Governing Away

22 February 2010 - 11.00

Clive Anderson examines one of the potentially strangest corners of international politics: governments and rulers in exile – a paradoxical area of international relations and occasionally surreal area of international law. The programme takes intriguing examples, drawn from the entire world map. These vary from the serious to the apparently ridiculous, but tackled with political sensitivity, a dash of legal rigor and philosophical playfulness. The relationship between state, territory and sovereignty is not always what it seems.

In Toronto, for example, a Belarusian government holds court, run by the charismatic Irvonka Survilla. The latter example is an interesting one: their version of Belarus only existed for 9 months in 1918 before it was assimilated by the Soviet Union. Now that Belarus is independent is there any reason for their continued existence? The Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, meanwhile, is based in Rockville, Maryland USA - led by Sein Winn MP, consisting of a number of MPs elected back in 1990 but barred from power by the military. Both these governments in exile feature here – as well as the crowns in exile King Constantine II of Greece and Prince Ermias Halie Selassie of Ethiopia.

Where to draw the line between delusion and a realistic chance of getting reinstalled? What do you do to go about getting recognition? How do governments in exile actually spend their days? Meanwhile the innate absurdity of a government with nothing to govern, a ruler with nothing to rule, is never very far away...Mixing a degree of the surreal with some all-too-real questions on the limits of international relations, Clive engages his cast in this offbeat and thought provoking political feature.