Continuous recognition: A latent variable approach to measuring international sovereignty of self-determination movements

Abstract

How do self-determination groups move toward diplomatic recognition? Although recognition is the dominant activity used to understand international sovereignty, it is perhaps the most costly decision states make towards these groups. Third parties have many substantial interactions with aspiring states, building their sovereignty by other important means. I argue that our understanding of international sovereignty can be improved by conceptualizing it as a dynamic, continuous process, reflected in foreign policy decisions short of the legal recognition. I create a Bayesian latent variable model of international sovereignty, using bilateral data on diplomatic exchange, IGO voting, sanctions, military aid, and intervention in separatist conflicts. Complementing prior work on international sovereignty, my measure provides support for important theoretical expectations previously explored using only recognition as a measure of sovereignty. I find that diplomatic recognition, extant violence, separatist victory, and sour third-party–incumbent relations positively impact latent sovereignty of separatists, while concern for precedent negatively impacts it.

Keywords

civil war foreign policy intervention latent variable model legitimacy rebel diplomacy secession self-determination separatism sovereignty

Reconsidering recognition

The United States government trains Kurdish soldiers (Tomson, 2017), gives aid to the Kurdish military (McCleary, 2017), consults the Kurdish government (Cook, 2016), funds Kurdish non-military aid projects (KRG, 2012), and hosts hundreds of meetings with Kurdish officials every year (Huddleston, 2019). Many other states interact with Kurdish authorities in the same way. These actions advance and sustain the de facto sovereignty of the Kurdish government over that territory, even while the same governments make no moves to recognize it as a new member of the international state system. States treat de facto and de jure sovereignty of aspiring states as separate problems altogether. As they bolster the aspiring state’s ability to fight and govern, they may be building the case for that state’s ‘eligibility’ for recognition, but legal recognition is still a distinct political calculation.

Scholars have striven to understand the problem of state emergence at nearly every step of the process: the origins of and formation of nationalist movements (Gellner, 1983; Anderson, 1991); the justification of separatist claims (Wellman, 2010; Buchanan, 1998; Moore, 2010); the difficulties of weakening the existing governments’ claims on a territory and establishing support for separation or secession (Kolstø, 2006; Jenne, Saideman & Lowe, 2007; Roeder, 2007; Hale, 2008; Siroky, 2009; Carment & James, 1995; Cunningham, 2014); and the complications of building a case for international sovereignty (Krasner, 1999; Fabry, 2010; Coggins, 2014; Sterio, 2013; Buzard, Graham & Horne, 2017). And some have examined the circumstances under which groups aspiring to statehood have managed to secure the final passage into the club (Krasner, 1999; Coggins, 2014; Griffiths, 2016; Paquin, 2010).

However, a substantial problem has been that an aspiring state’s ‘official’ international status often does not reflect how politics operates on the ground. The field’s response has been to develop a taxonomy of partial states (Berg & Vits, 2018; Caspersen, 2018; Ker-Lindsay, 2018; Closson, 2011; Harvey & Stansfield, 2011). Here it has been common to distinguish degrees by focusing on diplomatic recognition as the primary indicator of international sovereignty.

Sovereignty is an unwieldy, tangled concept. Recognition – a discrete, legal concept – is a sensible conceptualization. However, external engagement – without recognition – builds up aspiring state eligibility for recognition in theoretically meaningful ways. Third parties to these conflicts make important diplomatic, military, and economic decisions that can indicate favorable (or unfavorable) stances towards each aspiring state, contribute to the process of increasing (or decreasing) aspiring states’ chances of diplomatic recognition. Systematically examining these lesser forms of support can both complement and validate our current understanding of sovereignty.

In this article, I propose a framework to do just that. I expand on the concept of sovereignty found in Krasner (1999), Coggins (2014), and Fabry (2010). I explain the case for conceptualizing international sovereignty as stemming from a continuous process, rather than a discrete foreign policy decision. I develop a latent variable model of international sovereignty and revisit some key questions that have thus far been explored only through examining diplomatic recognition. I compare the performance of this model with that of tests based on official recognition in prior literature. My model provides a useful complement and check on prior work examining legal recognition.

The sovereignty continuum

International recognition of states has emerged as an important issue in recent work in IR, in part due to the increasing prevalence of substate groups asserting claims of self-determination. On top of Krasner’s classic conceptualization of international sovereignty as a pattern of ‘organized hypocrisy’ (Krasner, 1999), recent years have seen some excellent works demonstrating the role large and influential states play in the process of creating new states (Sterio, 2013; Coggins, 2014; Griffiths, 2016). Coggins (2011, 2014) takes official recognition and final entry into the state system as her dependent variables of interest, studying the conditions under which the major powers extend official recognition to new states. She tests the effect of great power diplomatic recognition on final entry of aspiring states, finding that the most influential states have de facto control over the membership of the state system. Additionally, these works share Krasner’s argument that states officially recognize such groups when it benefits them materially or diplomatically. They also share Krasner’s assertion that diplomatic recognition is the primary meaningful conceptualization and reflection of international legal sovereignty.

Official recognition might be the most costly policy position that third-party states take towards self-determination groups; it necessarily entails escalating opposition to the claim of the incumbent state, which may be ally or enemy, and is already a universally recognized member of the system. However, only some movements become eligible for recognition, and there are other foreign policy decisions that advance the cause of an aspiring state. For example, because it is easier for third parties to recognize an aspiring state when it has already been recognized by the incumbent state, a third party may pressure the incumbent state into holding a binding independence referendum. US sanctions against Sudan served such a purpose in 2010 (Al-Jazeera, 2010). In a sense, official recognition might be best characterized as the last domino to fall in the foreign policy process precipitating the emergence of new states. A broad range of other activities may come beforehand. While a healthy literature discussing states’ ‘engagement without recognition’ with aspiring states has recently developed (Cooley & Mitchell, 2010; Ker-Lindsay, 2018; Kyris, 2018; Caspersen, 2018; Kaplan, 2019), there have been no attempts to systematically measure, estimate, and compare this engagement.

Most literature on international sovereignty has tended to focus only on the foreign policy decisions of large actors, the major powers. Coggins (2014) and Ker-Lindsay (2014) focus on how certain major players, especially the USA and Russia, make decisions on international recognition. Paquin’s (2010) thorough case study analyzes US policy towards six secessionist groups, with some attention paid to other international actors influencing the process. These authors argue that major powers have the most external influence on the success of these movements in gaining statehood. This is the tendency throughout much of the foreign policy analysis literature on a variety of policy arenas. Scholars tend to focus on the major powers, especially Western powers, and build theory on a handful of cases. This project bucks that trend, taking smaller and medium sized

Figure 1.

Third-party policy towards aspiring states falls along a continuum

Figure 2.

Location and directional assumption of prominent recognition research

powers’ stances towards these movements as relevant to the question of international sovereignty. One of the reasons unrecognized states – like Somaliland – are able to exist in perpetuity is that neighboring small states support and maintain a new status quo, and states of all sizes support them in IGO, economic, or military actions. To fully consider the whole spectrum of foreign policy stances toward self-determination movements requires consideration of the universe of potential recognizers. The measure expounded later makes this possible in a manner that, to my knowledge, has not been attempted before.

To augment the concept formation regarding recognition of movements as new states, I conceptualize third-party states as moving along a continuum of favorability towards self-determination movements. At the far left of the continuum, a third party considers a movement for self-determination to be subversive to the ruling government and illegitimate internationally, perhaps granting them the label ‘terrorist’ or ‘rebellion’. At the far right of the spectrum lies recognition of the movement as a new legitimate state in the international system, a member of the club of about 193 countries with near universal recognition as self-governing. Between the two ends exist multiple positions a third-party state may take regarding a self-determination movement, as well as those towards the ruling government against which separatists stake their claims. Figure 1 illustrates a rough order of the positions third-party states may take towards aspiring states.

The positions of third parties fall along this continuum, and changing positions can be characterized as movements back and forth. For the purposes of this article, only the two ends of the spectrum and the central point might be considered settled, though I have tried to organize these positions with an intuitive order through examples of degrees. Still, it is possible to describe cases with a different order. This continuum of international sovereignty makes it easier to position the scope of the rest of this article in the context of prior work on recognition, as seen in Figure 2. By illustrating prior work in this way, it becomes clear that the scope of their answers may be limited.

Conceiving of international sovereignty in this way places currently recognized states and separatist groups on equal footing (albeit at different points along the spectrum), at least in the eyes of third-party recognizers. Since an established state is simply at the right end of the continuum of possible statuses a group can take on, it differs only in its relative position. That position has some very real privileges at the international level – Fazal & Griffiths (2014) point to IGO membership, improved international security, and financial benefits – and recognizing states know successful movements will be qualified for those. However, positions on this spectrum short of fully recognized states can still foster close ties with third parties and accrue many of the benefits of statehood without that title, so reluctantly given. One would be hard pressed to make a strong case that Taiwan would fundamentally change in its domestic structure and international relations if it garnered universal recognition.

For state positions on this continuum to make sense, they must also be conceived of as bidirectional (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

International sovereignty can be conceived of as bidirectional

Figure 4.

Third-party diplomatic recognition and derecognition of Western Sahara

With changing political circumstances, material needs, and opportunities, states move back and forth along this spectrum. The idea of the granting of international sovereignty as something ‘irrevocable’,¹ while intuitive, does not seem to work in the real international environment.

Briefly consider the Western Saharan case. The years leading up to the 1991 ceasefire saw 75 sovereign nations extend recognition to an independent Western Sahara governed by the Sahrawi Republic (USC, 2020), including prominent governments like Mexico and India. Since the 1991 ceasefire, violence has waned and the conflict has lost international coverage, and the Sahrawi Republic has witnessed an unusual trend, illustrated in Figure 4. While nine states have newly recognized the Sahrawi Republic, 38 states have withdrawn, frozen, or suspended diplomatic recognition (or lesser relations) (USC, 2020).

A model of sovereignty sensitive to this kind of fluctuation in support would allow new questions to be explored. For example, do the modes of operation identified by prominent scholars on international sovereignty (Krasner, 1999; Coggins, 2011; Sterio, 2013) apply to cases that are further left on the continuum? Second, do states make decisions in the same way if they are moving towards the left vis-à-vis current and aspiring states, delegitimizing their bases for claims of sovereignty?

Developing a new measure

Treating international sovereignty as a continuous dimension requires the development of a measure sensitive to movement along the continuum. I conceptualize international recognition of state sovereignty as a latent trait, assuming there is an underlying characteristic of support for sovereignty that cannot be measured directly, but which influences other measurable traits. Those observed outcomes are used to estimate and compare levels of this characteristic across countries and time periods and develop and test ideas about changes in the theoretically important variable. I will refer to this concept and measure as ‘latent sovereignty’.

Figure 5 illustrates. Diplomatic recognition is one of many third-party actions that stem from an underlying perception and orientation that can be characterized as recognition of state sovereignty. Note that the order of these actions does not reflect an empirically founded characterization of the order of decisions a state makes, only the idea that these actions require some kind of underlying support of either the self-determination group’s de facto sovereignty or its right to autonomy.

To demonstrate the utility of this model, Figure 6 previews the variation in third-party positions one misses by focusing on international legal sovereignty as only reflected in diplomatic recognition. The model produces these estimates for the US position for each of five self-determination movements throughout the 1990s. Not one of these movements is diplomatically recognized by the United States in this time period, but there is substantial variation in the level of support each receives in terms of diplomatic, military, and economic aid.

As seen in Figure 6, the unit of analysis in this model is third-party–separatist-conflict–year. I estimate this latent sovereignty trait using 11 variables on diplomatic

Figure 5.

Political decisions imply recognition of sovereignty and build legitimacy of claims

and military relations between third-party, incumbent, and aspiring states. Following the examples of Schnakenberg & Fariss (2014) and Reuning, Kenwick & Fariss (2019), and similar to Terechshenko (2020), latent sovereignty is modeled through a dynamic item response theory (D-IRT) framework.

The idea behind this IRT model is that it allows one to look at the behavior states exhibit among a set of foreign policy actions, taken to be correlated with a latent property, bilateral international sovereignty. The model lets the provided data sort the third-party positions along the continuum based on how favorable their foreign policy activities are for the aspiring states or how unfavorable they are for incumbent states, in that year and in prior years. Two parameters are also estimated for each manifest variable – the ‘difficulty’ of an item – some foreign policy decisions are rarer than others. Questions that are answered wrongly more often, and rare favorable (to separatists) decisions, are considered more difficult. In other words, there are certain foreign policy decisions that happen more often; those would be classified as less difficult, and the estimated level of difficulty is informed by the data. The second is how well a variable ‘discriminates’ among cases – tougher foreign policy decisions towards separatists are more informative of how much a state supports recognition.

Latent variable models assume local independence among indicator variables. A country’s intervention in another’s secessionist conflict cannot cause favorable votes in the UN; instead, the decision to intervene and the decision to vote for favorable measures both stem from an underlying trait of latent sovereignty of the separatist group. In essence, the variables are only correlated based on their shared relationship with the

Figure 6.

US policy towards four legally unrecognized self-determination movements

Table I.

Data sources for latent sovereignty of self-determination group by third-party state

Dataset	Percent of cases
	with data
Voeten UN voting	20
Uppsala intervention	20
Kisengani – IMI	36.33
Şan Akca – NAGs	13.88
SIPRI arms transfers	77.14
MIPS	8.98
Diplomatic exchange	13.47
Diplomatic sanctions	82.86
Other sanctions	77.96
Coggins recognition	100

Sources: Voeten (2012); UCDP (2017); Şan Akca (2015); SIPRI (2016); Kisangani, Pickering & ICPSR (2008); Bayer (2006); Sullivan & Koch (2009); Morgan, Bapat & Kobayashi (2014); Griffiths & Butcher (2013); Coggins (2014).

underlying measure and not because one variable causes another.

Table I displays the datasets used to estimate this model.² It is important to note that although I use Coggins’s data for its sample and for a few other conflict-level and recognizer-level variables, I do not incorporate official diplomatic recognition itself into my main model. The foreign policy activity I explore falls to the left of official recognition on the continuum. Recognition is a special decision, only given reluctantly even by very sympathetic third parties because of its high costs. Though related, it is distinct from underlying recognition as I characterize it. In addition, my measure and tests are meant to complement prior work on official recognition, and to include recognition in my estimates of this measure would undercut this process.

The variables from these datasets, shown in Table II, were chosen because: (1) they each capture a unilateral decision on the part of the third party towards the self-determination conflict’s actors, (2) they require the third party to locate – to ‘recognize’, in the plain English sense of the term – a non-state actor with whom they can interact and/or support, and (3) these actions advance or degrade the aspiring state’s ‘eligibility’ for official recognition. This kind of model requires all variables be the same type, so I estimate the model using only binary indicators. The following manifest variables were used to estimate the score for each third-party–conflict–year: diplomatic exchange with separatists, diplomatic

Table II.

Summary statistics for base data of latent sovereignty model

Variable (across triad-years)	Mean	SD	Min.	Max	Num. cases incl. variable
Num. datasets in addition
to Coggins (2014)	2.4	1	0	5	279
Binary variables
Majority UN votes ‘for’	.63	.5			49
NAGs military/financial aid	.5	.51			46
Diplomatic exch. sep.	.01	.11			245
Diplomatic sanctions	.02	.15			279
Diplomatic withdrawal/expel	.02	.15			203
Other sanctions	.03	.13			191
SIPRI arms aid	.04	.19			189
SIPRI arms sales	.04	.19			189
Uppsala mil. aid	.52	.5			49
IMI intervention	.68	.49			89
MIPS intervention	.63	.5			22

sanctions against incumbent state, diplomatic withdrawal or expulsion against incumbent state, economic sanctions against incumbent state, military aid, arms transfers, and direct intervention. Continuous variables, such as UN voting proportions and number of types of aid per year, were transformed into binary indicators to the following indicators: a majority of relevant yearly UN votes were in favor of the self-determination group; the third party provided military aid to the self-determination group in the form of arms, training, transport, finances, safe haven, or allowing cross-border operations.

International sovereignty is modeled as a latent trait, $θ_{i j t}$ , which exists for each third-party–conflict dyad, with third party, $i = 1, ..., N$ and conflict, $j = 1, ..., J$ across each time period $t = 1, ..., T$ . $θ$ is assumed to determine the values taken by a series of manifest variables, y, with $k = 1, ..., K$ representing the number of items observed. $y_{i j t k}$ is the value observed for the manifest variable k for unit $i j$ in time t. The difficulty and discrimination parameters $α_{k}$ and $β_{k}$ are estimated for each manifest variable. In a logistic regression, these parameters would be analogous to the slope and intercept. In the testing environment, α estimates the difficulty of each of the questions, and $β$ estimates the degree that item discriminates between students in different regions on the latent ability continuum.

I use a dynamic model to address temporal non-independence in the data. That is, I assume each unit’s latent trait is autocorrelated over time. I base the priors for the latent variable $θ$ on the estimated value for the previous year of the same unit. For the first observation period for each unit, the prior on $θ$ is a standard normal distribution. In each subsequent time period, the prior is normally distributed with mean $θ_{i j (t - 1)}$ and an innovation variance $σ$ , which is estimated from the data and informed by a gamma distribution. It is assumed to be the same for all units in the model.

Putting it all together, I use the mixed order factor model from Quinn (2004), for each of the $i j$ dyads. I implement a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm using R and a Bayesian software and R plugin called STAN. For the latent value $θ$ , I take the mean value per third-party–conflict–year across four chains of 3,000 sampling iterations preceded by 800 initial iterations which calibrate the model to the data and then are discarded (usually called ‘burn-ins’ or ‘warmup draws’).

In the Online appendix, I report: the full priors specified for the main model; a summary of difficulty and

Figure 7.

Visual aid to understand latent sovereignty scores; unit of analysis is third-party–separatist-conflict–year

discrimination statistics; convergence diagnostics; several forms of validity assessment; and a note about starting values. I turn now to a brief demonstration of the behavior of the model in a few aspiring and third-party cases before moving on to quantitative tests comparing this model of latent sovereignty to those using legal recognition in prior work.

Trends in international sovereignty

The model takes a standard normal distribution as its estimate of latent sovereignty ( $θ$ ), the estimates fall between –2 and 2. Figure 7 serves as a visual aid for understanding these scores. What this model provides is a relative position for each third-party state on each conflict-year. Note that, within the triad, the aspiring and incumbent state actors are collapsed into one ‘half’ of the dyad (so that decreasing numbers signify decreasing sovereignty), and that the score applies to the third party’s evaluation of the conflict overall. Also, a new score is generated for each third party for each year the conflict continues.

This measure incorporates a broader swath of decisions than just the one difficult decision of recognition, allowing for the detection in smaller shifts in overall orientation. A useful example of what this looks like over time is the Palestinian case. Figure 8 displays the positions of two sets of third parties towards Palestine: the medium sized powers Mexico, Brazil, Sweden, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, India, and Indonesia; and the major powers USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, China, and Japan. Several features are evident in this graph.

Figure 8.

Latent sovereignty of Palestine for 18 countries

Figure 9.

Latent sovereignty of Palestine for three major powers

Since 1967, most countries have converged on a similar score towards Palestine. They tend to favor Palestine overall, with positive scores throughout most of the period. This score has been, on average, increasing steadily over time. It is also helpful to discuss briefly what goes into these scores for this case to get a sense of what state behaviors these scores reflect. Figure 9 breaks down the scores a bit further, with special attention paid to the scores of the USA, Russia, and China.

The Voeten (2012) data show that the USA has voted with Israel on most UN measures concerning Palestine. However, the Şan Akca (2016) data show that US aid began flowing to Palestinian groups in the late 1960s, and it was the primary sender of sanctions against Israel for three years in 1981–83 to ‘solve territorial dispute’, as well as sanctions from 2002 to 2008 to ‘constrain military behavior’ (Morgan, Bapat & Kobayashi, 2014). Russia has taken a more pro-Palestine position in the UN but only joined the sanctions in 1981 and 1982, which are visible in figure 9. China has also taken a more pro-Palestine position in UN votes but joined no sanctions against Israel in any of the datasets. However, it did provide military aid briefly to Palestinian groups in 1982, according to the UCDP External Support data (UCDP/PRIO, 2008) and the International Military Intervention data (Kisangani, Pickering & ICPSR, 2008).

Revisiting hypotheses about recognition

With evident trends in latent sovereignty at both the case and the third-party levels, it is possible to compare the $θ$ estimates of this model with diplomatic recognition as a determinant dichotomous measure. To do this, I revisit a few of Coggins’s (2011, 2014) hypotheses regarding major powers’ decisions to officially recognize aspiring states. For the purpose of this article, I maintain a neutral stance regarding expectations of whether tests using this latent measure of sovereignty should yield the same findings as those using diplomatic recognition.

To match Coggins’s sample, I only analyze major power latent sovereignty in these cases. Coggins (2011, 2014) theorizes two motivation types for state recognition: domestic and international. The first concerns the strength and cohesion of the separatist groups themselves. Groups that are made up of mobilized minority groups, particularly those that have built up some of the institutions of government, are more likely to garner recognition. Furthermore, chances of recognition are improved if a group is stronger militarily. Both these dimensions concern the degree to which the ‘stateness’ of the group influences recognition politics. Thus we have the first two hypotheses from Coggins (2014):

H1: Institutionally empowered groups are more likely to receive great power recognition.

H2: Materially stronger groups are more likely to receive great power recognition.

Several international factors should also affect international sovereignty (measured through bilateral recognition and my latent sovereignty measure). There is a strong concern among third-party states about setting counterproductive precedent. Coggins (2011, 2014) theorizes that states with active separatists should therefore be less likely to legally recognize. With the lesser forms of recognition of state sovereignty that I explore, the concern for precedent should be much less influential. Other factors, such as concern for regional stability, should also influence foreign policy decisionmaking.

H3: Great powers with secessionist challengers of their own will be less likely to recognize secessionists in other states.

She also demonstrates a ‘cascade’ effect of recognition, in which one enterprising recognizing state sets a new precedent and demonstrates the viability of the emerging state:

H4: Great powers will be more likely to recognize secessionists when another great power or powers have already done so.

Finally, Coggins (2011, 2014) theorizes that the relationship a state has with the incumbent state will affect its decisions toward its separatists:

H5: Great powers with a conflictual relationship with a home state will be more likely to recognize its secessionists.

H6: Great powers with a friendly relationship with a home state will be less likely to recognize its secessionists.

Coggins (2014) tests these hypotheses through several domestic and international level variables. Ethnic federation is a dichotomous variable indicating whether a given separatist group is an ethno-federal unit. These units should have stable boundaries and certain administrative capacities already stable and well developed. Hypothesis 1 predicts a positive relationship between this variable and levels of sovereignty. The two dichotomous variables Violence level and War victory were chosen to capture material capability of the separatists. Violence level indicates that at least 1,000 battle-deaths occurred in that year of conflict (UCDP/PRIO, 2008), and War victory indicates that the separatists have wrested control of the territory through a military victory. Hypothesis 2 would predict a positive relationship for both these variables.

The first international-level variable tests Hypothesis 3: Number of challengers indicates the number of secessionist or separatist challengers the third-party state faces at home in that year, and sees a negative relationship with official recognition. Prior recognition is a dichotomous variable indicating that at least one other great power has officially recognized the separatists that year. It should be associated positively with latent sovereignty to test Hypothesis 4. For Hypothesis 5, the variable MID

Table III.

Comparing effects on latent sovereignty in a dyadic fixed effects model and Coggins’s (2014) Cox hazard model

Model:	Dyadic fixed effects	Coggins (2014) Cox hazard ratio^a
Domestic
Ethnic federation	–0.21 (0.01) ***	(+)	5.35 ***
Violence level 999 deaths	0.15 (0.01) ***	(–)	0.7 ***
War victory	–0.05 (0.03)	(+)	5.33 ***
International
Number of challengers	0.002 (.00) ***	(–)	0.76^b
Prior recognition	0.03 (.02)^†	(+)	28.16 ***
MID, 3rd w/ inc. state	0.05 (0.01) ***
Mutual autocracy	–0.05 (0.01) ***	(–)	0.2 ***
Mutual democracy	–0.03 (0.01) ***	(+)	1.22
Constant	–0.1 (0.01) ***
N^c	1940		1334

* $p < 0.05$ , ** $p < 0.01$ , *** $p < 0.001$ , ^† p < 0.06. Standard errors in parentheses.

^a Ratios $> 1$ are interpreted as an increased likelihood of recognition; $< 1$ a decreased likelihood.

^b Coggins used a dummy variable for ‘unusually high number’ of challengers.

^c Difference in Ns due to five more years of data, and the inclusion of a number of cases from Griffiths & Butcher (2013).

is a dichotomous variable indicating that either the third party or the incumbent state started a militarized dispute with the other (note that the aspiring state is not party in this variable). This variable should have a positive relationship with latent sovereignty. Finally, the two variables Mutual democracy and Mutual autocracy are both dichotomous variables indicating the same regime type (and theorized shared security concerns) between the third-party state and the incumbent state; both should see a negative relationship with latent sovereignty to lend support to Hypothesis 6. These variables are all inherited from Coggins’s (2014) dataset.

Table III displays side-by-side results of the two tests. The first column shows the results of a fixed effects regression model with errors clustered at the dyad level, using the latent sovereignty variable explained above. The second column displays the Cox Hazard Ratio tests from Coggins (2014). In this kind of test, numbers above 1 are associated with a k-fold increase in likelihood of recognition; numbers below 1 are associated with proportionally lower likelihood of recognition. For the purposes of examining these hypotheses, Cox hazard ratios above and below 1 are analogous to positive and negative coefficients, respectively. I have included signs in parentheses alongside the Cox estimates to make comparison across the two models more intuitive.

Beginning with the three domestic-level variables, I find a strong negative relationship between latent sovereignty and ethno-federal separatists, which constitutes evidence against H1. There is evidence in favor of H2. High levels of violence are associated with increasing latent sovereignty, although the relationship between separatist victory in battle and latent sovereignty is not significantly different from 0.³ Interestingly, Coggins did not find the effect she expected for violence, but with this measure we do see the expected effect.

I find a weak positive relationship between number of domestic challengers and latent sovereignty. The explicit concern for precedent held by many states towards diplomatic recognition (Coggins, 2011: 433) does not inform these foreign policy decisions, which is testament to the utility of this sort of model. Prior official recognition by another major power has the expected positive effect on latent sovereignty. When the third party and the incumbent state are in dispute with each other, we see higher latent sovereignty of aspiring states, a finding predicted by Coggins (but tested elsewhere in her work). Additionally, I find, in line with Coggins’s findings, that third-party democracies and autocracies give lower latent sovereignty scores to separatists challenging governments that share their regime type. In this model, I thus find support for Hypotheses 2, 4, 5, and 6, and countervailing evidence against H1 and weakly against H3.

Discussion and conclusion

How do self-determination groups earn recognition? How do third-party states help them develop international sovereignty? This project aims to provide a new way to answer these questions, filling in a gap in the literature on unrecognized and aspiring states. There is rich work on the origins and characteristics of unrecognized states, which have some of the trimmings of the modern state but lack international legal sovereignty, as well as excellent writing on the domestic and international determinants of diplomatic recognition. The other important roles played by third parties on the way to recognition – military, political, diplomatic – have generally not been considered as part of the sovereignty puzzle.

This innovative measure of international sovereignty takes these other factors into account and explores the foreign policy gray area between third parties’ positions towards aspiring states. My conceptualization is closer to the plain English definition of ‘recognition’: not an easily observed, formally prescribed decision, but a reaction on the part of foreign policymakers, acknowledging and even supporting aspiring state actors. I situate prior work within this framework, showing them to have covered important questions but to be potentially limited in scope, given the breadth of the aspiring state problem. With this in mind, I develop a new measure of sovereignty based on several kinds of international exchange between incumbent states, aspiring states, and the third parties with whom international sovereignty lies. The primary interest is not the origin of a discrete decision, but increasing and decreasing support of separatist groups, and the evolution of their ‘eligibility’ for recognition.

This is a needed contribution because the barrier to recognition is high. It disrupts diplomatic relations and engenders international instability, so it is a rare, costly decision for states. Aspiring states are usually recognized only after they build the institutions of sovereignty substantially. At a certain point, the decision to recognize becomes less a matter of politics and more one of acknowledgment of the obvious state of affairs. The measure of latent sovereignty captures third-party contributions to this build-up of sovereignty. It is not a replacement of legal recognition as a reflection of sovereignty, but rather a complement to it, meant to apply during other stages in the evolution of these conflicts.

With a brief slate of tests using this new measure, I compare this measure to one based only on official recognition. I find latent sovereignty responds to many of the same factors as recognition. Most notably, I find support for the hypotheses that levels of violence, third-party relations with incumbent states, and diplomatic recognition by great powers should be associated with latent sovereignty.

International responses to self-determination movements are still poorly understood, with many unasked questions. Do smaller third parties behave similarly to major powers? Do conflict-level variables like nonviolent movements or human rights abuses affect the movement of third parties along this continuum? Conceptualizing sovereignty as a deeper process will allow future research on the topic to buttress prior work by taking account of the effects of foreign policy decisions subtler and less politically volatile than official recognition.

Footnotes

Replication data

The data and Online appendix can be found at . Analyses were conducted using R, Stan, and Stata.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Bridget Coggins, Therese Anders, Christopher Fariss, Michael Kenwick, Nicholas Weller, Patrick James, Wayne Sandholtz, and the various participants in the University of Southern California Center for International Studies Working Paper Series. Thank you for your time and active support throughout the development of this project

ORCID iD

R Joseph Huddleston

Notes

References

Al-Jazeera (2010) Obama renews Sudan sanctions. Al Jazeera 1 November.

Anderson

Benedict

(1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (revised edition). London & New York: Verso.

Bayer

Reşat

(2006) Diplomatic Exchange Data set, v2006.1 (http://correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/diplomatic-exchange).

Berg

Eiki

Vits

Kristel

(2018) Quest for survival and recognition: Insights into the foreign policy endeavours of the post-Soviet de facto states. Ethnopolitics 17(4): 390–407.

Buchanan

Allen

(1998) Democracy and secession. In: Moore

Margaret

(ed.) National Self-Determination and Secession. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 14–33.

Buzard

Kristy

Graham

Benjamin AT

Horne

Ben

(2017) Unrecognized states: A theory of self-determination and foreign influence. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 33(3): 578–611.

Carment

David

James

Patrick

(1995) Internal constraints and interstate ethnic conflict: Toward a crisis-based assessment of irredentism. Journal of Conflict Resolution 39(1): 82–109.

Caspersen

Nina

(2018) Recognition, status quo or reintegration: Engagement with de facto states. Ethnopolitics 17(4): 373–389.

Closson

Stacy

(2011) What do unrecognized states tell us about sovereignty? In: Caspersen

Nina

Stansfield

Gareth RV

(eds) Unrecognized States in the International System. Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 58–70.

10.

Coggins

Bridget

(2011) Friends in high places: International politics and the emergence of states from secessionism. International Organization 65(3): 433–467.

11.

Coggins

Bridget

(2014) Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century: The Dynamics of Recognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

12.

Cook

Steven A

(2016) Who exactly are ‘the Kurds’? Atlantic 25 February.

13.

Cooley

Alexander

Mitchell

Lincoln A

(2010) Engagement without recognition: A new strategy toward Abkhazia and Eurasia’s unrecognized states. Washington Quarterly 33(4): 59–73.

14.

Cunningham

Kathleen

(2014) Inside the Politics of Self-Determination. New York: Oxford University Press.

15.

Fabry

Mikulas

(2010) Recognizing States: International Society and the Establishment of New States Since 1776. New York: Oxford University Press.

16.

Fazal

Tanisha M

Griffiths

Ryan D

(2014) Membership has its privileges: The changing benefits of statehood. International Studies Review 16(1): 79–106.

17.

Gellner

Ernest

(1983) Nations and Nationalism. (New Perspectives on the Past) Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

18.

Griffiths

Ryan D

(2016) Age of Secession: The International and Domestic Determinants of State Birth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

19.

Griffiths

Ryan D

Butcher

Charles R

(2013) Introducing the International System(s) Dataset (ISD), 1816–2011. International Interactions 39(5): 748–768.

20.

Hale

Henry E

(2008) The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: Separatism of States and Nations in Eurasia and the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

21.

Harvey

James

Stansfield

Gareth

(2011) Theorizing unrecognized states: Sovereignty, secessionism, and political economy. In: Caspersen

Nina

Stansfield

Gareth RV

(eds) Unrecognized States in the International System. New York: Routledge, 11–26.

22.

Huddleston, R Joseph (2019) Shoestring diplomacy: Aspiring states and international lobbying for self-determination. SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3367080. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network.

23.

Jenne

Erin K

Saideman

Stephen M

Lowe

Will

(2007) Separatism as a bargaining posture: The role of leverage in minority radicalization. Journal of Peace Research 44(5): 539–558.

24.

Kaplan

Morgan L

(2019) Foreign support, miscalculation, and conflict escalation: Iraqi Kurdish self-determination in perspective. Ethnopolitics 18(1): 29–45.

25.

Ker-Lindsay

James

(2014) The Foreign Policy of Counter Secession: Preventing the Recognition of Contested States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

26.

Ker-Lindsay

James

(2018) The stigmatisation of de facto states: Disapproval and ‘engagement without recognition’. Ethnopolitics 17(4): 362–372.

27.

Kisangani

Emizet F;

Pickering

Jeffrey

& Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (2008) International Military Intervention, 1989–2005. ICPSR (Series) 21282.

28.

Kolstø

Pål

(2006) The sustainability and future of unrecognized quasi-states. Journal of Peace Research 43(6): 723–740.

29.

Krasner

Stephen D

(1999) Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

30.

KRG (2012) KRG and USAID embark on joint $18 million dollar health initiative (http://cabinet.gov.krd/a/d.aspx?s=040000&l=12&a=45402).

31.

Kyris

George

(2018) Sovereignty and engagement without recognition: Explaining the failure of conflict resolution in Cyprus. Ethnopolitics 17(4): 426–442.

32.

McCleary

Paul

(2017) With referendum approaching, Kurds wait for more US military aid. Foreign Policy 28 August.

33.

Montevideo Convention (1933) Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States.

34.

Moore

Margaret

(2010) Ethics of secession and political mobilization in Quebec. In: Doyle

Don Harrison

(ed.) Secession as an International Phenomenon: From America’s Civil War to Contemporary Separatist Movements. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 76–96.

35.

Morgan

T Clifton

Bapat

Navin

Kobayashi

Yoshiharu

(2014) Threat and imposition of economic sanctions 1945–2005: Updating the TIES dataset. Conflict Management and Peace Science 31(5): 541–558.

36.

Paquin

Jonathan

(2010) A Stability-Seeking Power: US Foreign Policy and Secessionist Conflicts. Montreal: McGill Queens University Press.

37.

Quinn

Kevin M

(2004) Bayesian factor analysis for mixed ordinal and continuous responses. Political Analysis 12(4): 338–353.

38.

Reuning

Kevin

Kenwick

Michael R

Fariss

Christopher J

(2019) Exploring the dynamics of latent variable models. Political Analysis 27(5): 503–517.

39.

Roeder

Philip G

(2007) Where Nation-States Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

40.

Şan Akca

Belgin

(2015) Dangerous companions: Cooperation between states and nonstate armed groups (NAGs), v.04/2015 (nonstatearmedgroups.ku.edu.tr).

41.

Şan Akca

Belgin

(2016) States in Disguise: Causes of State Support for Rebel Groups. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

42.

Schnakenberg

Keith E

Fariss

Christopher J

(2014) Dynamic patterns of human rights practices. Political Science Research and Methods 2(1): 1–31.

43.

SIPRI (2016) SIPRI Arms Transfers Database. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers).

44.

Siroky

David S

(2009) Secession and survival: Nations, states and violent conflict. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Duke University.

45.

Sterio

Milena

(2013) The Right to Self-Determination under International Law: ‘Selfistans,’ Secession and the Rule of the Great Powers. New York: Routledge.

46.

Sullivan

Patricia L

Koch

Michael T

(2009) Military intervention by powerful states, 1945–2003. Journal of Peace Research 46(5): 707–718.

47.

Terechshenko

Zhanna

(2020) Hot under the collar: A latent measure of interstate hostility. Journal of Peace Research 57(6): 764–776.

48.

Tomson

Chris

(2017) US army trains 8,500 Kurdish fighters for battle of Raqqa. AMN - Al-Masdar News 7 September.

49.

UCDP (2017) UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia (UCDP database). Uppsala University, Sweden (http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/program_overview/current_projects/ucdp_database/).

50.

UCDP/PRIO (2008) UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset Codebook, Version 4-2008. Technical report. Uppsala Conflict Data Program/Peace Research Institute Oslo.

51.

USC (2020) Reconocimientos de la RASD. Website. Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (http://www.usc.gal/es/institutos/ceso/RASD_Reconocimientos.html).

52.

Voeten

Erik

(2012) Data and analyses of voting in the UN General Assembly. SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2111149. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network.

53.

Wellman

Christopher

(2010) The morality of secession. In: Doyle

Don Harrison

(ed.) Secession as an International Phenomenon: From America’s Civil War to Contemporary Separatist Movements. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 19–36.