Theories of the Right of Secession: A Republican Analysis

Republican theorists have paid little attention to the normative problems of secession conflicts. So far, there is no such thing as a democratic republican theory of the right of secession (TRS), nor any comprehensive analysis of current TRS has ever been undertaken from a democratic republican point of view. This article tries to fill this second gap as a previous step in order to approach the first one. In doing so, it is shown how secession conflicts pose threats for two core democratic republican values: freedom and inclusion. The threats are, concretely, those of exclusion, blackmailing minorities, arbitrary permanent majorities, and instability. The article also shows how, due to their respective pro-unionist or pro-secessionist biases, no current TRS seems to be able to handle those threats, and briefly outlines how a democratic republican TRS, based on a non-unilateralist logic, could be developed.