Breaking Away: The Case for Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities

In the United States, the idea of a region of the country separating through secession is generally regarded as an outrageously radical and impractical move. Secession, it is often assumed, is obviously beyond the pale of serious political discussion.

Yet, in spite of the US’s (rather unwarranted) reputation for expansive decentralization and local autonomy, we can find many cases in which European regimes were far more willing to compromise on local assertions of autonomy and independence than is the case in the United States.

Although fully or partially successful secession movements are not frequent occurrences in Europe, we can nonetheless look to a number of cases in which regions successfully carried forward independence movements at least to the point that a referendum was held. In some of these cases, independence won voter approval and was enacted.

Let’s look at some of these cases to learn more.

Local Autonomy and Plebiscites as a Component of Classical Liberalism

In his 1919 book, Nation, State, and Economy, Ludwig von Mises concludes that local independence is an assumed characteristic within a liberal (i.e., a “classically liberal” of “libertarian”) polity. He writes:

When a part of the people of the state wants to drop out of the union, liberalism does not hinder it from doing so. Colonies that want to become independent need only do so…. no people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want.

Moreover, in his 1927 book, Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition, Mises encourages the use of plebiscites in carrying this out. To some readers, this might seem a very radical position that Mises is taking. But, writing in the late teens and 1920s, Mises was working from what was becoming an established—albeit infrequently used—strategy for maintaining or increasing local autonomy within European states.

European Independence Plebiscites:  A Quick History

Perhaps the earliest uses of plebiscites to win local support for secession movements occurred in the late eighteenth century during the French Revolution. In an effort to enlarge the French state, plebiscites were used in the Papal States enclaves of Avignon and Comtat Venaissin in 1791, in Savoy in 1792, and in the Belgian Communes, Nice, and the Rhine Valley in 1793.1

In none of these cases was full independence contemplated, and these plebiscites only gave the voters a choice between the status quo and joining the French Republic. Nonetheless, pro-French sentiment was high in many of these areas and voters did indeed in many cases choose to secede from their status quo polities (i.e., the Papal States, Belgium, Sardinia) and join the French state.

By the nineteenth century, plebiscites were being increasingly used as part of the political process of changing which regime controlled certain districts and regions:

[Plebiscites] were held in the transfer of control of Rome from the Papal State to Italy in 1870, in Denmark’s sale of St. Thomas and St. John to the United States in 1868, and in Sweden’s cession of St. Bartholomew to France in 1877.2

The Ionian Islands were transferred to Greece by Great Britain after the move was approved by voters in an 1863 plebiscite. Plebiscites were also used—beginning with the aftermath of the Treaty of Prague in 1866—in attempts to settle the so-called Schleswig question over the borderlands between Denmark and the German Confederation.

Secession in the Twentieth Century

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the idea of holding local elections to settle border disputes or the inclusion of a region within a certain polity was anything but novel.

In a 1905 plebiscite, nearly 100 percent of Norwegian voters approved dissolving Norway’s union with Sweden. Norway became a fully independent state three months later.

In a 1918 plebiscite, Iceland’s voters approved independence for the country in a personal union with Denmark under the Danish king. (The king would remain the head of state; Iceland became a republic after another plebiscite in 1944.)

In 1919, the Austrian region of Vorarlberg held a plebiscite to determine if the region should secede from Austria and join Switzerland as a new canton. Eighty-one percent of Vorarlberg voters approved the measure, but the movement failed due to opposition from the Swiss and Austrian governments, among others.

A plebiscite was held in Carinthia in October 1920 to resolve an ongoing border dispute between Yugoslavia and the new Austrian republic. Fifty-nine percent voted to attach Carinthia to Austria. In spite of opposition from Yugoslavian forces, the region ultimately became Austrian.

After World War I, several plebiscites were held as a means of implementing the Treaty of Versailles. These plebiscites, unlike locally driven plebiscites in, say, Vorarlberg and Iceland, were conducted under significant pressure from outside great powers—namely, the victorious Entente powers. Where plebiscites were actually held in German territory—such as in East Prussia—the results favored the Germans, but the Entente powers also simply transferred some areas of Germany to Poland and Czechoslovakia. (The Third Reich would later employ plebiscites in Austria and the Sudetenland as retribution for these territorial transfers.)

Plebiscites continued after the war in a much different post-war context. In 1946, a plebiscite was held to determine if the Faroe Islands should secede from Denmark. It narrowly failed. In 1955, voters in the Saar, a French protectorate, voted to join Germany. In 1964, Maltese voters approved independence from the United Kingdom in a plebiscite. In 1990, Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia via plebiscite. The new Slovenian republic ultimately won independence after the nearly bloodless Ten-Day War.

In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, plebiscites were held in several Soviet republics including Ukraine and the Baltic states. (Outside Europe, of course, many more secession plebiscites were held throughout the twentieth century as part of the process of decolonization in Africa and Asia.)

Plebiscites in Perspective

As we can see from these examples, Mises’s position in favor of plebiscites to implement self-determination plans through secession were not especially radical in the context of the late 1920s. After all, by the early twentieth century, they had come to be used as a tool for settling border disputes and as a means of allowing for local vetoes on international agreements involving attempts at changing which state controlled certain regions. In many cases, plebiscites did not offer the option of total independence, but provided an option to attach the region in question to a different sovereign state. But in some cases, plebiscites were used to establish the creation of new sovereign states such as Slovenia, Estonia, Iceland, and Norway. In many cases, the results of plebiscites were not carried out or were short lived even when implemented. For example, the Ionian Islands changed hands more than once after the 1863 vote.

But in most cases, plebiscites were employed to determine a question of secession, whether or not the end goal was ultimately full independence. In this, many have worked relatively well. In many cases, these plebiscites have helped to peacefully settle disputes and to send a message to central regimes about the prudence of granting independence to separatist regions that vote overwhelmingly for independence.

• 1For an extensive description of nineteenth-century plebiscites, see Sarah Wambaugh, A Monograph on Plebiscites: With a Collection of Official Documents (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1920).
• 2Michael Hechter and Elizabeth Borland, “National Self-Determination: The Emergence of an International Norm,” in Social Norms, eds. Michael Hechter and Karl-Dieter Opp (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001), p. 193