Independence Movements and Their Aftermath

Book excerpt: This volume explores the varied outcomes that self-determination movements around the world have achieved, and in particular seeks to understand what factors promote better outcomes and what factors promote worse ones. Rather than focusing on the metric of achieving independence, the project evaluates the quality of societies after independence, including such elements as economic strength and political resilience, and it analyzes what factors contribute to different outcomes. The study finds that the single most determinative factor in the success of any independence movement is frequently beyond the control of such a movement, often relating to the global and historical contexts in which the movement finds itself. However, a whole host of factors are within the control of such a movement, but movements do not always seek to act on many of them. Activists become so convinced in the justness of the independence cause that they do not focus on actions that would contribute to greater success after independence.