1.1 The Paradigmatic Approach
What follows is in large part an explanation on explanation. More specifically, it seeks to explain how a dominant perspective or paradigm of explanation has sought to define and describe the phenomenon of secessionism. Secessionism is here understood as the tendency on the part of members of a certain group within a larger society sharing common history, religion, culture, aspirations, or nationalityâbased on any or all of the above including shared ethnicity or race and languageâto come together and maintain an identity separate from that of others within the same constitutional-legal framework.
This tendency is expressed politically when this group removesâor attempts to removeâitself from the exercise of sovereignty by a central authority and, correspondingly, when it succeeds in establishing a separate authority that asserts a claim to sovereignty over its members. At the first instance, the seceding group frees itself from any obligation to obey or, otherwise, conform with the laws and restrictions of the authorityârepresented by the constitutional order, including the coercive mechanismsâof the state from which the group is seceding. This secession presumes dissonance in the worldviewâor paradigm as the case may beâof those in state authority representing the established constitutional legal order. In Kuhnian terms, secession here represents an anomaly to the ânormalityâ that the formal-legal order represents but which it is failing to account for in its explanation. In the second instance, the seceding group, representing an insurgency to the dominant constitutional order and as a political movement, attempts to assert its own distinct identity no longer submerged within or subordinate to the previous order, and thus forges its own destiny and establishes its own order based on categories that recognize the new normality. (Kuhn).
As a means of understanding the political process, I submit that the paradigmatic approach offers promise, and this essay is a modest albeit novel attempt at application. Thomas S. Kuhn, admittedly, was concerned mainly with the growth of scientificârather than politicalâknowledge, e.g., the nature of the Copernican Revolution as a challenge to the then-dominant religion-friendly Ptolemaic view of the universe that put the earth at its center, justifying the power and the claims of the Christian Church but not for much longer. Once these claims were debunked consequent to this (Copernican) Revolution, according to Kuhn, a whole new orientation set in which not only contributed to the decline of universal ecclesiastical authority but also provided the conditions for the emergence of the secular state.
This essay does not pretend to explain the growth scientific knowledge as Kuhn has done in a pioneering way; rather, it suggests that parallel events happen in the growth of political knowledge which could not be assumed to be unaffected by, or unrelated to, controversies that characterize the growth of scientific knowledge. In explaining the growth of political knowledge, it is suggested here that a parallel if not complementary set of processes and outcomes may be found. Employing Kuhnâs original formulation about the growth of a dominant scientific paradigm, the role of practitioners sharing basic assumptions about how a problem is defined, the tools and methods used, and the solution eventually propounded, and the rise of what Kuhn described as an insurgent paradigm attesting to the dominant paradigmâs failure to explain an anomalous condition, leading to an accommodation of the insurgency if not altogether obsolescence or demise of the paradigm paving the way for a competing paradigm to hold sway over the production of knowledge with its apparently more coherent worldview and explanatory tools, all of these have beenâand areâcommonplace in the processes entailed in observing the birth and demise of paradigms that purport to explain the growth of political knowledge. In relating these processes, Kuhnâs conclusion is that the relationship between, within, and among paradigms and sub-paradigms, as means by which the growth of knowledge may be apprehended, is a revolutionaryârather than a cumulativeâone.
As a conscious and deliberate means of understanding the contemporary world as the one being attempted in this essay, the Kuhnian paradigmatic approach is anticipated to function as a potent explanatory tool. Notwithstanding criticisms that have been leveled against it, it is contended here that the fundamental underpinnings of the approach have remained sound and steadfast as Kuhn has endeavored to clarify himself in response to the initial criticisms and has incorporated much of the relevant ideas in subsequent editions of his book. The paradigmatic approach, in other words, properly understood and applied within its own terms, has much to offer not just to experts, including aspirant graduate students, but also to lay but critical observers of events to the extent that these terms are understood and applied with a degree of discipline and rigor. One does not have to agree with the assumptions or worldview of the practitioners of the paradigm(s) being examined; one just has to be able to apply Kuhnian categories in comprehending the rise, demise, or, otherwise, persistence of a paradigm and its underlying presuppositions with regard to a problem and the solutions thereto as articulated by its practitioners in their journals, textbooks, and professional conferences. In this context, it is easier to comprehend, for instance, the mutations and permutations of neoliberalism, capitalism, and classical liberalism; or, in another instance, those of neo-Marxism, evolutionary Marxism, and historical materialism, within their own respective terms. With that having been stated, it does not necessarily mean that the comprehension of the contemporary world is restricted to the worldview or presuppositions of the respective paradigms. To the contrary, the course of contemporary events is pretty much subject to the vicissitudes attending the competition among todayâs dominant competing paradigms, e.g., neoliberalism with its fundamentalist adherence to the primacy of the market subordinating politics, on the one hand, and historical materialism with its ardent critique of capitalism and its emphasis on value accumulation for private profit rather than for public good, on the other.
Caveat. This monograph will not so much delve directly into the empirical conditions that come to play in the process of secession. Since the advent of the modern state system, there had been numerous examples of attempts at secession, for the most part generated by endogenous factors but, in several significant cases, induced by exogenous elements or foreign actors. It is well to keep in mind that the modern state system was a product of the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. More significantly, however, it emerged in the wake of the European Enlightenment which provided an altogether new set of categories in defining the nature of society and progress along with the role of politics and the economy, now premised on the requirements of science and rationality. What emerged was a new paradigm which saw the modern state as the epitome of progress symbolizing the capacity for human organization and the predictability of social and political behavior guaranteed by the formal-legal laws. Further, this new paradigm rejected the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, represented by the doctrines of St. Augustine, which endeavored to reconcile faith and reason and confer upon Christian dogmas an air of scientificity all the while that the Christian Church played a dominant role in laying down the rules for social and political organization based on religious precepts. The rise of the modern stateâsecular in its orientation, formal-legal in its procedures, and popular in its pretensionsâput to rest any idea that the scholastic Church would ever be a serious contender to political power again.
As a further caveat, this monograph will deal with how the practitioners of the formalist paradigm describe, at the state level, these conditions, how they define secession itself as a problem in terms of it being seen not merely as a challenge to state authority but also as a threat to the legitimacy of the established constitutional order; and, how they (i.e., the practitioners) propose to solve it, all within the logic and context of their paradigm. In the process, this essay will attempt to reconstruct the formalist worldview largely in the Western intellectual and philosophical tradition with the end in mind of laying bare the practitionersâ fundamental presuppositions. Certain permutations of this worldview in the non-Western world, largely consequent to colonialism but also to the emergent United States (US) imperial hegemony after World War II, would also be examined and assessed. The emergence of the US as a hegemon after World War II but especially since the end of the Cold War has been accompanied by the establishment of trappings of legalism represented by the Charter of the United Nations (UN), the Geneva Conventions, the Charter of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and various other legally binding agreementsâboth bilateral and multilateral in natureâall suggesting the establishment of a global socioeconomic order but providing the foundation for a US-led and -dominated neoliberal globalization. It is in this context that analysis would necessarily extend beyond the problem of secessionism and into rise of revolutionary and popular movements in response to a variety of factors including persistent poverty and inequality, neocolonial rule, and ethnic strife. In these instances, practitioners of the formalist paradigm with a presumed concern for the viability and legitimacy of the international legal order, would necessarily view, in a general way, revolutionary and popular movements quite similarly to how secessionism is viewed, i.e., as potential threat to the international legal order. This is not to say that responses to these movements, as discussed below with appropriate examples, have been inflexible or uncompromising on the part of the guardians of the formal-legalist order. On the contrary, formal-legalist practitioners have shown a capacity to adapt and evolveâa manifestation of what Kuhn would regard as an emergent sub- or insurgent paradigmâas exemplified by the 1977 Protocols I and II of the Geneva Convention which offers de facto recognition to revolutionary organizations on the ground of their adherence to humanitarian rules in situations of civil conflicts; ordinarily, revolutionary organizations have been, and still are in many cases, regarded as bandit, outlaw, or subversive groups operating outside the bounds of law that should be eradicated. (Protocols I and II) Yet another manifestation of this flexibility is UN General Assembly Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations [2007]), overwhelmingly adopted in September 2007 and rejected only by four Western-oriented member states led by the US, including Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, all of which, needless to say, share very common settler-colonial histories. In objecting to this Declaration, Erin Hanson explains: âEach nation argued that the level of autonomy recognized for indigenous peoples in the [Declaration] was problematic and would undermine the sovereignty of their own states, particularly in the context of land disputes and natural resource extraction. Some governments claimed that the [Declaration] might override existing human rights obligations, even though the document itself explicitly gives precedence to international human rights (see Article 46). The [Declaration] may, however, provide guiding principles that national courts could use to judge a governmentâs actions in cases involving indigenous rightsâ (Hanson). While this Declaration admittedly is not a legally binding instrument of international law, the UN Press Office at the time issued a statement recognizing the Declarationâs significance in the ...