In Secession and Security, Ahsan I. Butt argues that states, rather than separatists, determine whether a secessionist struggle will be peaceful, violent, or genocidal. He investigates the strategies, ranging from negotiated concessions to large-scale repression, adopted by states in response to separatist movements. Variations in the external security environment, Butt argues, influenced the leaders of the Ottoman Empire to use peaceful concessions against Armenians in 1908 but escalated to genocide against the same community in 1915; caused Israel to reject a Palestinian state in the 1990s; and shaped peaceful splits in Czechoslovakia in 1993 and the Norway-Sweden union in 1905. Using more than one hundred interviews and extensive archival data, Butt focuses on two main cases-Pakistani reactions to Bengali and Baloch demands for independence in the 1970s and India's responses to secessionist movements in Kashmir, Punjab, and Assam in the 1980s and 1990s. Butt's deep historical approach to his subject will appeal to policymakers and observers interested in the last five decades of geopolitics in South Asia, the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and ethno-national conflict, separatism, and nationalism more generally.
"Compellingly and authoritatively researched. The research design-a case study approach-is exquisite. The case selections and criteria for comparison are academically sound. But also had access to scores of personal interviews as well as extensive archival data. The result is a significant and timely contribution to the scholarship on state decision-making in the international arena."
Choice
"Ahsan Butt makes a useful contribution by highlighting the international framework in explaining state response to secessionist movements but his question is very narrowly defined looking at ethnic difference when its trajectory implicitly or explicitly is separatist."
Bloomsbury Pakistan
"The spectacular achievement of Butt's seminal study is that it offers a refreshing theoretical explanation as to why states employ different strategies against separatists and, more importantly, it does so by presenting facts in an unbiased fashion. Secession and security's academic rigour, in-depth analysis, accessibility and balanced objectivity make it a highly commendable contribution to Inte
