ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how and why separatist conflicts arise, what characteristics commonly define them and how and why they progress as they often do. It aims to unpack the nature and rationale of separatist conflict; why it occurs, how it occurs and what characteristics it commonly displays. Beyond systemic violence as state authority, economic oppression or exclusion may also be viewed by excluded or oppressed groups as structural violence, particularly where the consequences are severe, such as exclusion from work or education, or malnutrition or starvation. Guerrilla warfare is 'the natural weapon of the strategically weaker side'. Much violence by separatist organizations is characterized as 'terrorism', but the use of the word 'terrorist' is problematic. Warlords may operate in conjunction with other warlords or with the state in the exercise of regional control, which in feudal times might have described the relationship between barons and kings.
