ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to explain how modern conditions, characterized by regional and global economic integrations, have changed the nature of state sovereignty and the means for achieving it by nationalizing ethnic minorities in the developed and developing worlds. When attempting to break away from a larger state and achieve sovereignty, nationalists in developed countries are eager to join supranational entities, like the EU, something that is not available to large ethnic groups seeking sovereignty in developing countries. The case of Iraqi Kurdistan is used to analyze the peculiarities of secessionist movements in the developing world under modern conditions, and argues that the national and regional securitization of Kurdish sub-state nationalism paradoxically promotes secessionist tendencies instead of its intended goal of containing them.
