IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/compsc/v39y2022i4p422-446.html

Turning the lights on to keep them in the fold: How governments preempt secession attempts

Author

Listed:
  • Rob Williams

Abstract

There are many regions that meet the necessary conditions for sovereign governance in the world, but few secessionist conflicts. I argue that this relative paucity of secessionist violence is the result of government preemption of potential secessionist movements. Using cross-national geospatial data from 1992 to 2013, I find that governments invest more, measured via nighttime light emissions, in more secession-prone regions. The same factors that make territory attractive for secession, such as large populations and international borders, also make governments willing to work to retain control of that territory, contributing to the scarcity of separatist civil conflicts.

Suggested Citation

  • Rob Williams, 2022. "Turning the lights on to keep them in the fold: How governments preempt secession attempts," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(4), pages 422-446, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:39:y:2022:i:4:p:422-446
    DOI: 10.1177/07388942211015242
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/07388942211015242
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/07388942211015242?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2011. "Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 199-211, February.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    3. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    4. Salehyan, Idean & Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede & Cunningham, David E., 2011. "Explaining External Support for Insurgent Groups," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(4), pages 709-744, October.
    5. Carter, David B. & Goemans, H. E., 2011. "The Making of the Territorial Order: New Borders and the Emergence of Interstate Conflict," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(2), pages 275-309, April.
    6. Verena Kroth & Valentino Larcinese & Joachim Wehner, 2016. "A Better Life for All? Democratization and Electrification in Post-Apartheid South Africa," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 60, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    7. Kuhn, Patrick M. & Weidmann, Nils B., 2015. "Unequal We Fight: Between- and Within-Group Inequality and Ethnic Civil War," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 543-568, September.
    8. Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, 2013. "Actor Fragmentation and Civil War Bargaining: How Internal Divisions Generate Civil Conflict," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 659-672, July.
    9. World Bank, 2018. "World Development Report 2018 [Rapport sur le développement dans le monde 2018]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28340, April.
    10. Nils B. Weidmann & Doreen Kuse & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, 2010. "The Geography of the International System: The CShapes Dataset," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 86-106, February.
    11. Cederman, Lars-Erik & Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede & Salehyan, Idean & Wucherpfennig, Julian, 2013. "Transborder Ethnic Kin and Civil War," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 389-410, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gaku Ito, 2021. "Why does ethnic partition foster violence? Unpacking the deep historical roots of civil conflicts," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(5), pages 986-1003, September.
    2. Mercier, Marion & Silve, Arthur & Tremblay-Auger, Benjamin, 2023. "Building Reputation: Proxy Wars and Transnational Identities," IZA Discussion Papers 16340, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Gomes, Joseph Flavian, 2015. "The Political Economy of the Maoist Conflict in India: An Empirical Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 96-123.
    4. Casper Sakstrup, 2021. "What’s going on next door? Irregular leader change in neighboring countries, uncertainty, and civil war," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 539-553, May.
    5. Takeshi Aida, 2020. "Revisiting suicide rate during wartime: Evidence from the Sri Lankan civil war," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-20, October.
    6. Silve, Arthur & Verdier, Thierry, 2018. "A theory of regional conflict complexes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 434-447.
    7. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624, December.
    8. Solveig Hillesund & Gudrun Østby, 2023. "Horizontal inequalities, political violence, and nonviolent conflict mobilization: A review of the literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(5), pages 1589-1635, December.
    9. Maystadt, Jean-François & Trinh Tan, Jean-François & Breisinger, Clemens, 2014. "Does food security matter for transition in Arab countries?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 106-115.
    10. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    11. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2016. "Linguistic Diversity, Standardization, and Disenfranchisement: Measurement and Consequences," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/277407, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Emilio Depetris-Chauvin & Ömer Özak, 2023. "(De facto) Historical Ethnic Borders and Contemporary Conflict in Africa," Departmental Working Papers 2303, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
    13. Besley, Timothy & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2014. "The Legacy of Historical Conflict: Evidence from Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(2), pages 319-336, May.
    14. Ashira Menashe-Oren, 2020. "Migrant-based youth bulges and social conflict in urban sub-Saharan Africa," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 42(3), pages 57-98.
    15. James Fenske & Namrata Kala, 2012. "Climate, ecosystem resilience and the slave trade," CSAE Working Paper Series 2012-23, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    16. Sunde, Uwe & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2011. "Democratization and Civil Liberties: The Role of Violence During the Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 8315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Gabriel Leon, 2014. "Loyalty for sale? Military spending and coups d’etat," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 363-383, June.
    18. Justino, Patricia, 2025. "Revisiting the links between economic inequality and political violence: The role of social mobilization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    19. Serhan Cevik & Mohammad Rahmati, 2015. "Breaking the Curse of Sisyphus: An Empirical Analysis of Post-Conflict Economic Transitions," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 57(4), pages 569-597, December.
    20. David Castells-Quintana & Maria del Pilar Lopez-Uribe & Tom McDermott, 2015. "Climate change and the geographical and institutional drivers of economic development," GRI Working Papers 198, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:39:y:2022:i:4:p:422-446. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.