Explaining Differences: the Secessionist Movements in Quebec and Bangladesh

Explaining Differences: The Secessionist Movements in Quebec and Bangladesh

Gibran Jessani (260133920)

Poli431: Nations and States in the Developed World

Professor Hudson Meadwell; T.A. Ece Atikcan

Word Count: 5, 307 words

Due: Tuesday, December 05, 2006

In examining recent history, many scholars argue that secessionist struggles have become increasingly important, and in the current setting, have gradually come to dominate the discourse of international politics so much so that they have come to be seen as “an almost daily feature of the news”.[1] Consequently, many theories have emerged trying to rationalize separatist movements, each exploring various reasons which have contributed to political secession in a particular case(s), in an attempt to uncover common trends and causal factors that might help elucidate the act of secession in a more general context. For example, in “Secession, States and International Society”, Hudson Meadwell examines the Quebec case, amongst others, and notes the importance of the institutional capacity of a sub-state in determining the likelihood of secession. Similarly, other authors have proposed different criteria they believe to be the most important in cases of secession: in Nations and Nationalism, Ernest Gellner proposes that regional security and the economic viability of a sub-state are the determining features of secession, whereas in “Theories of Secession”, Allen Buchanan maintains that successful, justifiable secession is necessarily linked to addressing a history of grievances between the host and sub-state. However, the causal factors of secessionist movements as outlined in these three, prominent theories of secession are shown to be inadequate, as none of these theories sufficiently explain both the success of secessionist movements in Bangladesh and the failure of such movements in Quebec. This is particularly problematic given that many scholars take Bangladesh and...