Talk:Unilateral declaration of independence

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It is questionable to say, "Many collapse, with the previous government and authority resuming control" because the degree of control that the entity making the UDI had in the first place may have been very weak or nonexistent. --Daniel C. Boyer 15:33, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think this fixes it and is perhaps more neutral:

Some unilaterally declared states never take hold, lacking any form of credibility, authority, or legitimacy. Of those that do take hold, a significant number collapse, with control returning to the previous government, or are replaced, with control shifting to a new follow-on government.

Daniel Quinlan 01:37, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

The first is more correct, the latter one inaccurate. Many UDI claims are not made by entities authorized to make declarations, then become a reality as the 'entity' develops an authority and become a real government. Most UDIs are made by entities not entitled to do so, or because they did not follow standard procedure. Examples include the Irish Republic, Biafra and Rhodesia. UDI isn't about unilaterally declared states but states making unilateral declarations of independence, or groups of individuals in a region declaring themselves states and then declaring the 'states' independent of the previous and in theory still lawful authority. If a new 'state' takes hold, it eventually does gain acceptance both of its existence and its UDI. FearÉIREANN 01:50, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

By "authority", I did not mean some United Nations or League of Nations resolution. There is clearly no "standard procedure" for making a UDI, but a number of UDIs clearly have had either popular support or the power to back it. I would probably include in that category the Irish Republic (control shifted to follow-on government), Rhodesia (control returned to former government, then shifted), and maybe even Biafra. Anyway, can you suggest a correction? I'd like the definition to leave out the loaded term "collapse" and allow either follow-on government or return of former government (since, for example, it wasn't the previous government that replaced the Irish Republic). Daniel Quinlan 02:09, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Collapse is the correct word. Talking about authority returning to the former government is problematic because, as in Ireland, you did not have one government but two; the legal government of the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle, which had the support or tolerance of probably around 40%, the Irish Republic of deV which claimed a popular mandate under the (largely uncontested) 1918 general election and which had the support of around 30% (Sinn Féin's support base, going on contested national and local elections, seem to have been around 48% and contemporary accounts suggest that around 40% of its support (around 20% of the national vote) was not from people who endorsed its policies - some were more extreme, some were using SF to force home rule, not independence suggesting around 1 in 3 were backing the Republic) while the remaining 30% kept their heads well down and refused to take sides. Nationalist theory suggests that IR was succeeded by the IFS. British constitutional theory suggests the IR was a pretence and so the IFS was preceded by the Lord Lieutenant's government.

Collapse indicates an aspect of sudden failure which may not always be the case. I believe it is used to imply disorder, chaos, mayhem, etc. which is why I said it was a loaded term, even if it is commoonly used. The ending of the government may take place slowly or orderly. As a separate issue, regardless of British constitutional theory, one could make a case that the Lord Lieutenant's government had also effectively collapsed before the Irish Free State. Legality is purely POV. I'm getting seriously off-topic, but were all members of the Irish Republic from Sinn Féin? I thought the Irish Republic assembly was composed of the majority of the former Irish members of Parliament. Daniel Quinlan 02:56, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

If it is proto-government, it rarely takes place slowly or orderly. The leaders may be arrested, assassinated, deposed in a coup. Because they often don't have a civil service, a legal service, formally structured government departments, claimant govenments often collapse in a mess over a short period of time, sometimes weeks, often days, on occasion hours.

Re the LL's government, it hadn't effectively collapsed. It still had two police forces, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police, with the RIC in most part of the island, even if it abandoned its rural police stations in favour of urban ones. It still had a functioning courts service, taxation system, still paid pensions, still had largely functioning government departments. It still was able to arrest most of the Irish cabinet and Michael Collins admitted at the time of the Truce that the IRA was weeks, potentially one week, from collapse. The IR also had some government departments, mainly Collins's extraordinary Department of Finance. But its governental system was patchy. It had a courts system in some parts of the country, though (and this shows the ambiguity of the time) people often went to both the local republican courts and the Assize, often simply to see what would deliver the best verdict. So the IR government was not as extensive as some people think, nor the LL's government as ineffective. I know Bertie Ahern said he regards real Irish government as starting in 1922 with the IFS not 1919 with the IR. (BTW on a personal angle, my great-grandfather had to flee to the US because the Black and Tans were after him. He was involved in the local IRA and burned the local RIC barracks. My grandmother had to smuggle him off to a local train station across the fields to save him from the B&T. Of course I was only told about this after she died a couple of years ago. I'd loved to have had the full story. And there is rumoured to be IRA guns from 1921 buried in the front garden of her old family home under a tree!)

The entire Dáil was made up of Sinn Féin MPs/TDs & Members of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland. Most of the 100+ seats in 1918 were uncontested, partly due to strong pockets of Sinn Féin support, partly due to opponents being too afraid to stand, partly due to the collapse in the Irish Parliamentary Party local organisation. Of the 128 seats in the HofC of Southern Ireland in May 1921, all were uncontested, 124 won by SF, 4 won by unionists. Nobody from the IPP or the Irish Unionist Party attended the Dáil; they still sat in Westminster. And another example of the complexity of the time: tens of thousands of Irish fought during the First World War including some Sinn Féin leaders! And when SF leaders suggested that widows stopped taking their British army war pensions, they were told a collective "fuck off!". And more poppies were sold in Dublin every year in the 1920s and 1930s than in Northern Ireland, with tens of thousands attending Armistice Day ceremomies in College Green into the 1930s, where God Save the King would be played.

The line above simply says that many collapse, not all (though some might be a better word). Collapse is the standard word to describe the fall of a government, a regime or a proto-regime. It was used because it is the standard word used, and thus NPOV. FearÉIREANN 02:29, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Anyway, you made some good points, so I better understand your objections, even if I disagree with some of them. So, how about this? Daniel Quinlan 02:56, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Not all such declarations result in actual states and those states that do result from UDIs do not always survive. A significant number fail, with control returning to the previous government, or are replaced, with control shifting to a new follow-on government.

You need to mention the existence of rival "theoretically legitimate" governments and collapse is the correct word used for proto-regimes that fail. :-) FearÉIREANN 03:27, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

See the article for my latest attempt... Daniel Quinlan 03:55, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Why is this separate from Delaration of independence?

Only the newly forming state can declare its independence, so a DoI can only BE unilateral. The stste seceded from can support or accept said independence, but it cannot declare it. --Khajidha (talk) 14:29, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

There is an explanation at Talk:Declaration_of_independence#MIxed_up_article, but I can’t make any sense of it. If there is a cogent difference, between a unilateral and non-unilateral declaration it belongs in one article. Agree to merge. —Michael Z. 2020-04-16 19:46 z