Secession: Reasons, Relevance, and Exemplified Conflicts

A secessionist conflict may result from an initial liberation or separation movement of a people (which often represents a geographically separated ethnic minority) within a State. However, separation or agreed/negotiated withdrawal from a territorial sovereign would go along with consent of that sovereign. In contrast, secession is characterized by the fact that it is persistently nonconsensual, thus generating complicated political and social conflicts and potentially violent hostilities. Secession can be defined as a unilateral severance from a constituent part of a State, which includes its territory and population, resulting in a perpetual split within the former territorial sovereign. Thus, secessionist conflict is any kind of conflict which ultimately aims at achieving a territorial split within a country. However, no authoritative definition of the notion of secession exists. Rather, secession and a preceding secessionist conflict represent a factual phenomenon.