Dividing Countries to Promote Peace: Prospects for Long-Term Success of Partitions

Abstract

This article examines the prospects for long-term success of an internally motivated division of a country’s homeland territory - a process known as partition or secession - into rump and secessionist states. The question investigated is why, in the years after the partition, some partitioned countries are able to avoid serious domestic-level violent conflict - operationalized as armed conflict and civil war onset - while others are not. The core logic of the article argues that partition-related factors affect the extent of support for extremist (i.e. conflictual) versus moderate (i.e. accommodative) policies, which in turn determine the prospects for future peace. Aftermaths of all 20th-century partitions are used to examine the related hypotheses. Contrary to the arguments found in much of the extant scholarship, the findings indicate (1) that peaceful partitions are more beneficial than their violent counterparts; (2) that secessionist states are less likely to experience conflict than rump states; and (3) that partitioning for ethnic - as opposed to non-ethnic - reasons does not increase the likelihood of future conflict. Finally, (4) the results reveal a lower than expected degree of support for the common claim that partitioning leads to failure because partitioned countries tend to be ethnically diverse. These findings shed new light on the circumstances under which partitioning may be a useful policymaking tool.