Dissolution (politics)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Dissolution" politics – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Dissolution in politics is when a state, institution, nation, or administrative region dissolves or ceases to exist, usually separating into two or more entities, or being annexed. This can be carried out through armed conflict, legal means, diplomacy, or a combination of any or all of the three. It is similar to dissolution in the legal sense.

It is not to be confused with secession, where a state, institution, nation, or administrative region leaves; nor federalisation where the structure changes but is not dissolved. There have been several dissolutions in history, while others have been proposed or advanced as hypotheticals.