Abstract
Democratic states have developed rules on how to create political power within their borders. The basic principle is that power is bestowed by the majority of citizens. But, which citizens get to decide (i.e., within which state borders majorities are to be determined, and thus power bestowed) is not subject to democratic decisions. State borders are treated as historically fixed and, generally, only modified in the course of revolution, war (between and within countries), disintegration of a state, or even by the arbitrary acts of autocrats. There are no provisions, not even in democracies, for modifying borders without conflict or dispute.
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There are no reliable calculations of the number of lives claimed by the Western intervention in Libya, and neither are there reliable estimates of the number of lives claimed by the Gaddafi terror. But it is a fair estimate that more lives were claimed by the Western intervention and its fallout.
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Wehner, B. (2020). Fragile World Order and a Global War of Disintegration. In: Freedom, Peace, and Secession. SpringerBriefs in Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39523-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39523-0_2
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