The ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops bring together political scientists with shared interests to develop their research in an intimate, focused setting. It is a unique platform for political science scholars worldwide to come together for several days of intense discussion, feedback and collaboration.

The SovereignPerformance project participates in the Joint Sessions through the workshop Self-Determination and Democratic Backsliding: New Directions in the Study of Secession and Minority Protection (chaired by Marc Sanjaume-Calvet and Bart Klem).

Abstract

In an era of democratic backsliding and rising majority nationalism, struggles over self-determination, autonomy, and secession have regained urgency. The study of self-determination and secession remains vibrant but fragmented, leaving important gaps in theory and practice. While there has been a proliferation of work across political science, international relations, political anthropology, political geography, and international law, these strands often remain siloed. Normative theorists debate the legitimacy of secession while empirical researchers track movements on the ground, but conversations between them are rare. Similarly, studies of Western democratic independence movements are seldom brought into dialogue with work on de facto states or separatist insurgencies elsewhere. This fragmentation limits the field’s capacity to explain why struggles emerge, how they evolve, and what outcomes they produce. At the same time, the global context is shifting. Democratic backsliding, authoritarian retrenchment, and resurgent nationalism intensify pressures on minority groups, producing new forms of contestation. Movements today must navigate both domestic repression and international politics, balancing territorial effectiveness with recognition while often negotiating layered autonomy arrangements. These dynamics demand fresh theoretical and comparative insights that cut across regions, methods, and disciplinary traditions.

The workshop will include the following presentations:

Luc Turgeon & Martin Papillon – Discursive opportunities, citizenship regime and the production of national identity in Quebec
Diego Muro – Defending Unity in a Time of Democratic Backsliding: The State as Counter-Secessionist Actor
Elisenda Casanas Adam – Human Rights as national identity and a step towards independence: The Scottish response to the UK Government’s attempt to erode the human rights framework
Lea Zuliani – Territorial Autonomy as Symbolic Homeland in the Kachin Conflict
Gaelle Le Pavic – Shifting Translocational Positionalities in Contested States: Ukrainians in Transnistria and Georgians in Abkhazia before and after Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine
Francesco Colin – Life after the Procés: evolving repertoires of separatist civil society across critical junctures
Demet Arpacik – Schooling against Hegemony and towards Self-Determination: Dibistanên Azad [Free Schools]