Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-mgxrv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-16T15:46:34.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Western Sahara as a Hybrid of a Parastate and a State-in-Exile: (Extra)territoriality and the Small Print of Sovereignty in a Context of Frozen Conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2019

Irene Fernández-Molina Open the ORCID record for Irene Fernández-Molina [Opens in a new window]  and
Raquel Ojeda-García
Irene Fernández-Molina*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
Raquel Ojeda-García
Affiliation:
University of Granada, Granada, Spain
*
*Corresponding author. Email: I.F.Molina@exeter.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that the “declarative” parastate of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) claiming sovereignty over Western Sahara is better understood as a hybrid between a parastate and a state-in-exile. It relies more on external, “international legal sovereignty,” than on internal, “Westphalian” and “domestic” sovereignty. While its Algerian operational base in the Tindouf refugee camps makes it work as a primarily extraterritorial state-in-exile de facto, the SADR maintains control over one quarter of Western Sahara’s territory proper allowing it to at least partially meet the requirements for declarative statehood de jure. Many case-specific nuances surround the internal sovereignty of the SADR in relation to criteria for statehood: territory, population, and government. However, examining this case in a comparative light reveals similarities with other (secessionist) parastates. The SADR exists within the context of a frozen conflict, where the stalemate has been reinforced by an ineffective internationally brokered peace settlement and the indefinite presence of international peacekeeping forces. Global powers have played a major role in prolonging the conflict’s status quo while the specific resilience of the SADR as a parastate has been ensured by support from Algeria as an external sponsor. The path to sovereignty appears to be blocked in every possible way.

Keywords

parastatesstates-in-exilefrozen conflictssovereigntydeclarative and constitutive statehoodWestern Sahara/SADR

Information

Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 48 , Special Issue 1: Special Issue on the Emergence and Resilience of Parastates , January 2020 , pp. 83 - 99
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Agamben, Giorgio. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Allan, Joanna. 2016. “Natural Resources and Intifada: Oil, Phosphates and Resistance to Colonialism in Western Sahara.” The Journal of North African Studies 21 (4): 645–666.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barona Castañeda, Claudia. 2015. “Memorias de una resistencia: La otra historia del Sahara Occidental.” Les Cahiers d’EMAM 24–25. https://journals.openedition.org/emam/859.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg, Eiki, and Toomla, Raul. 2009. “Forms of Normalisation in the Quest for De Facto Statehood.” The International Spectator 44 (4): 27–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barreñada, Isaías. 2017. “Western Saharan and Southern Moroccan Sahrawis: National Identity and Mobilization.” In Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, edited by Ojeda-García, Raquel, Fernández-Molina, Irene, and Veguilla, Victoria, 277–293. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouris, Dimitris, and Fernández-Molina, Irene. 2018. “Contested States, Hybrid Diplomatic Practices, and the Everyday Quest for Recognition.” International Political Sociology 12 (3): 306–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capella Soler, Renata. 2011. Human Rights: An Obstacle to Peace in the Western Sahara? Madrid: Real Instituto Elcano.Google Scholar
Caspersen, Nina. 2012. Unrecognized States: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Modern International System. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caspersen, Nina, and Stansfield, Gareth, eds. 2011. Unrecognized States in the International System. Oxon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cembrero, Ignacio. 2014. “La Unión Africana considera que España sigue siendo la potencia administradora del Sáhara.” El Mundo, November 13.Google Scholar
Fregoso, Chávez, Carolina, and Živković, Nikola. 2012. “Western Sahara: A Frozen Conflict.” Journal of Regional Security 7 (2): 139–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corcuff, Stéphane. 2012. “The Liminality of Taiwan: A Case-Study in Geopolitics.” Taiwan in Comparative Perspective 4: 34–64.Google Scholar
Fernández-Molina, Irene. 2015. “Protests under Occupation: The Spring inside Western Sahara.” Mediterranean Politics 20 (2): 235–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Molina, Irene. 2016. Moroccan Foreign Policy under Mohammed VI, 1999-2014. Oxon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fernández-Molina, Irene. 2017a. “Towards a Multilevel Analysis of the Western Sahara Conflict and the Effects of Its Protractedness.” In Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, edited by Ojeda-García, Raquel, Fernández-Molina, Irene, and Veguilla, Victoria, 1–33. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fernández-Molina, Irene. 2017b. “The EU, the ENP and the Western Sahara Conflict: Executive Continuity and Parliamentary Detours.” In The Revised European Neighbourhood Policy: Continuity and Change in EU Foreign Policy, edited by Bouris, Dimitris and Schumacher, Tobias, 219–238. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Molina, Irene. 2019. “Bottom-up Change in Frozen Conflicts: Transnational Struggles and Mechanisms of Recognition in Western Sahar.” Review of International Studies 45 (3): 407–430.Google Scholar
Ferrer Lloret, Jaume. 2017. “El conflicto del Sahara Occidental ante los tribunales de la Unión Europea.” Revista General de Derecho Europeo 42: 15–64.Google Scholar
Florea, Adrian. 2017. “De Facto States: Survival and Disappearance (1945-2011).” International Studies Quarterly 61 (2): 337–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geldenhuys, Deon. 2009. Contested States in World Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geldenhuys, Deon. 2014. “The African Union, Responsible Sovereignty and Contested States.” Global Responsibility to Protect 6 (3): 350–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagen, Erik. 2015. “Saharawi Conflict Phosphates and the Australian Dinner Table.” Global Change, Peace & Security 27 (3): 377–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernando de Larramendi, Miguel. 2008. “Intra-Maghrebi Relations: Unitary Myth and National Interests.” In North Africa: Politics, Region, and the Limits of Transformation, edited by Zoubir, Yahia H. and Amirah-Fernández, Haizam, 179–201. Oxon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hernando de Larramendi, Miguel, and Tomé-Alonso, Beatriz. 2017. “The Return of Morocco to the African Union.” In IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook 2017, 229–232. Barcelona: IEMed.Google Scholar
Isidoros, Konstantina. 2017. “The View from Tindouf: Western Saharan Women and the Calculation of Autochthony.” In Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, edited by Ojeda-García, Raquel, Fernández-Molina, Irene, and Veguilla, Victoria, 295–311. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isidoros, Konstantina. 2018. Nomads and Nation Building in the Western Sahara: Gender, Politics and the Sahrawi. London: I.B.Tauris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Robert. 1993. Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, Erik. 2012. Western Sahara: Anatomy of a Stalemate? 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Kassoti, Eva. 2017a. “The Front Polisario v. Council Case: The General Court, Völkerrechtsfreundlichkeit and the External Aspect of European Integration (First Part).” European Papers 2 (1): 339–356.Google Scholar
Kassoti, Eva. 2017b. “The Council v. Front Polisario Case: The Court of Justice’s Selective Reliance on International Rules on Treaty Interpretation (Second Part).” European Papers 2 (1): 23–42.Google Scholar
Ker-Lindsay, James. 2015. “Engagement without Recognition: The Limits of Diplomatic Interaction with Contested States.” International Affairs 91 (2): 267–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khakee, Anna. 2014. “The MINURSO Mandate, Human Rights and the Autonomy Solution for Western Sahara.” Mediterranean Politics 19 (3): 456–462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolstø, Pål. 2006. “The Sustainability and Future of Unrecognized and Quasi-States.” Journal of Peace Research 43 (6): 723–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liotta, P.H. 2001. Dismembering the State: The Death of Yugoslavia and Why It Matters. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Mälksoo, Maria. 2012. “The Challenge of Liminality for International Relations Theory.” Review of International Studies 38 (2): 481–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McConnell, Fiona. 2016. Rehearsing the State: The Political Practices of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McConnell, Fiona. 2017. “Liminal Geopolitics: The Subjectivity and Spatiality of Diplomacy at the Margins.” Transactions 42 (1): 139–152.Google Scholar
Mundy, Jacob. 2006. “Neutrality or Complicity? The United States and the 1975 Moroccan Takeover of the Spanish Sahara.” The Journal of North African Studies 11 (3): 275–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mundy, Jacob. 2007. “Performing the Nation, Pre-Figuring the State: The Western Saharan Refugees, Thirty Years Later.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 45 (2): 275–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mundy, Jacob. 2010. “Algeria and the Western Sahara Dispute.” The Maghreb Center Journal 1.Google Scholar
Norwegian Refugee Council. 2014. Western Sahara: Occupied Country, Displaced People. Oslo: Norwegian Refugee Council.Google Scholar
Ojeda-García, Raquel, Fernández-Molina, Irene, and Veguilla, Victoria, eds. 2017. Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ojeda-García, Raquel, and Suárez-Collado, Ángela. 2017. “Western Sahara in the Framework of the New Moroccan Advanced Regionalization Reform.” In Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, edited by Ojeda-García, Raquel, Fernández-Molina, Irene and Veguilla, Victoria, 189–211. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pegg, Scott. 1998. International Society and the de Facto State. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Pegg, Scott, and Kolstø, Pål. 2015. “Somaliland: Dynamics of Internal Legitimacy and (Lack of) External Sovereignty.” Geoforum 66: 193–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Valery. 2009. “At Cross Purposes? Democratization and Peace Implementation Strategies in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Frozen Conflict.” Human Rights Review 10 (1): 35–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinto Leite, Pedro. 2015. “Independence by Fiat: A Way Out of the Impasse – The Self-determination of Western Sahara, with Lessons from Timor-Leste.” Global Change, Peace & Security 27 (3): 361–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reuters, 2016. “UN Chief Regrets Morocco ‘Misunderstanding’ over Western Sahara Remark.” Reuters, March 28.Google Scholar
San Martín, Pablo. 2010. Western Sahara: The Refugee Nation. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar
Saul, Ben. 2015. “The Status of Western Sahara as Occupied Territory under International Humanitarian Law and the Exploitation of Natural Resources.” Global Change, Peace & Security 27 (3): 301–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scharf, Michael P. 2003. “Earned Sovereignty: Juridical Underpinnings.” Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 31 (3): 373–387.Google Scholar
Smith, J.J.P. 2014. “State of Exile: The Saharawi Republic and its Refugees.” In Still Waiting for Tomorrow: The Law and Politics of Unresolved Refugee Crises, edited by Akram, Susan M. and Syring, Tom, 25–53. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Smith, Jeffrey J. 2015. “The Taking of the Sahara: The Role of Natural Resources in the Continuing Occupation of Western Sahara.” Global Change, Peace & Security 27 (3): 263–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soroeta Liceras, Juan. 2014. International Law and the Western Sahara Conflict. Oisterwijk, Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers.Google Scholar
Soroeta Liceras, Juan. 2016. “La sentencia de 10 de diciembre de 2015 del Tribunal General de la UE (T-512/12), primer reconocimiento en vía judicial europea del estatuto del Sáhara Occidental y de la subjetividad internacional del Frente Polisario.” Revista General de Derecho Europeo 38: 202–238.Google Scholar
Theofilopoulou, Anna. 2010. Western Sahara: The Failure of “Negotiations without Preconditions.” Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Thieux, Laurence. 2017. “Algerian Foreign Policy towards Western Sahara.” In Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, edited by Ojeda-García, Raquel, Fernández-Molina, Irene, and Veguilla, Victoria, 121–141. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torres-Spelliscy, Glynn. 2014. “The Use and Development of Natural Resources in Non-self-governing Territories.” In Perspectives on Western Sahara: Myths, Nationalisms, and Geopolitics, edited by Boukhars, Anouar and Roussellier, Jacques, 235–260. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Trasosmontes, Violeta. 2014. El territorio del Sáhara Occidental y sus intereses económicos: Reflexiones para España. Madrid: Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos.Google Scholar
White, Natasha. 2015. “Conflict Stalemate in Morocco and Western Sahara: Natural Resources, Legitimacy and Political Recognition.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 42 (3): 339–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Paul R., and Pecci, Francesca Jannotti. 2004. “Earned Sovereignty: Bridging the Gap between Sovereignty and Self-Determination.” Stanford Journal of International Law 40 (2): 347–386.Google Scholar
Wilson, Alice. 2016. Sovereignty in Exile: A Saharan Liberation Movement Governs. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Wrange, Pal, and Helaoui, Sarah. 2015. Occupation/Annexation of a Territory: Respect for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and Consistent EU Policy. Brussels: European Parliament.Google Scholar
Zoubir, Yahia H., and Benabdallah-Gambier, Karima. 2005. “The United States and the North African Imbroglio: Balancing Interests in Algeria, Morocco, and the Western Sahara.” Mediterranean Politics 10 (2): 181–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zoubir, Yahia H., and Volman, Daniel, eds. 1993. International Dimensions of the Western Sahara Conflict. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Zunes, Stephen. 2015. “Western Sahara, Resources, and International Accountability.” Global Change, Peace & Security 27 (3): 285–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zunes, Stephen, and , Jacob. 2010. Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution. New York: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar