The advance of devolution

22 May 2006, 0020 EDT

Montenegro votes for independence. Probably. By a hair. Rob Farley points to Doug Muir’s excellent pre-vote post. It looks like EU politics may have made the difference in a vote that mapped largely onto ethnic and religious divisions. The BBC:

Serb politicians, Orthodox church leaders and Montenegrins from the mountainous inland regions bordering Serbia broadly opposed secession.

However, ethnic Montenegrins and Albanians from the coastal area largely back the prime minister and favoured independence.

Mr Djukanovic argued that an independent Montenegro will have a stronger economy and will be a better candidate for admission into the European Union.

I’m not sure I agree with Chirol that this will amount to much of a signal either way for other would-be secessionists in the remnants of Communism’s empire. But it does highlight the ways in which the emerge of Europe as a composite, federal state creates an environment conducive to local fragmentation. State formation in reverse, if you will.

Filed as: Montenegro

Dan Nexon

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.