Secession from an Economic Perspective: What Is Living and What Is Dead in Economic Interpretations of Secessionism?

Economic interpretations of secessionism have fallen from intellectual favour in recent years. ¹ Many contemporary texts on secessions either neglect economic interpretations altogether, or subsume them within broader discussions of ‘instrumentalism’. Where economic theories are dealt with, they are frequently castigated for a variety of intellectual sins, including a failure to address the affective dimensions of secessionist sentiment, a tendency to elevate abstract theorizing at the expense of empirical realities, and an over-reliance on reductionist and functionalist forms of reasoning.