The de facto Sovereignty of Unrecognised States: Towards a Classical Realist Perspective?

Abstract

Scholarship of unrecognised states tends to emphasise differences between de jure and de facto sovereignty. However, such research generally lacks a clear theoretical grounding for what defines de facto sovereignty, and paradoxically appears reluctant to abandon non-material notions of this concept. Therefore, this article proposes a classical realist conception of de facto sovereignty as a helpful contribution to studies of unrecognised states, regarding it as the ‘real’ act of supreme and absolute power that fully politically separates one political entity from another. To illustrate this claim, this article focuses on the emergence and demise of the early-1990s Kosovar ‘parallel state’.

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to Dr. Jeremy Moses for his valuable insights, and to the very worthwhile comments by three anonymous reviewers.

ORCID

Lucas Knotter http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0196-0487

Notes

1 These polities have been defined as ‘separatist entities that display trappings of statehood but lack universal recognition’ (Florea, 2014, p. 789) or as ‘entities that fulfil the Montevideo criteria for statehood but lack international recognition’ (Toomla, 2016, p. 331). In a similar way, this article concisely refers to these entities as ‘unrecognised states’ (Caspersen, 2012). For other labels, see also Bahcheli et al. (2004), Caspersen and Stansfield (2011), Geldenhuys (2009), Kingston and Spears (2004), Kolossov, O’Loughlin, and Newman (1999), Kolstø (2006), Krasniqi (2018), and McConnell (2010).

2 See, for instance, Agnew (2005), Biersteker and Weber (1996), Hansen and Stepputat (2005a), Jackson (2004), Jackson (2007), Krasner (1999), Reus-Smit (1999, 2001), Weber (1995).

3 For an insightful, though critical, outline of Hobbes's articulation of this argument, see Hampton (1986, 104).

4 This distinction between relational power and absolute de facto sovereignty is in fact affirmed in Edkins and Pin-Fat’s (2005) engagement with Foucault's and Agamben's theories of power and resistance. Presenting (de facto) sovereign power as ‘a relationship of violence’, they differentiate it from power relationships that are ‘invariably accompanied by resistance’ (pp. 23–24).

5 Somaliland might tentatively be seen as an example of an unrecognised states that ‘decides on its own exception’ from Somalia.

6 See, among others, Buchanan (2004), Keating (2001), Lapidoth (1997), Lijphart (2004), and Weller and Wolff (2005).

7 For more detail on the historical origins of ethnic conflict in Kosovo, see Duijzings (2000), Gagnon (2004), Judah (2000, 2008), Mertus (1999), Malcolm (1998), Vickers (1998).

8 See also popular newspaper editor Veton Surroi, as cited in Borden (1999a), and LDK vice-president Fehmi Agani, as cited in Borden (1999b).

9 This issue was, in fact, conspicuously ignored in the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion on the legality of Kosovo's formal Declaration of Independence on February 17^th 2008. For an insightful analysis of this omission, see (Moses, 2014, pp. 132–136).

10 For analyses of attempts by non-violent movements to challenge state authoritarianism and foster a form of political independence, see Chenoweth and Stephan (2011), Gallagher Cunningham (2013), Schock (2005), Zunes (1994).