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I am looking for examples of both successful and unsuccessful national secession attempts in the 21st century in order to determine in which contexts the international community has supported or opposed such attempts.

In general, under what conditions have the international community been supportive of secession attempts in recent decades? Under what conditions have they been opposed? When faced with a situation of national schism, does the international community generally prefer secession of part of the country or overthrow of the entire government? On what factors have either option been preferred?

JonathanReez
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dotancohen
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    Successful can be found here: South Sudan, East Timor and Montenegro. – Tadeusz Kopec Jan 10 '23 at 14:06
  • Thank you. How about the unsuccessful attempts? I would imagine that there are a greater number of those. The linked list of active separatist movements is helpful too, but does not included unsuccessful attempts. – dotancohen Jan 10 '23 at 14:18
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    The Scotland independence referendum comes to mind (The UK had signaled that they would accept the outcome of the referendum, which means the rest of the world would have had little reason to not recognize Scottish independence too). – Philipp Jan 10 '23 at 14:27
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    Catalonia in Spain counts as one, and Somaliland from Somalia. And as for "international"--read "the West" because Africans' voices are underreported, the Middle East wants to offend nobody, and South America has to obey US positions--basically, those seccessions that would harm the nation oppose the West would be supported by the West. While those secessions harming Western interests would be opposed by the West--the current Eastern-block would choose to remain silent as to avoid riling up their own seccessionists – Faito Dayo Jan 10 '23 at 15:29
  • Thank you Faito, I was deliberating how to word the term "international community" exactly because of the situation that you describe. – dotancohen Jan 10 '23 at 15:36
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    @FaitoDayo I don't think that Somaliland counts as unsuccessful as they are independent, unchallenged just unrecognized. "And as for "international"--read "the West"" You should read "developed", as otherwise you are missing a few relevant powers like Japan. "Middle East wants to offend nobody" Unless of course they are busy not recognizing Israel. "the current Eastern-block" Which block? – Shadow1024 Jan 10 '23 at 16:15
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    Related : https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/43910/united-nations-right-to-self-determination-and-secession-working-groups – Jontia Jan 10 '23 at 16:27
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    @Faito Dayo "the current Eastern-block" What is meand by this? – convert Jan 10 '23 at 17:06
  • @FaitoDayo - I think your comment is rather far off. "The current Eastern bloc would remain silent" about secession: well, it's rather strange to group nearly every country in Asia into a single bloc, as the comment seems to imply. And this isn't even halfway true. For instance, China has openly supported Spain over Catalonia; contrariwise, it was an early supporter of East Timor. And those are just two examples for a single country. – Obie 2.0 Jan 11 '23 at 01:54
  • "Africans' voices are underreported": true, but is that a reason for you to not consider the positions of African nations as part of international reactions to secession? For instance, the perspectives of Kenya and Guinea, which seem at least tacitly in favor of the secession of Somaliland, are not irrelevant. – Obie 2.0 Jan 11 '23 at 02:08
  • "South America has to obey US positions": I assume you have lumped the rest of North (including Central) America in here. But in any case, this certainly was not true when, for instance, Cuba and Venezuela withdrew recognition of Israel. Similarly, apparently no one told Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Paraguay that they had to stop recognizing Taiwan when the USA did. (and vice versa for the SA countries that eliminated offices). – Obie 2.0 Jan 11 '23 at 02:16
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    "The Middle East wants to offend nobody": something that apparently Israel was not thinking when it recognized Kurdistan, nor the Arab League when it rejected such recognition, nor apparently Syria when it opposed a UN vote against the 2014 Crimean independence referendum. Rinse and repeat. – Obie 2.0 Jan 11 '23 at 02:24
  • So no, it is in fact quite reductive to only consider the opinions of Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand—what I suspect you mean by the "West"—when considering international reactions to secession. – Obie 2.0 Jan 11 '23 at 02:25

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