The “Who”: Is it Possible to Democratically Determine the Demos Entitle to Succession?

• Pau Luque Sánchez ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

     Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

     México

     
• Localización: Analisi e diritto = Análisis y derecho = Law and analysis = Droit et analyse = Análise e direito, ISSN 1126-5779, ISSN-e 2785-7220, Vol. 20, Nº. 1 (Publicado: 16-09-2020), 2020, págs. 167-186
• Idioma: varios idiomas
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • Democratic theories of secession claim that when a group of people expresses a preference for secession, such willingness (with some practical restrictions) suffices to ground a democratic right to secede – so not only nations, or encompassing cultural groups, are entitled to secede. Democratic theories of secession, it is claimed, provide a democratic way to deal not only with secession itself, but also to identify which groups are eligible to secede, namely those people who express the will to be independent. This paper is devoted to show that the democratic arguments invoked to identify which groups are eligible to secede, despite their initial appeal, are flawed. I argue that this is ultimately due to the inability of these theories to democratically determine the demos entitled to secession. This critique to democratic theories of secession, though explicitly mentioned by a few authors, has not been previously developed by anyone. This is the aim of this article. My conclusion will be that a group’s willingness to secede, while normatively relevant, does not guarantee a unilateral right to secede.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Abizadeh, A. (2008). Democratic Theory and Border Coercion: No Right to Unilaterally Control your own Borders, «Political Theory» 36, 37-65.
  • Beitz, Ch. R. (1979). Political Theory and International Relations, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
  • Beran, H. (1984). A Liberal Theory of Secession, «Political Studies», XXXII, 21-31.
  • Beran, H. (1998). A Democratic Theory of Political Self-Determination for a New World Order, in P.B. Lehning (ed.), Theories of Secession,...
  • Buchanan, A. (1991). Secession: The Legitimacy of Political Divorce From Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec, Boulder, Westview Press.
  • Buchanan, A. (1998). Democracy and Secession, in M. Moore (ed.), National Self- Determination and Secession, Oxford, Oxford University Press,...
  • Copp, D. (1997). Democracy and Communal Self-Determination, in R. McKim, J. Mahan (eds.), The Morality of Nationalism, Oxford, Oxford University...
  • Dahl, R. (1989). Democracy and its Critics, New Haven (Conn.), Yale University Press.
  • Gauthier, D. (1994). Breaking Up: An ffssay on Secession, «Canadian Journal of Philosophy», 24, 357-371.
  • Goodin, R. (2007). Enfranchising All Affected Interests, and Its Alternatives, «Philosophy and Public Affairs», 35, 40-68.
  • Jennings, W.I. (1956). The Approach to Self-Government, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Margalit, A., Raz, J. (1990). National Self-Determination, «Journal of Philosophy», 87, 439-461.
  • Miller, D. (1997). On Nationality, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • Moore, M. (2001). The Ethics of Nationalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • Nielsen, K. (1998). Liberal Nationalism and Secession, in M. Moore (ed.), National Self-Determination and Secession, Oxford, Oxford University...
  • Norman, W. (1998). The Ethics of Secession as the Regulation of Secessionist Politics, in M. Moore (ed.), National Self-Determination and...
  • Patten, A. (2014). Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Rights, Princeton (NJ), Princeton University Press.
  • Philpott, D. (1995). A Defense of Self-Determination, «Ethics», 105, 352-385.
  • Shapiro, I. (1999). Democratic Justice, New Haven (Conn.), Yale University Press.
  • Song, S. (2012). The Boundary Problem in Democratic Theory: Why the demos should be Bounded by the State, «International Theory», 4, 39-68.
  • Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and ffquality, New York, Basic Books.
  • Wellman C. (2005). A Theory of Secession: The Case for Political Self-Determination, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Whelan, F.G. (1983). Prologue: Democratic Theory and the Boundary Problem, in J. Pennock, J.W. Chapman (eds.), Nomos XXV: Liberal Democracy,...
  • Young, I.M. (2000). Democracy and Inclusion, Oxford, Oxford University Press.