Support For Secession Research Articles

Undead Past: What Drives Support for the Secessionist Goal of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in Nigeria?

AbstractThis study examined the effect of perceived ethnic marginalization, perception towards Nigerian democracy, and socioeconomic condition on support for secession among members of the Igbo ethnic group. Perceived ethnic marginalization and negative perceptions toward Nigerian democracy were found to positively correlate with support for secession. Socioeconomic condition was measured at the household and communal levels. The household measure had no effect on support for secession, but the communal measure did: socioeconomic condition at the communal level positively correlated with support for secession. Igbo ethnicity increased the likelihood of supporting secession, while belonging to the Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba ethnic groups reduced the likelihood of supporting secession.

Seeing Red and Blue: Assessing How Americans Understand Geographic Polarization, Secession, and the Value of Federalism

Abstract This article examines how public perceptions about the divide between blue and red states shape attitudes about secession in the United States. Through a nationally representative survey of the adult American population, I measure how individuals perceive political differences between states, and demonstrate that as perceptions of political differences increase, so too does support for secession. Measured through multiple questions and an experimental design, these findings demonstrate a previously underexplored dynamic of the country’s partisan divisions. Both Democrats and Republicans are more likely to support secession as their awareness of the “red” and “blue” divide increases—an attitude that is statistically independent from other beliefs that motivate partisan animosity in the contemporary United States, such as populism, racial resentment, affective polarization, and ideology. While talk of an impending “civil war” may be exaggerated, the widespread prevalence of secessionist beliefs shows that the legitimacy of the country’s federal bargain is challenged by political nationalization.

What drives support for separatism? Exposure to conflict and relative ethnic size in Biafra, Nigeria

AbstractWhat determines support for separatist movements in Africa? The past two decades have seen a rise in separatism across Africa, including renewed Nigeria's Igbo Biafran nationalism. While a large body of work has focused on the behaviour of African separatist movements themselves, less work has examined the correlates of popular support for their claims and goals. This study does so, focusing on two important factors. First, it examines whether exposure to conflict events involving neo‐Biafran movements increases or decreases support for the claims made by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). The study uses geo‐coded data from the Afrobarometer and ACLED datasets to measure proximate exposure and finds that more exposure correlates positively with support for secession. Second, it argues that the highest levels of support should be associated with members of ethnic groups that would dominate the proposed state. Drawing again from Afrobarometer, the study finds support for this.

The Burden of a Violent Past: Formative Experiences of Repression and Support for Secession in Catalonia

AbstractThis letter studies the impact of past violence and repression on current territorial preferences in a contemporary democracy. Does a violent past lay the grounds for pro-secessionist preferences, or does it lead individuals to cling on to the territorial status quo? We study whether exposure to the events of the Spanish Civil War and its immediate aftermath made people more or less likely to support Catalan secession from Spain. Our analysis employs a dataset that combines a large N of individual-level survey data with historical data about repression and violence in each Catalan municipality. Findings indicate that current preferences for secession tend to diminish among the oldest Catalan generation that was exposed to higher levels of violence in their municipality. Most crucially, we show that exposure to violence created a sense of apathy towards politics among the oldest cohort, which eventually leads to a lower predisposition to support secession, a feeling that was not transmitted to subsequent generations. Our findings qualify some of the existing knowledge on the effects of past political violence on present political attitudes.

Who Backs Separation? An Empirical Assessment of the Objective and Subjective Markers of Identity in Support for Secession in Catalonia

AbstractObjective markers of distinctiveness such as language, ethnicity, religion, or origin are instrumental in the formation of territorial identities. In turn, territorial identity tends to be the most powerful factor in explaining differences in support for secession. Along with this subjective identity, objective markers of distinctiveness also play a role in explaining support for secession. In this article, I argue that the literature lacks an empirical assessment of how objective and subjective markers of identity are related to support for secession. In particular, I argue that most of the effect of objective markers on support for secession is indirectly expressed via (changes in) identity. Results from survey data from Catalonia (2015–2020, N = 30,000), confirm that a large share of the effect of the region’s objective markers—language and ancestry—on secession is, as expected, mediated. This evidence has both theoretical and empirical implications for studies on identity formation and support for secession.

The Divide Over Independence: Explaining Preferences for Secession in an Advanced Open Economy

AbstractAnticipated trade, insurance, and fiscal shocks from independence structure preferences for secession independently from nonmaterial considerations. To test this claim, we draw from an original survey conducted in Catalonia before the 2017 regional election, which followed a suspended declaration of independence. Trade shocks produce differential effects depending on market specialization: Respondents working in sectors and at firms specializing in the host state market disproportionately oppose secession, whereas those specializing in foreign markets show no aversion to independence. Exclusion from public insurance strengthens preference for secession among the long‐term unemployed. Support for secession also increases with skill levels but not because of expected postindependence factor returns. The skilled population shows a better understanding of the institutional design of interterritorial redistribution. In a context of autonomy retraction, this group is more skeptical of the accommodation of regional demands within the union. Overall, we advance an individual‐level materialistic approach to the study of secession.

The secessionist spectre: the influence of authoritarianism, nativism and populism on support for Quebec independence

AbstractIn recent years, Quebec has been undergoing a re‐evaluation of immigration and integration policies. The secessionist Parti Québécois had become the leader of this debate, which also coincided with a rise of right‐wing nativist, populist and sometimes authoritarian movements in other Western societies. This paper aims to evaluate the similarity or dissimilarity of Quebec's nationalism to these other nationalisms. We use the 2015 Canadian Election Study data to explore the influence of authoritarianism, nativism and populism directly on support for secession and also, indirectly, on voting intentions. We find that authoritarianism has a negative influence on support for Quebec independence and independentist parties, while the pattern is the opposite, and the effects somewhat weaker, for nativism and populism. Hence, we argue that Quebec nationalism does not seem to correlate with the right‐wing populist movement extending throughout many Western societies. Thus, Quebec nationalism was shown to be a distinct form of nationalism.

نموذج الفدرالي الكندي لإدارة التنوع الاثني

Abstract The problem of managing diversity in multi-ethnic countries has posed many challenges, particularly in the developing world, because administrative and political boundaries do not conform to the boundaries of ethnic groups. They do not build on the wishes and interests of their peoples, especially in countries characterized by ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. The transition of Western institutional experiences to the East has not produced similar results as it has achieved in its origin. Therefore, what the developing countries require to achieve successful models in the West is to develop mechanisms and constitutional foundations that go beyond regulating the exercise of power and the means of transmission, E pluralistic institutions in order to build a national identity one. And the means to follow their success in a manner appropriate to the privacy of their communities. The way to deal with issues of ethnic diversity, negatively or positively, is determined to be the problem will be or will remain just a natural situation. The most factors that give the issue a political dimension wrestling, the existence of political differentiation and social disparities and Economic development within a single state. Since its formation in 1867, the Canadian state has adopted a federal system and the sharing of power and authority. Although there are laws in Canada (British common law, French civil law), everyone is subject to the Constitution Despite the existence of many different nationalities, linguistically and religiously in Canada, and despite the different demands, but the Canadian state and under a federal and democratic parliamentary system, was able to overcome the problems and controversial issues resulting from ethnic diversity, in relation to the administration of power and rights and freedoms and The national wealth of all Canadians, especially the Francophones living in the province of Quebec, is a clear demonstration of the current decline in public support for secession.

When the context matters: Identity, secession and the spatial dimension in Catalonia

Regional and national identities are significant determinants of people's support for secession. Most previous works, however, have implicitly assumed that national identity has a linear unconditional effect. We complement previous works by showing that the relationship between identity and support for secession changes as a function of the context in which an individual interacts, an effect particularly important among those with mixed national and regional identities. The first stage of our empirical analysis is based on a pool of 22,000 individuals in the context of Catalonia (Spain). Findings confirm that dual-identity individuals are especially affected by their immediate surroundings: the probability to vote in favour of independence among them substantially increases when the percentage of people speaking Catalan increases. On a second stage, we explore the existence of a social interaction mechanism by employing a survey that measures the preferences of people's close networks. We show that individual's interaction in like-minded networks modifies the relationship between identity and secession, with the effect being again strong among dual-identity individuals. This group is six times more likely to vote for secession when having only pro-secession close contacts, as compared to having none. These results have implications for studies on regionalism and preferences for territorial decentralization.

Fear and Disappointment: Explaining the Persistence of Support for Quebec Secession

Since the election of the first Parti Québécois government in 1976, support for secession in the province of Quebec has demonstrated a surprising capacity to maintain itself, despite two lost referenda. Despite numerous attempts to explain such persistence, no definitive consensus has been reached. In this article, we propose a model that gives a primary role to governing parties at the provincial and federal levels. As the title suggests, certain parties generate fear while others produce disappointment. The interaction between the two and the fact that parties have tended to alternate in power in the last 35 years leads to a relative stability in public opinion, as these effects cancel each other out.

Breaking up Is Hard to Do: Explaining the 2002 San Fernando Valley Secession Vote

ABSTRACT:In November 2002 the voters of Los Angeles soundly rejected Proposition F which, if approved, would have authorized the secession of the San Fernando Valley in order to constitute a city independent of Los Angeles. This article attempts to delineate the interplay of social, economic, and political conditions related to support for secession by examining the results of a Los Angeles Times survey conducted one week prior to the vote. Because an exit poll was not taken following the vote, these data provide the most proximate evidence for the views of voters shortly before casting their ballots. The analysis of the data identifies distinctive social bases of support for secession in the San Fernando Valley that contrast with those outside the region. The results are interpreted in the context of Sonenshein’s discussion of the role of coalition formation in urban politics.

Soldier of Southwestern Virginia: The Civil War Letters of Captain John Preston Sheffey, and: Lone Star Confederate: A Gallant and Good Soldier of the Fifth Texas Infantry (review)

Reviewed by: Soldier of Southwestern Virginia: The Civil War Letters of Captain John Preston Sheffey, and: Lone Star Confederate: A Gallant and Good Soldier of the Fifth Texas Infantry Joseph G. Dawson III Soldier of Southwestern Virginia: The Civil War Letters of Captain John Preston Sheffey. Edited by James I. Robertson Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. Pp. 239. $39.95.) Lone Star Confederate: A Gallant and Good Soldier of the Fifth Texas Infantry. Edited by George Skoch and Mark W. Perkins. Foreword by Robert K. Krick. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003. Pp. 163. $27.50.) Civil War soldier memoirs, diaries, and letters abound. Historians continue to find them in archives and attics, and readers and libraries continue to buy them. These two accounts from Confederate veterans, one a Virginian and the other a Texan, provide additional valuable personal glimpses into wartime service. John Sheffey served as a captain in the 8th Virginia Cavalry, riding in the Shenandoah Valley and other western counties of the state. Routinely on the periphery of the war's major campaigns, Sheffey wrote more than ninety letters, mostly to his fiancée, whom he married in 1863. While not involved in recounting strategic battles, Sheffey provided other worthwhile points, ranging from support for secession in 1861 to his experience as a prisoner of war at Camp Chase, Ohio, beginning in August 1864. Captain Sheffey was not bashful about giving his opinions of leaders, people, and circumstances of his day. For instance, he characterized Virginia governor Henry Wise as "tyrannical" (44) and President Abraham Lincoln as "vested with absolute dictatorial powers" (148). By 1861 it appeared to Sheffey that Northerners and Southerners were "two separate and distinct peoples" and thus he would not support a "reconstruction" of the sections (15). He found ways to compliment Confederate general John B. Floyd as an "able" (86) aggressive commander feared by northerners (72–73), but he also criticized Floyd for pushing this troops too hard (86). Sheffey disparaged Union general William S. Rosecrans, misspelling his name "Rosecrantz" (43). The captain had nothing good to write about German immigrants; they were to him "the villainous Dutch with their outlandish lingo!" (218). Sheffey's letters are a pleasure to read and demonstrate how a well-educated Southerner infused his writing with his knowledge. Sheffey made numerous references to poetry and literature. He found connections with the Bible and with events and figures from ancient times. He also observed potential links between his war and the American Revolution, characterizing his unit's winter hardships with the Continental army at Valley Forge and their crossing of a river with George Washington's famous crossing of the Delaware. In an excellent editing job, James Robertson's informative footnotes explain Sheffey's references to readers from another century. In contrast to Sheffey, Texan Robert Campbell served with one of the Confederacy's most famous units, the Texas Brigade, commanded by John Bell Hood. [End Page 211] Campbell's regiment, the 5th Texas Infantry, fought in major battles, including Second Manassas, Gaines's Mill, and Chickamauga. A few years after the war ended, Campbell put pen to paper to recount his wartime experiences, including being wounded six times. Some of those wounds took him out of action for weeks. The memoir stresses events from his enlistment at the age of seventeen through 1862 and so editors George Skoch and Mark Perkins supplement it with wartime letters. Campbell received part of his education in Louisiana and his travels (often by rail) took him from Texas to Virginia. The editors support Campbell's writings with good maps and helpful endnotes, identifying most people, places, and events, but one deficiency is the editors' failure to include in the index Campbell's references to Louisiana and some of its towns, including New Orleans (7), Baton Rouge (87), and Shreveport (87–88). Campbell included many worthwhile observations in his memoir and letters. He made numerous references to the tremendous vocal enthusiasm of his regiment's soldiers, emphasizing the physical release that "fierce yells and shouts" gave the Texans (67) in contrast to the Yankees' "tame 'huza' 'huza'" (68). Desertion was mentioned only a few times, but...

Beyond the Last Best Hope of Earth

Similarly frustrated by the British response to the Civil War, Unionists and Confederates often agreed that Great Britain did not understand the American crisis and did not seem to care enough to learn about it. Republicans only partly retracted this complaint when they began to praise the English middle and working classes for discerning the values at stake in the war and favoring the side of right. R.J.M. Blackett's Divided Hearts roundly rejects these charges of ignorance and indifference. He declares that no other international event of the era, on the Continent or in the colonies, reached as deeply into British public life as the American conflict. His study of the British response illuminates the transatlantic impact of the Civil War and facilitates measurement of the accuracy of wartime American perceptions of foreign views. Divided Hearts offers the most thorough study yet of British public opinion about the war, as Blackett defines that public. His definition does not include the positions of government officials or leaders of Parliament. The names of prime minister Lord Palmerston, foreign minister Lord John Russell, and chancellor of the exchequer William Gladstone are not listed in the index. Except for figures who demonstrated influence at home, Blackett also does not focus on the intellectuals whom many Americans regarded as representative of British thought. Such commentators on the war as Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, John Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold appear fleetingly in the book or not at all. Blackett's goal is instead to measure as accurately as possible the extent of support for the Union and Confederacy, particularly among the middle and working classes of England. This project design tests on a broader field the line of interpretation centering on Mary Ellison's Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War (1972), which argued that British workers devastated by the cotton famine strongly supported the Confederacy. Ellison deflated what she called the myth that British workers united with the cause of free labor despite enormous personal sacrifices, a version of history that Peter d'A. Jones

The Sources of Support for Separatism: Public Opinion in Three Soviet Republics

Abstract. The replacement of the Soviet Union by independent states rather than by a loose confederation of component republics reflects (in part) the demands for change that were being expressed by mass publics. What caused the people to reject decentralisation of authority within the existing state structure and chose rather to support movements that insisted on the establishment of independent states? We examine whether concerns about ‘discriminatory redistribution’ and ‘cultural preservation’ were more important than questions of ‘efficiency’ or ‘relative deprivation’ as motivations behind support for secession. The analysis is based upon public opinion data from Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania gathered in May of 1990 and in June of 1991. We conclude that although issues related to cultural preservation and discriminatory redistribution were foremost in the minds of separatists, concerns about efficiency and improved management in government are also relevant for understanding support for separatism.

Southwest Virginia's Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis.

This innovative look at antebellum Southwest Virginia disputes traditional Appalachian scholarship, which has maintained that industrialization in the area occurred after 1880. Kenneth Noe shows how mountain modernization began decades earlier, with a regional railroad that contributed to support for secession and the Confederacy. Combining an adept use of anecdote and detail with analysis of the written record, Noe shows that many supporters of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad viewed it as a political tool, believing it would spread slavery and unite the state. He focuses on the railroad's economic fruits - integration of the region into the tobacco kingdom, urbanization, a growth in industry, and the spread of slavery - and shows how these brought about political results. By 1860, the author argues, the railroad had indeed increased the region's dependence on slavery, deepened its immersion in the capitalist marketplace, and strengthened its ties to the state capital.

Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War

Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War

Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War

Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War

Laying a Liberal Legend

Mary Ellison. Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War. Epilogue by Peter d'A. Jones. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1972. $10.50. Much of the historical scholarship of the past fifty years has been devoted to neutralizing the influence of the once supreme Liberal interpretation of English history. This interpretation, which even today haunts the pages of many a textbook, depicts events from Magna Carta to the Lloyd George Budget of 1909 as scenes in a never-ending morality play. In every political controversy of significance there is found an underlying struggle between the forces of good and those of evil, between the forces of progress and those of reaction, in short, between the "People" on the one hand and the "Privileged" on the other.

Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War.

Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War.

Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War

(1973). Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 1, No. 7, pp. 145-145.