ABSTRACT
In many countries around the world the political authorities are confronted with the question of what decision modes they should use in dealing with separatist movements. A first non-competitive strategy of political authorities toward separatist movements may be a strategy of amicable agreement. At the Congress of Vienna the Jura was considered a master less territory and was given to Berne as compensation for other territories that Berne had lost. Even in the nineteenth century, then, the relation between the Jura and the other parts of the Berne canton was quite stormy, and separatism was an issue almost from the beginning. During and immediately after World War II, it was relatively easy for the Bernese authorities to keep the demands of the Jura separatists off the political agenda, because the agenda was already overloaded with huge problems related to the war situation.
