National Secession: Persuasion and Violence in Independence Campaigns

How do some national-secessionist campaigns get on the global agenda
whereas others do not? Which projects for new nation-states, Philip
Roeder asks, give rise to mayhem in the politics of existing states?
National secession has been explained by reference to identities,
grievances, greed, and opportunities. With the strategic constraints
most national-secession campaigns face, the author argues, the essential
element is the campaign's ability to coordinate expectations within a
population on a common goal―so that independence looks like the only
viable option.

Roeder shows how in most well-known national-secession campaigns,
this strategy of programmatic coordination has led breakaway leaders to
assume the critical task of propagating an authentic and realistic
nation-state project. Such campaigns are most likely to draw attention
in the capitals of the great powers that control admission to the
international community, to bring the campaigns' disputes with their
central governments to deadlock, and to engage in protracted, intense
struggles to convince the international community that independence is
the only viable option.

In National Secession, Roeder focuses on the goals of
national-secession campaigns as a key determinant of strategy,
operational objectives, and tactics. He shifts the focus in the study of
secessionist civil wars from tactics (such as violence) to the larger
substantive disputes within which these tactics are chosen, and he
analyzes the consequences of programmatic coordination for getting on
the global agenda. All of which, he argues, can give rise to intractable
disputes and violent conflicts.