and mass communication. In conjunction these developments produce cultural
diffusion that may even extend beyond the boundaries of the nation-state. A
‘crisis of integration’ is therefore likely to occur after independence unless
a sense of territorial nationality can be created by unifying independent
social, cultural and political entities. National integration is at risk not only
when a minority is threatened by a single numerically and politically domi-
nant group (as in Sri Lanka); self-determination may also be demanded
where there is a more ‘balanced’ pluralism of ethnic groups, as in India and
Nigeria (Weiner, 1965).
Demands for self-determination by ethnic groups are viewed from this
perspective as deviations from the path to modernity. The ‘problem’ for the
post-colonial state is one of ‘nation-building’ – creating loyalties and attach-
ments to the new nation-state which supersede the parochial loyalties
evoked by traditional values. Secession may then reflect a failure to inte-
grate at all (for example, during colonialism) or a process of disintegration
after a relatively stable period of unity (Wood, J. R., 1981, p. 111).
In common with the theories of modernization and development from
which this concept of integration springs, it mystifies rather than illuminates
the sources of political conflict which may lead to attempts at secession.
Integration theory presents the ‘crisis’ of integration as a deviation from the
functional process of political change. Political ‘disintegration’, of which
secession is one form, is portrayed as the consequence of an incompatibil-
ity between traditional and modern values, rules and modes of behaviour
(Phadnis and Ganguly, 2001, pp. 38–41). Failure to incorporate regions
successfully into the state system is regarded as evidence of persistent
parochial loyalties, often founded on tribal communality, which elevate the
legitimacy of traditional community above that of the modern form of polit-
ical association – the nation-state. The ‘primordial’ attachment to tradition
is thus seen as an obstacle to development.
The ‘integration’ approach to the phenomenon of secession suffers from
all the teleological and ethnocentric defects of modernization theory gener-
ally. Although it is true that political hostility to the inequalities of contem-
porary states may be reflected in an appeal to a sense of common identity and
historical continuity, such ‘parochialism’ is itself the consequence of other
factors rather than the prime mobilizer of political action. These other factors
have to be understood. It is inadequate to dismiss them as failures on the part
of disaffected sections of society to understand how to articulate political
demands through an essentially imaginary egalitarian and pluralistic politi-
cal system. To talk about national integration as if it is simply a question of
minorities becoming aware that new nation-states are the modern forms
202 Understanding Third World Politics