ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a partly normative and partly empirical discussion of the interplay between theories of justified secession, which are largely drawn from individualist (liberal-democratic) conceptions of the legitimate state and/or the just state, and empirical evidence that domination of one (ethnic/national/religious/racial) group over another group can occur even when there is formal adherence to liberal principles of (individual) fairness and democratic government. This is so because individual justice concerns sometimes mask or render (partly) invisible the kinds and methods of domination in the society. Democracy, we assume, is a sub-set of justice theory in the sense that a just state should be democratic and an undemocratic state is, to the extent that it is undemocratic, also unjust. Majoritarian democratic institutions, we argue, can be consistent with domination, especially when there is group bloc voting and majoritarian decision rules (rather than, for example, power-sharing).
