Phantom Referendums in Phantom States: Meaningless Farce or a Bridge to Reality?

Abstract

This study examines the widespread use of referendums in entities that have declared statehood unilaterally but are not generally recognized or accepted as sovereign entities. Referendums in this situation pose a problem: to the voters, they are sufficiently a meaningful political process to warrant participation. Yet, to outsiders—including actors who may have large influence over whether the referendum's political goal can be implemented—the entire process may be meaningless. This article argues that the referendum process is not meaningless but symbolic: It fills the space between actual and desired political reality for the entities who vote. Drawing on referendum experiences in seven phantom states, the research shows that the referendums play a critical role in articulating political intentions, staking out a self-determination or sovereignty claim, displaying democratic legitimacy and forging international divisions and coalitions. Even not holding a referendum has a symbolic meaning regarding the political goals of an incomplete entity. I argue that not only can referendums signal these meanings but they can contribute to making political goals increasingly real.

Notes

1. Scholars even fail to agree on a single term for them. Pegg (1998) and Bahcheli, Bartmann and Srebrnik (2004) call them de facto states; Lynch uses “separatist states” (2004). The term “quasi states” had been coined by Robert Jackson (1990) for the opposite phenomenon of recognized entities lacking in empirical qualities of sovereignty, Kolstø (2006) argues that the same term should be used for unrecognized entities instead. Geldenhuys (2009) uses “contested states,” and Caspersen prefers “unrecognized states” (2011a, 2011b, and 2008). See notes 5, 6, 8, 30, 49, 64, 79.

2. See discussion by James Harvey and Gareth Stansfield, “Theorizing Unrecognized States,” in Nina Caspersen and Gareth Stansfield, eds., Unrecognized States in the International System (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 11–26.

3. I leave out Western Sahara, although Geldenhuys includes it, because with a government in exile and even less in control of its territory than Palestine—itself a borderline case as will be described toward the end of this article—it does not meet sufficient criteria of statehood to be included. See Deon Geldenhuys, Contested States in World Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), Ch. 9.

4. The term “phantom state” has been used previously. The earliest use I have found is Tim Judah's 2002 reference to Kosovo's state-building efforts during the 1990s. Geldenhuys used the term in passing in his chapter on Palestine (2009). Charles King wrote an op ed about “phantom republics” in 2006, and more recently, Daniel Byman and Charles King wrote about the notion encompassing the same examples provided here, as an op ed in the New York Times, Aug. 2011. See: Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), Ch. 2; Geldenhuys, Contested States, 155; Charles King, “Bring the Phantom Republics in from the Cold,” International Herald Tribune, 14 Sept., 2006; Daniel L. Byman and Charles King, “The Phantom Menace,” New York Times, 15 Aug., 2011.

5. Stacy Closson, “What Do Unrecognized States Tell Us About Sovereignty?” in Nina Caspersen and Gareth Stansfield, eds., Unrecognized States in the International System (US and Canada: Routledge, 2011), 66.

6. Dov Lynch, Engaging Eurasia's Separatist States: Unresolved Conflicts and de Facto States (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2004), Ch. 3.

7. Pal Kolstø, “The Sustainability and Future of Unrecognized Quasi-States,” Journal of Peace Research 43(3): 723–40 (2006).

8. Nina Caspersen, “Democracy, Nationalism and (Lack Of) Sovereignty: The Complex Dynamics of Democratization in Unrecognized States,” Nations and Nationalism 17(2): 344 (2011).

9. Stuart Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).

10. Suksi points out that because the term “referendum” is derived from, but does not, appear in Latin, it need not take the Latin ending “a” for plural, and therefore “referendums” will be used here. Markku Suksi, Bringing in the People: A Comparison of Constitutional Forms and Practices of the Referendum (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993), 10.

11. Gary Sussman, “When the Demos Shapes the Polis—The Use of Referendums in Settling Sovereignty Issue,” (Unpublished Manuscript, London School of Economics).

12. Ibid., 6.

13. Ibid., 8.

14. Philip Goodhard, “Referendums and Separatism I,” in Austin Ranney, ed., The Referendum Device (Washington and London: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1981), 141. In the next chapter, Vernon Bogdanor elaborates that the referendum can indeed be an effective method of settling separatist claims, in an agreed way—it is precisely that latter description that is missing in the equation of phantom states, putting this kind of referendum into a different category.

15. Patrik Johansson, “Putting Peace to the Vote: Displaced Persons and a Future Referendum on Nagorno-Karabakh,” Refugee Survey Quarterly 2(1): 122–39 (2009).

16. Suksi, Bringing in the People, 248.

17. Ibid., 253–68.

18. Ibid., 16.

19. Kolsto, “The Sustainability and Future of Unrecognized Quasi-States,” 724.

20. James Harvey and Gareth Stansfield, “Theorizing Unrecognized States,” in Nina Caspersen and Gareth Stansfield, eds., Unrecognized States in the International System (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 11–26.

21. Closson, “What do Unrecognized States,” 64, 66.

22. Somaliland is the exception, having been a recognized independent state for a few days following independence. Even in this case, however, 30 years elapsed between the last (brief) moments of independence and the renewed claim in 1991.

23. Thomas De Waal, Black Garden (New York and London: New York University Press, 2003), 16.

24. Alexei Zverev, “Ethnic Conflicts in the Caucasus 1988–1994,” in Bruno Coppieters, ed., Contested Borders in the Caucasus (Brussels: VUB University Press, 1996); Kaufman, Modern Hatreds. 60.

25. De Waal refers to it incredulously, noting that the petition was billed as a “referendum”; his quotation marks indicate the diverging perspectives on fact and realities among different parties even at this early stage. Stuart Kaufman notes that there were two petitions, totalling 111,000 signatures, or more than one quarter of all Armenians in the region; Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 60.

26. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 63.

27. De Waal, Black Garden, 292.

28. US NK office Web site: http://www.nkrusa.org/nk_conflict/declaration_independence.shtml (accessed 6 Feb. 2012).

29. Tim Potier, Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia (The Hague, Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 2001).

30. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Transnistria (accessed 28 Oct. 2011).

31. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 148.

32. Steven D. Roper, “From Frozen Conflict to Frozen Agreement: The Unrecognized State of Transnistria,” in Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartmann, and Henry Srebrnik, eds., De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereignty: Unrecognized States in the International System (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 107. According to Kolossov, the turnout was 85% and while he cites the results as exceeding 90%, he does not specify if the referendum was held only in Tiraspol or throughout the East Bank area. Vladimir Kolossov, “Ethnic and political identities and territorialities in the post-Soviet space,” GeoJournal 48: 73 (1999).

33. Stuart Kaufman “Spiraling to Ethnic War: Elites, Masses, and Moscow in Moldova's Civil War,” International Security 21(2): 108–38, 128 (1996).

34. Ibid., 128.

35. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 151.

36. As if to prove that the end goal was equality within a sovereign Cyprus, the letter of explanation provided by Denktas stressed that there would be no attempt to unite with any other state. M. Zaim Necatigil, The Cyprus Question and the Turkish Position in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 174.

37. Neophytos G. Loizides, “Ethnic Nationalism and Adaptation,” International Studies Perspectives 8:172–189 (2007a).

38. Bahcheli et al., 166.

39. UN Security Council, “The Situation in Cyprus,” Maintenance of International Peace and Security (Part II, circa 1975) http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/75-80/Chapter%208/75-80_08-2-Cyprus.pdf (accessed 28 Oct. 2011).

40. Ibid., 132.

41. Necatigil, The Cyprus Question, 89.

42. UN papers, “The Situation in Cyprus,” 132; the referendum also highlighted gaps between rhetoric expressed by Turkey's leadership and Turkish Cyprus’ behavior.

43. UN papers, “The Situation in Cyprus,” 132.

44. Reuters, “Turkish-Cypriote Charter Overwhemingly Approved,” New York Times, 9 June 1975.

45. These included “renaming of settlements, use of buildings, construction of monuments, display of slogans”; Russell King and Sarah Ladbury, “The Cultural Reconstruction of Political Reality: Greek and Turkish Cyprus Since 1974,” Anthropological Quarterly 55(1): 4 (1982).

46. King and Ladbury, “The Cultural Reconstruction, 4.

47. Ibid., 10.

48. For example, the UN resolution did not prevent states from eventually recognizing the entity despite a recent precedent. Necatigil cites the Southern Rhodesia unilateral declaration of independence from 1965 in this context; Necatigil, The Cyprus Question, 90.

49. Ibid., 91.

50. Ibid., 279.

51. For a concise summary, see Robert Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 75–77.

52. Julie A. Mertus, How Myths and Truths Started a War (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1999), 19.

53. Vjeran Pavlakovic and Sabrina Petra Ramet, “Albanian and Serb Rivalry in Kosovo,” in Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartman, and Henry Srebrnik (eds.), De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereignty: Unrecognized States in the International System (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 83. Mertus uses the exact same term, “zenith,” to describe this period; Ibid., 18.

54. Weller clarifies that “Contrary to the writings of some, the autonomous status of Kosovo was not formally abolished altogether. However…the powers of the province were now entirely subordinated to those of Serbia”; Marc Weller, Contested Statehood: Kosovo's Struggle for Independence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 38.

55. Hajredin Kuci, “The Legal and Political Grounds for, and the Influence of the Actual Situation, on, the Demand of the Albanians of Kosovo for Independence,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 80: 342 (2005).

56. Joseph Marko, “Kosovo/a – A Gordian Knot,” in Joseph Marko, ed., Kosovo – Gordischer Knoten – Kosovo/a? Durchschlagen oder Endwillen (Baden Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1999), 261–80, http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:qdvELStmjiwJ:scholar.google.com/±kosovo±referendum±1991&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 (accessed 20 Oct. 2011).

57. Aleksander Pavkovic, “A Reconciliation Model for the Former Yugoslavia,” Peace Review 12(1): 106 (2000).

58. Arguably, the last people to be granted recognized statehood on the basis of a self-determination claim largely grounded in near-destruction was the establishment of Israel. And even in that case, the claim was bolstered by the fact that the Jewish people had no other nation state representing them.

59. Eurasianet.org, “South Ossetia Holds Independence Referendum,” 11 November 2006 http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp111206.shtml (accessed 10 Oct. 2011). Ironically, ethnic Georgians in S. Ossetia rejected the vote and decided to hold their own alternative vote.

60. Vince Crawley, “U.S. Rejects Independence Referendum in Georgia's South Ossetia,” Washington File 9 (November), (2006). http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/November/20061109165249MVyelwarC0.5890009.html#ixzz1ZNVFQQcs (accessed 6 Feb. 2012).

61. Vladimir Socor, “Moscow's Fingerprints all over South Ossetia's Referendum,” Eurasia Daily Monitor 3(212), (2006). http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=3223 8 (accessed 6 Feb. 2012).

62. At that time authorities reported 97% turnout and 99.75% support for secession and—at the time—accession to the Russian federation. Vladimir Socor, “Moscow's Fingerprints.”

63. Socor, “Moscow's Fingerprints.” With subtle wit, Socor implies that Russia's involvement generates not only a divide between countries, but between different understandings of democracy and political systems today: “Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes it as a ‘free expression of the will of South Ossetia's people through democratic procedures.’ It claims, ‘Many countries in Europe and America could only envy the level of organization and democratic transparency’ in South Ossetia. And it insists that it must be taken into account internationally as indicating ‘the people's freely expressed choice.’ The latter thesis is becoming a central one in Moscow's position, reflecting Russia's own understanding of democracy” (para. 9).

64. Sergei Blagov, “South Ossetia referendum plans raises temperatures in the Caucasus,” UNHCR, REfWorld, 18 (Sept., 2006), http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,EURASIANET,,GEO,,46a485291e,0.html (accessed 6 Feb. 2012).

65. Constitution of Abkhazia, http://www.mfaabkhazia.net/en/constitution (accessed 6 Feb. 2012).

66. Deon Geldenhuys, Contested States in World Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 74.

67. Edward Mihalkanin, “The Abkhazians: A National Minority in Their Own Homeland” in Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartman, and Henry Srebrink, eds., De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereight: Unrecognized States in the International System (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 152.

68. Secretary General, Right of Peoples to Self-Determination (Geneva, Switzerland: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 24 July, 2003), http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/%28Symbol%29/A.58.180.En?Opendocument (accessed 6 Feb. 2012).

69. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG), “Report,” Vol. I (Aug. 2009).

70. Greek Cyprus was seen as having an unfair advantage of international legitimacy, which it leveraged to win UN resolutions condemning the Turkish side and imposing the international economic boycott. This was the Turkish leadership's way of asserting their presence internationally. Tozun Bahcheli, “Under Turkey's Wings: The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus: The Struggle for International Independence,” in Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartman, and Henry Srebrink, eds., De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereignty: Unrecognized States in the International System (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 170.

71. TRNC 1985 Constitution, quoted in Murat Metin Hakki, ed., The Cyprus Issue: A Documentary History, 1978–2007 (London and New York: I. B. Tauris & Co., Ltd., 2007), 201.

72. Farid Mirbagheri, Cyprus and International Peacemaking (London: Hurst and Company, 1998), 137.

73. Necatigil, The Cyprus Question, 258–59.

74. Noephytos G. Loizides, “Ethnic Nationalism and Adaptation in Cyprus,” International Studies Perspectives 8: 177 (2007).

75. Mirbagheri, Cyprus and International Peacemaking, 137.

76. United Nations. Yearbook of the United Nations, 1985. United Nations Staff, Department of Public Information, 1985. P. 253.

77. Associated Press, “AROUND THE WORLD; Turkish Cpyriots vote for a new constitution,” New York Time, 6 May 1985.

78. Mirbagheri, Cyprus and International Peacemaking, 137.

79. Hannes Lacher and Erol Kaymak, “Transforming Identities: Beyond the Politics of Non-Settlement in North Cyprus,” Mediterranean Politics 10(2): 147–66 (2005).

80. General Assembly, 29th session, 2296 plenary, 22 Nov. 1974, http://www.undemocracy.com/A-RES-3236%28XXIX%29.pdf; UNGA 43/176, 82nd Plenary, 15 Dec. 1988, http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/531/56/IMG/NR053156.pdf?OpenElement (accessed 20 Oct. 2011).

81. Nina Caspersen, “Separatism and Democracy in the Caucasus,” Survival 50(4): 113–36 (2008).

82. Nina Caspersen, “Democracy, Nationalism,” 344.

83. David Butler and Austin Ranney, “Theory,” in David Butler and Austin Ranney, eds., Referendums Around the World: The Growing Use of Direct Democracy (Washington, DC: Macmillan, 1994), 12.

84. Caspersen, “Democracy, Nationalism,” 342.

85. Nagorno Karabakh official Web site http://www.nkrusa.org/ (accessed 6 Feb. 2012).

86. Conversation with Deputy Foreign Minister of NK, 16 Sept. 2009.

87. News reports, “Constitutional Referendum: Constitution Affirming Independence Overwhelmingly Passes in Nagorno Karabakh,” Voice of America News, 11 Dec. 2006; “Constitutional Referendum: Karabakh Defends New Constitution,” Institute for War and Peace Reporting UK, 4 Dec. 2006.

88. Zoe Powell, “Constitutional Referendum: Nagorno-Karabakh Gains a Constitution, but Little Clarity for Future,” Eurasia Net, 12 Dec. 2006 http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav121206.shtml (accessed 6 Feb. 2012).

89. Caspersen, “Separatism and Democracy,” 15.

90. Necatigil, The Cyprus Question, 258–59

91. Conversation with the author, 16 Sept. 2009.

92. Henry Srebrnik, “Somaliland in the Making,” in Bahcheli et al., eds., (2004), 212.

93. International Crisis Group, “Democracy and its Discontents,” 2003, http://www.somali-jna.org/downloads/ICG%20on%20Somaliland.pdf (accessed 6 Feb. 2012). Dualeh writes that 80% rejected the vote, out of those Somalilanders who participated. Hussein Ali Dualeh, Search for a New Somali Identity (Kenya: Dualeh, 2002), 74.

94. See Hussein M. Adam, “Formation and Recognition of New States: Somaliland in Contrast to Eritrea,” Review of African Political Economy 59: 21–38 (1994); David H. Shinn, “Somaliland: The Little Country that Could,” in Africa Notes, vol. 9 (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS], 2002); CSIS argue that secession was definitely one of the goals; for the opposing view: Dualeh, Search for a New Somali Identity, 57; Ioan M. Lewis, The Modern History of Somaliland: From Nation to State (New York and Washington: Praeger, 1965).

95. Lewis, The Modern History of Somaliland, 172; Dualeh, Search for a New Somali Identity, 48–53; ICG, “Democracy and its Discontents,” 6.

96. Mark Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland (London: Progressio, 2008), 128.

97. Ibid., 132.

98. Ibid., 133.

99. Shinn, “Somaliland,” 2.

100. Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 135.

101. Henry E. Brady and Cynthia S. Kaplan, “Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union,” in David Butler and Austin Ranney, Eds., Referendums Around the World: The Growing Use of Direct Democracy (Washington, DC: Macmillan, 1994), p. 210.

102. Geldenhuys, p. 155.

103. The main problem with elections in the Palestinian territories has been their erratic nature, but the processes in 1996 and 2006 were both internationally monitored and considered fair. See: National Democratic Institute, Final Report on the Palestinian Legislative Council Elections, Washington D.C., National Democracy Institute, January 25, 2006.

104. At least since the Oslo accords, every Israeli leader has implicitly accepted the notion of a Palestinian state; in 2003, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made this recognition explicit in a speech: “It is not in our interest to govern you. We would like you to govern yourselves in your own country.” Ariel Sharon, Address by PM Ariel Sharon at the Fourth Herzliya Conference - Dec 18- 2003, Israel Foreign Ministry Website, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches+by+Israeli+leaders/2003/Address+by+PM+Ariel+Sharon+at+the+Fourth+Herzliya.htm (accessed 7 Feb. 2012).

105. Brady and Kaplan, 210.

106. See Shamir and Shikaki's discussion of this concept and the constraints of public opinion, in Jacob Shamir and Khalil Shikaki, Palestinian and Israeli Public Opinion: the Public Imperative in the Second Intifada (Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2010), Chapter 3.