{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113000"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113000","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Contemporary democratic separatist movements: The politics of new state creation by referendum","abstract":"This is a comprehensive analysis of the conditions under which new states have been, and may be, created through exclusively democratic means. Existing literature explains the majority of such cases: those that occurred through the processes of decolonization, or through the break up of post-communist federations. However, we lack a general theory that can account for other such cases, most typified by independence movements in places such as Catalonia, Scotland, and Quebec. This dissertation supplies that theory, as well as empirical analyses of hypotheses derived therefrom, and offers explanations for the actions of states, regions, and voters undergoing such a process. The first chapter introduces the concept of democratic separatism, describes its process, compares it to other mechanisms for new state creation, and investigates the history of the phenomenon. It finds that, outside of decolonization and post-communist federal disintegration, the achievement of internationally-recognized sovereignty through democratic separatism is a rare phenomenon. The second chapter proposes a set of attributes that, when simultaneously present, constitute a sufficient condition for the emergence of successful democratic separatist movements. The third chapter considers the strategic interaction that occurs between a nation-state, and a democratic separatist movement therein. At question is the holding and endorsing of a popular referendum on the question of secession. I propose a framework for how we may interpret the motivations and interests behind certain actions that may be taken by the state or the movement. The concluding fourth chapter focuses on individual voters as the unit of analysis and presents evidence that regional identity remains a strong correlate for supporting a separatist movement, and that alternatives proposed in extant literature (namely, economic inequality and supranational integration) are not.","abstract_html":"This is a comprehensive analysis of the conditions under which new states have been, and may be, created through exclusively democratic means. Existing literature explains the majority of such cases: those that occurred through the processes of decolonization, or through the break up of post-communist federations. However, we lack a general theory that can account for other such cases, most typified by independence movements in places such as Catalonia, Scotland, and Quebec. This dissertation supplies that theory, as well as empirical analyses of hypotheses derived therefrom, and offers explanations for the actions of states, regions, and voters undergoing such a process. The first chapter introduces the concept of democratic separatism, describes its process, compares it to other mechanisms for new state creation, and investigates the history of the phenomenon. It finds that, outside of decolonization and post-communist federal disintegration, the achievement of internationally-recognized sovereignty through democratic separatism is a rare phenomenon. The second chapter proposes a set of attributes that, when simultaneously present, constitute a sufficient condition for the emergence of successful democratic separatist movements. The third chapter considers the strategic interaction that occurs between a nation-state, and a democratic separatist movement therein. At question is the holding and endorsing of a popular referendum on the question of secession. I propose a framework for how we may interpret the motivations and interests behind certain actions that may be taken by the state or the movement. The concluding fourth chapter focuses on individual voters as the unit of analysis and presents evidence that regional identity remains a strong correlate for supporting a separatist movement, and that alternatives proposed in extant literature (namely, economic inequality and supranational integration) are not.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Brennan, Bernard James"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Political Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Leff, Carol S","Gaines, Brian","Pahre, Robert","Wong, Cara"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-01-12T21:45:30Z","date_published":"2022-01-12T21:45:30Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:52Z","subjects":["secession","democracy","direct democracy","Catalonia","Scotland","nationalism","referendum"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2021 Bernard Brennan"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113000","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Leff, Carol S","Gaines, Brian","Pahre, Robert","Wong, Cara"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Brennan, Bernard James"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-01-12T21:45:30Z","2021-07-11","2021-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Political Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["secession","democracy","direct democracy","Catalonia","Scotland","nationalism","referendum"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2021 Bernard Brennan"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113000"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This is a comprehensive analysis of the conditions under which new states have been, and may be, created through exclusively democratic means. Existing literature explains the majority of such cases: those that occurred through the processes of decolonization, or through the break up of post-communist federations. However, we lack a general theory that can account for other such cases, most typified by independence movements in places such as Catalonia, Scotland, and Quebec. This dissertation supplies that theory, as well as empirical analyses of hypotheses derived therefrom, and offers explanations for the actions of states, regions, and voters undergoing such a process. The first chapter introduces the concept of democratic separatism, describes its process, compares it to other mechanisms for new state creation, and investigates the history of the phenomenon. It finds that, outside of decolonization and post-communist federal disintegration, the achievement of internationally-recognized sovereignty through democratic separatism is a rare phenomenon. The second chapter proposes a set of attributes that, when simultaneously present, constitute a sufficient condition for the emergence of successful democratic separatist movements. The third chapter considers the strategic interaction that occurs between a nation-state, and a democratic separatist movement therein. At question is the holding and endorsing of a popular referendum on the question of secession. I propose a framework for how we may interpret the motivations and interests behind certain actions that may be taken by the state or the movement. The concluding fourth chapter focuses on individual voters as the unit of analysis and presents evidence that regional identity remains a strong correlate for supporting a separatist movement, and that alternatives proposed in extant literature (namely, economic inequality and supranational integration) are not.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-01-12 without embargo terms","The student, Bernard Brennan, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-08 at 14:32.","The student, Bernard Brennan, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2021-07-08 at 14:39.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2021-07-11 at 07:30.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16807 on 2022-01-12 at 12:44:27","Made available in DSpace on 2022-01-12T21:45:30Z (GMT). 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However, we lack a general theory that can account for other such cases, most typified by independence movements in places such as Catalonia, Scotland, and Quebec. This dissertation supplies that theory, as well as empirical analyses of hypotheses derived therefrom, and offers explanations for the actions of states, regions, and voters undergoing such a process. The first chapter introduces the concept of democratic separatism, describes its process, compares it to other mechanisms for new state creation, and investigates the history of the phenomenon. It finds that, outside of decolonization and post-communist federal disintegration, the achievement of internationally-recognized sovereignty through democratic separatism is a rare phenomenon. The second chapter proposes a set of attributes that, when simultaneously present, constitute a sufficient condition for the emergence of successful democratic separatist movements. The third chapter considers the strategic interaction that occurs between a nation-state, and a democratic separatist movement therein. At question is the holding and endorsing of a popular referendum on the question of secession. I propose a framework for how we may interpret the motivations and interests behind certain actions that may be taken by the state or the movement. The concluding fourth chapter focuses on individual voters as the unit of analysis and presents evidence that regional identity remains a strong correlate for supporting a separatist movement, and that alternatives proposed in extant literature (namely, economic inequality and supranational integration) are not.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-01-12 without embargo terms","The student, Bernard Brennan, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-08 at 14:32.","The student, Bernard Brennan, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2021-07-08 at 14:39.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2021-07-11 at 07:30.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16807 on 2022-01-12 at 12:44:27","Made available in DSpace on 2022-01-12T21:45:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 BRENNAN-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf: 2896474 bytes, checksum: 300c8cf53b960eae76c9cdb2cbebe4ff (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4212 bytes, checksum: 0b415c53e38fc5c726b9cea8fc82e649 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-07-11"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113000"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2021 Bernard Brennan"],"dc:subject":["secession","democracy","direct democracy","Catalonia","Scotland","nationalism","referendum"],"dc:title":["Contemporary democratic separatist movements: The politics of new state creation by referendum"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Political Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:52Z"}