ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the issues of competing claims to legitimacy, and the motivation for secessionist movements, including legal and normative claims to separate political identity. It also considers the assertions of geographically defined 'national' self-determination as a key principle of political legitimacy, and contrasts this with the failure of pre-existing states to establish or maintain such legitimacy. Legitimacy is understood to increase and decrease, but which must retain a critical mass in order to functionally operate. Linked to notions of legitimacy, the chapter then examines the claims to legitimate authority of separatist organisations, by which they claim to represent the wishes of their constituency, that is to be legitimate in situ. It employs case studies from Eelam and East Timor, Aceh and West Papua. Finally, the chapter addresses the practical capacity of separatist organisations to assert claims to independence, and where this relies on military force the common division between military and political approaches and their consequences.
