Secession

Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession (such as a declaration of independence).^[1] A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal is the creation of a new state or entity independent of the group or territory from which it seceded.^[2] Threats of secession can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.^[3] There is some academic debate about this definition, and in particular how it relates to separatism, as has been discussed online.^[4]

Notable examples of secession, and secession attempts, include:

• The United Provinces of the Netherlands breaking away from the Spanish Empire during the Eighty Years' War (1566-1648):
• The Thirteen Colonies (the later United States) revolting from the British Empire during the American Revolutionary War (1775-83);
• Hispanic America gaining independence from the Spanish Empire during Spanish American wars of independence;
• Texas leaving Mexico, during the Texas Revolution (1835-36);
• the Confederate States of America seceding from the Union, setting off the American Civil War;
• Panama seceding from Colombia in 1903, during United States acquisition of the Panama Canal;
• the Irish Republic leaving the United Kingdom;
• Finland voting to leave Soviet Russia in 1917, setting off the Finnish Civil War;
• Biafra leaving Nigeria (and returning, after losing the Nigerian Civil War);
• the former Soviet republics leaving the Soviet Union in 1991, causing its dissolution;
• the former republics leaving Yugoslavia during the 1990s, causing its dissolution.