Books:
American Secession: The Folly of a Red State and Blue State Divorce. 2025. Oxford University Press.
Before Colonization: Nonwestern States and Systems in the Nineteenth Century. 2025. Columbia University Press, Series on International Order and Politics (with Charles Butcher).
Secession and the Sovereignty Game: Strategy and Tactics for Aspiring Nations. 2021. Cornell University Press.
Winner of the 2021 IEA Best Book Award
Reviewed by Kieran Pender. January 21, 2022. Breaking Away: How to Enter the Private Club of the United Nations. The Times Literary Supplement (The TLS).
Reviewed by Nikola Mirilovic. March, 2022. Mirilovic on Griffiths: “Secession and the Sovereignty Game: Strategy and Tactics for Aspiring Nations.” H-Diplo.
Featured in Ethnopolitics symposium with review articles from Erin Jenne, Argyro Kartsonaki, and Scott Pegg. 2024, Vol. 23(1): 76-85.
Age of Secession: The International and Domestic Determinants of State Birth. 2016. Cambridge University Press
Edited Volumes:
Routledge Handbook on Self-Determination and Secession. 2023. Routledge (with Aleksandar Pavkovic and Peter Radan)
Strategies of Secession and Counter-Secession. 2020. Rowman & Littlefield (with Diego Muro)
Peer-Reviewed Articles:
“Rebels and the Form of Rule: Lessons from Empire.” International Politics (forthcoming in special issue).
“Are Secessionists Making the Right Arguments for Independence?” Nations and Nationalism, 2023, Vol. 29(2): 498-511 (with Kari Waters).
“Toward a Theory of Heteronomy.” International Studies Quarterly, 2022, Vol. 66(1): 1-9 (with Charles Butcher).
“Local Conditions and the Demand for Independence: A Dataset of Secessionist Grievances.” Nations and Nationalism, 2021, Vol. 27(2): 580-590 (with Angely Milagros Martinez).
“Secessionist Strategy and Tactical Variation in the Pursuit of Independence.” Journal of Global Security Studies, 2021, Vol. 6(1): 1-19.
“War, Interaction Capacity, and the Structures of State Systems.” International Theory, 2021, Vol. 13(2): 372-396 (with Charles Butcher).
“States and their International Relations Since 1816: Introducing Version 2 of the International System(s) Dataset (ISD).” International Interactions, 2020, Vol. 46(2): 291-308 (with Charles Butcher).
Winner of the 2020 International Interactions Best Data Paper Award
“Does Violent Secessionism Work?” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2019, Vol. 63(5): 1310-1336 (with Louis Wasser).
“The Waltzian Ordering Principle and International Change: A Two-Dimensional Model.” European Journal of International Relations, 2018, Vol. 24(1): 130-152.
“Between Eurocentrism and Babel: A Framework for the Analysis of States, State Systems, and International Orders.” International Studies Quarterly, 2017, Vol. 61(2): 328-336 (with Charles Butcher).
Featured in “Comparing International Systems in World History: Anarchy, Hierarchy, and Culture.” International Studies Quarterly Online Symposium, November 28, 2017.
“Admission to the Sovereignty Club: The Past, Present, and Future of the International Recognition Regime.” Territory, Politics, Governance, 2017, Vol. 5(2): 177-189.
Also published in Territory Designs and International Politics: Inside-Out and Outside-In, edited by Boaz Atzili and Burak Kadercan. London: Routledge, 2017.
“States, Nations, and Territorial Stability: Why Chinese Hegemony Would Be Better for International Order.” Security Studies, 2016, Vol. 25(3): 519-545.
“Between Dissolution and Blood: How Administrative Lines and Categories Shape Secessionist Outcomes.” International Organization, 2015, Vol. 69(3): 731-751.
“Alternative International Systems? System Structure and Violent Conflict in 19th Century West Africa, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.” Review of International Studies, 2015, Vol. 41(4): 715-737 (with Charles Butcher).
“Between the Sword and the Wall: Spain’s Limited Options for Catalan Secessionism.” Nations and Nationalism, 2015, Vol. 21(1): 43-61 (with Pablo Guillen and Fernando Martinez).
“Secession and the Invisible Hand of the International System.” Review of International Studies, 2014, Vol. 40(3): 559-581.
“The Future of Self-Determination and Territorial Integrity in the Asian Century.” The Pacific Review, 2014, Vol. 27(3): 457-478.
“Membership Has Its Privileges: The Changing Benefits of Statehood.” International Studies Review, 2014, Vol. 16(1): 79-106 (with Tanisha Fazal).
“Introducing the International System(s) Dataset (ISD), 1816-2011.” International Interactions, 2013, Vol. 39(5): 748-768 (with Charles Butcher).
“Security Threats, Linguistic Homogeneity, and the Necessary Conditions for Political Unification.” Nations and Nationalism, 2010, Vol. 16(1): 169-188.
Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Edited Volumes:
“Quantitative Approaches to Historical International Relations.” In Benjamin de Carvalho, Julia Costa López, and Halvard Leira (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Historical International Relations. London: Routledge, 2021 (with Charles Butcher).
“Dynamics of Secession and State Birth.” In Gezim Visoka, John Doyle, and Edward Newman (eds), The Routledge Handbook of State Recognition. London: Routledge, 2019.
“Kurdistan, the International Recognition Regime, and the Strategy of Secession.” In Alex Danilovich (ed), Federalism, Secession and the International Regime of Recognition: Iraqi Kurdistan at a Crossroads. London: Routledge, 2018.
“War and Variation in the Structure of Historical International Systems: A Theoretical Model.” In Martin Hall, Jens Bartelson, and Jan Teorell (eds), De-Centering State-Making: Historical and Geographical Perspectives. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018 (with Charles Butcher).
“Admission to the Sovereignty Club: The Past, Present, and Future of the International Recognition Regime.” In Boaz Atzili and Burak Kadercan (eds), Territorial Designs and International Politics: Inside-Out and Outside-In. London: Routledge, 2017.
“Kurdistan´s Independence and the International System of Sovereign States.” In Alex Danilovich (ed), Iraqi Kurdistan in Middle Eastern Politics. London: Ashgate, 2016.
“Secession.” Encyclopedia of Political Thought, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.
“Globalization and Separatism: The Influence of Internal and External Interdependence on the Strategy of Separatism.” In Jerry Harris (ed), The Nation in the Global Era: Conflict and Transformation. Leiden: Brill, 2009 (with Ivan Savic)
Invited Articles:
“Legitimacy and Control: Introduction to the Special Issue on Rebel Governance,” International Politics (forthcoming in special issue) (with Heidi Stallman, lead author).
“Secession and the Sovereignty Game,” Ethnopolitics, 2024, Vol. 23(1): 76-85.
“Der Drang Zum Eigenen Staat,” Welt-Sichten.” June 6, 2021.
“Between Eurocentrism and Babel: A Response to Our Critics.” International Studies Quarterly Online Symposium, November 28, 2017 (with Charles Butcher).
“Who Counts? Why do Governments Deny Secession in Some Cases But Not Others?” Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), December, 2017.
“Europe in the Time of State Proliferation.” Perspectives on Europe, 2015 Autumn 45:2.
“A State of One’s Own: The Rise of Secession Since World War II.” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2008, Vol. 15(1): 199-208 (with Tanisha Fazal).
Book Reviews:
“Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders,” by Ayse Zarakol, H-Diplo. September 15, 2023.
“Boxing Pandora: Rethinking Borders, States, and Secession in a Democratic World,” by Timothy William Waters, Political Science Quarterly, 2020, Vol. 135(3): 527-528.
“Break All the Borders: Separatism and the Reshaping of the Middle East,” by Ariel I. Ahram, Perspectives on Politics, 2019, Vol. 17(4): 1251-1252.
“Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century: The Dynamics of Recognition,” by Bridget Coggins, H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. January, 2015.
“Good Fences, Bad Neighbors: Border Fixity and International Conflict,” by Boaz Atzili, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Australian Army Journal, 2012, Vol. 9(3): 175-176.