  Instead of asking how the separatist group gains the right to territory, Wellman starts by asking why the original state has territorial claims in the first place (Wellman 1995). He argues that the state owes us an explanation as to why it can claim unilateral coercive authority over us and the territories on which we live. The only plausible explanation, he concludes, is functionality. So, Wellman has a distinctly functionalist view of state authority—the authority of a state over its territory and people is legitimate insofar and only insofar as it performs its necessary political functions to some satisfactory degree. A state’s claim to sole authority over a territory is thus generated by the use of that territory to the performance of its political functions (Wellman 2005: ch. 2).