambanis Nicholas. 2000. “Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War: An Empirical Critique of the Theoretical Literature.” World Politics 52 (July): 437– 83.Google Scholar
Schaeffer Robert K. 1990. Warpaths: The Politics of Partition. New York: Hill and Wang.
Schaeffer Robert K. 1999. Severed States: Dilemmas of Democracy in a Divided World. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Schelling Thomas C. 1966. Arms and Influence. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Singh Gurharpal. 1997. “The Partition of India as State Contraction: Some Unspoken Assumptions.” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 35 (March): 51– 66.Google Scholar
Smith Alastair, and Allan C. Stam. 2004. “Bargaining and the Nature of War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48 (December): 783– 813.Google Scholar
Statesman's Yearbook. 1899–2002. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Tarrow Sidney. 1989. Struggle, Politics, and Reform: Collective Action, Social Movements, and Cycles of Protest. Occasional Paper No. 21. Ithaca: Cornell University, Center for Western Studies, Western Societies Program.
Tilly Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.
Wood John R. 1981. “Secession: A Comparative Analytical Framework.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 14 (March): 107– 34.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2005. World Development Indicators. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Zald Mayer N., and John D. McCarthy, ed. 1987. Social Movements in an Organizational Society. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.