How Homelands Change

Abstract

Under what conditions do nations give up parts of their national homeland? This article answers this question using novel data that traces systematically the inclusion of lost homeland territory in discursive definitions of the homeland for all ethnic nationalist homelands truncated between 1945 and 1996. A survival analysis of the continued homeland status of lost lands shows that longer-lasting democracies are significantly less likely to continue to include lost lands within the homeland’s scope, even after controlling for other factors thought to shape the inclusion of territory in the homeland. Since the desire for the control of territory is at the heart of much international conflict, understanding the conditions under which the scope of that territory is redefined contributes to addressing an especially refractory aspect of international politics.