Intractable Disputes

Abstract

This chapter examines how increasing programmatic coordination gives rise to intractability in the national secessionists’ dispute with their central government because national-secessionist campaign leaders become constrained by the very campaign solidarity that they cultivated. Looking closely at the frozen conflicts of the post-Soviet space, case studies illustrate how the efforts of national-secession campaign leaders to solidify statehood and nationhood within their break-away regions contribute to intractability in exchanges with their central governments. A consequence is transformation of negotiations into “championships” with the rise of “pseudo-bargaining” in which the primary target of offers at the negotiating table is not the central government, but the audience of platform population and international community.