This book analyses how national independence movements’ rhetoric can inflame or dampen ethnic violence. It examines the extent to the power of words matters when a region tries to break away to become a nation state.

Using discourse analysis, this book examines how the process of secession affects internal ethnic relations and analyses how politicians interpret events and present arguments with the intention to mobilize their constituencies for independence. With in-depth case studies on the Slovenian, the Croatian and the Montenegrin independence movements, and by looking at...