Foulweather Friends: Violence and Third Party Support in Self-Determination Conflicts

• Date: 01 July 2021
• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: R. Joseph Huddleston
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002721993226
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Foulweather Friends:

Violence and Third Party

Support in Self-

Determination Conflicts

R. Joseph Huddleston

1

Abstract

This paper investigates how violence in self-determination conflicts influences

bilateral foreign policy. I argue that a general preference for international stability

causes third parties to support self-determination groups when violence reaches

high levels, when they gain territorial control, and when major powers officially

recognize. In these conditions, third parties perceive a stable new status quo to be

nigh: unrecognized statehood. Ongoing instability encourages foreign policy that

encourages the development of the de facto state, even when third parties have no

intention of recognizing them as states. Importantly, I also show that targeting

civilians erodes third-party support of the perpetrating side. I demonstrate these

relationships using a latent variable model of international sovereignty of aspiring

states, built on bilateral military, diplomatic, and economic exchange data. My model

and tests provide new insight into how aspiring state actors become increasingly

eligible for recognition through the tacit support of third-party states.

Keywords

secession, self-determination, separatism, recognition, civil war, sovereignty, foreign

policy, intervention, rebel diplomacy, rebel governance, legitimacy, latent variable

model

1

School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

R. Joseph Huddleston, School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, 400 S

Orange Ave, McQuaid Hall, South Orange, NJ 07079, USA.

Email: joseph.huddleston@shu.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2021, Vol. 65(6) 1187-1214

ªThe Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0022002721993226

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Half Measures

The United Kingdom government has forged a “working relationship” with Somali-

land’s government to improve security in the Horn of Africa (EABW 2020). It has

committed to massive spending on infrastructure in Somaliland, including funding

for roads and water systems (African Review 2019) and critical road infrastructure to

improve access to Berbera’s port (GCR 2020). It has also long provided funding

toward Somaliland’s electoral institutions (Bryden 2004). UK spokespersons have

publicly emphasized that their government “is committed to supporting the people of

Somaliland” (African Review 2019). The United States’ relationship with the Kurd-

ish Regional Government (KRG) works similarly, training and aiding the Kurdish

military (McCleary 2017; Tomson 2017), funding nonmilitary Kurdish aid projects

(KRG 2012), and even hosting the Kurdish president (White House Archives 2005).

Many states have similar engagements with both Somaliland and Kurdish authori-

ties, and similar channels of diplomacy, even establishing consulates in Erbil (Caryl

2015) and Hargeisa (Somaliland Sun 2018). Still, despite these long-running rela-

tionships, the official positions of the US and UK governments—and in fact, of

every other state—is that there is no sovereign Kurdish state and no sovereign

Somaliland.

It is puzzling that third parties should support aspiring states to this extent,

abetting the development of so many trappings of the modern state—civilian infra-

structure, professional mi litaries, permanent channe ls of diplomatic exchange—

while remaining steadfast in a policy of nonrecognition. Yet, this is hardly the only

case of this contradiction. Third parties routinely send military and civilian aid to

separatists, support them on the floor of the UN General Assembly, and levy sanc-

tions against their opposing governments. However, recognition is exceedingly rare.

Thus, although these conflicts may result in the de facto cleft of the state—the loss of

territorial control of the central government—there it remains, in the no man’s land

of unrecognized statehood.

Self-determination movements are, as Callahan put it, “among the most important

factors driving international politics,” (2002, 11) a predominant source of global

instability to this day. With nationalist parties on the rise across the globe, there is

little reason to expect any decrease in the salience of self-determination any time

soon. Studying the effects third parties have on these conflicts persists as a crucial

research agenda. However, we have an imperfect understanding about the aims of

states that tacitly recognize the sovereignty of self-determination groups without

conferring diplomatic recognition.

This paper addresses this gap, broadly exploring the other foreign policy deci-

sions states make toward these conflicts—military aid, sanctions, IGO voting, and

other bilateral decisions. I expand on prior theories utilizing stability-seeking beha-

viors as an explanation of third-party support (Paquin 2010; Saideman 2001). I argue

that even as they oppose the official entry of new states into the system, states still

distinguish between self-determination groups in predictable ways. A persistent

1188 Journal of Conflict Resolution 65(6)