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Ties Versus Institutions: Revisiting Foreign Interventions and Secessionist Movements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2007

Stephen M. Saideman
Stephen M. Saideman
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Abstract

Abstract. This article is a response to one published by Louis Bélanger, Érick Duchesne and Jonathan Paquin challenging existing accounts for the patterns of external support for secessionist movements. They assert that regime type—democracy—provides a better explanation than either vulnerability or ethnic ties. I take issue with their operationalization of my arguments along with other aspects of their work. Here, I replicate their study first using their data and importing my variable measuring not just ethnic affinity with the secessionists but the possibilities of a country having ties with either or both sides of an ethnic conflict. Then, using my data, I again replicate their analyses. I find that ethnic ties, properly measured, not only better accounts for the international relations of secession but of ethnic conflict in general.

Résumé. Ce texte est une réplique à l'article de Louis Bélanger, Érick Duchesne et Jonathan Paquin, qui conteste les explications usuelles des variations dans l'appui international aux mouvements sécessionnistes. Selon eux, plus que la vulnérabilité ou les liens ethniques, c'est le type de régime – soit la démocratie – qui explique mieux le phénomène. Je remets en question leur façon d'opérationnaliser mes arguments, ainsi que plusieurs autres aspects de leur recherche. Afin de tester leurs résultats, je reproduis d'abord leur étude en utilisant leurs données et en y ajoutant ma variable qui mesure non seulement les affinités ethniques avec les sécessionnistes, mais également l'éventualité qu'un pays entretienne des relations avec l'un ou l'autre des protagonistes d'un conflit ethnique. Puis, je reprends leur analyse en utilisant mes propres données. Il en ressort que, lorsqu'elle est mesurée correctement, la variable des liens ethniques fournit une meilleure compréhension non seulement des relations internationales du phénomène de sécession, mais également des conflits ethniques en général.

Type
DEBATE/DISCUSSION
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 733 - 747
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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