Micronation (New Secessionism)

In new secessionism, a micronation is a small political community of individuals sharing a common cultural tradition who collectively identify as a nation; soveriegn states based on micronations are micronation-states, and self-described micronations not based on organic cultural groups are model countries. Micronations are distinguished from conventional nations by their much smaller sizes, shorter histories, and according to proponents of the parallel plane theory, existence on a distinct 'plane of sovereignty'.

Micronation-states versus model countries

A distinctive feature of new seccessionism is the narrow usage of the terms micronation and micronation-state, with new seccesionists referring to many self-described micronations as 'model countries' instead. The majority of self-described 'micronations' are excluded from the defintion used in New Seccessionism either because they have too few members to be considered a community of people, as in the case of the Glastieven government refusing to acknowledge the Democratic Republic of Howe as a micronation, or because no organic culture or nation exists away from what has been artificially created by the model country's founders.

This distinction is not present in other forms of secessionism, which use the term 'micronation' to refer to any unrecognised state-like entity. Expressing the traditional secessionist viewpoint on micronational culture, Richard Hytholoday (the former Chair of the Grand Unified Micronational) in March 2015 wrote that:

Micronational cultures are usually one of the purest examples of what we in the political community call an ‘inorganic social construct’: they are created by individuals for a purpose (to provide a shared cultural narrative for their Micronations), and they are totally driven and engineered by the will of their creators and are not shaped by natural processes in the psyche of citizens, events surrounding the Micronation and so forth. If the culture came into being naturally, as a result of a community of people banding together and being molded by what happenings came their way and not by direct tempering or social engineering, then it would be an organic social construct; the cultures of the macronations we know and love such as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, or the Republic of France.

Explaining the new secessionist view on micronational culture, Will Campbell (the editor of The Glastieven) in August 2018 wrote: