How the mighty have fallen—sort of.

The past few weeks in southern Africa have been astounding. Zimbabwe’s military dislodged Robert Mugabe, the country’s president since independence from Britain in 1980. Around the same time, the newish Angolan president, João Lourenço, sacked Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire kleptocrat daughter of his predecessor, from the state oil company on which the economy hinges. Both putsches would have been unthinkable just weeks ago.

That they went down so efficiently seems to speak to a new war on impunity. But don’t start talking about an African spring just yet. Public opposition played no role in eradicating the demons, and Mugabe’s exit was of questionable constitutionality. The degrading of once dominant figures does not change the political status quo, although we might see some changes in economic policies. Mugabe and dos Santos suffered jolts because they angered the political elite, which hailed from the liberation movements. The sense of entitlement of these erstwhile freedom fighters has over the decades pushed opposition to the fringes, whether by intimidation, vote rigging, or because citizens can’t imagine someone else in charge. Ministers and their families peddle their influence to control big business, if they don’t actually loot coffers themselves. Monopolization of power means rampant nepotism and few checks on abuses via the various institutions that might ordinarily prosecute wrongdoing.

It also spells longevity. The African National Congress (ANC) has governed uninterrupted since the end of apartheid in 1994. Namibia’s South West People’s Organization (SWAPO) has presided for 27 years. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) has clocked up 37. The Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) have each held onto the presidency for 42.

It’s doubtful that these cliques will suddenly embrace transparency that would end their influence or enrichment. The MPLA has a slogan: a luta continua, “the struggle continues.” It should be rephrased “the party continues.”

Take Zimbabwe. Mugabe’s party enabled his profligate ways and human-rights abuses until he did the unthinkable—fire the vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, to allow succession by his wife, Grace Mugabe. A former typist 41 years younger than Mugabe’s 93 years, she played no part in the independence war, which infuriated the old veterans surrounding the president. So the military held the despot under house arrest and threatened impeachment until he finally stepped down. Mnangagwa was sworn in on Friday to take his place, promising greater openness to opponents and foreign investors who treated Mugabe as a pariah after he seized white-owned farms in 2000. But the new president’s résumé doesn’t inspire confidence. Known as “the Crocodile” for his ruthlessness, Mnangagwa was at Mugabe’s side during the most brutal moments of the regime. Mnangagwa headed the security apparatus during 1983 massacres of 20,000 political opponents. He ran the violent campaign of 2008 that made a mockery of free elections. He steadfastly stood by as Mugabe devastated the economy. Even if Mnangagwa suddenly sees the democracy light, the Mugabes are unlikely to face justice or part with their vast wealth, accumulated while the rest of the nation struggled on a per capita GDP of around $1,000. The former president has been granted immunity from prosecution, under the terms negotiated for his resignation.

As for Angola, until recently the supremacy of the dos Santos clan seemed airtight. During the 38-year reign of José Eduardo dos Santos, the patriarch amassed a reported $20 billion—equal to about one-fifth of the nation’s GDP. His offspring profited with stakes in banks and telecommunications. With a net worth of $3.5 billion, favored daughter Isabel became Africa’s richest woman, a nepotism resented by the crony class that arose after independence in 1975. The good ride ended when dos Santos named as his successor Lourenço, a general who has spent his career loyally serving the party. Since taking power in September, Lourenço has installed his own set of insiders to run the state oil company Sonangol as well as the diamond sector, central bank, media, and security services. Yet few influential figures are spotless in Angola, making it improbable Lourenço will break the self-enrichment that has marked the ruling party until now.

Elsewhere in the region, another dynasty may hit the dust, although not the party from which it springs. South Africa’s ANC is sullied by corruption involving President Jacob Zuma and other prominent politicians. Public disgust cost the ANC major cities in the most recent municipal elections. However, Zuma has survived calls for his removal, and he favors his former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to become the head of the party, and by extension its candidate for president in 2019. Her ascendancy would be his best bet to avoid criminal charges once leaving office. The current front-runner for the position is Cyril Ramaphosa, who served as the ANC’s chief negotiator during the transition from apartheid. Since then, he has become one of the richest South Africans, with an estimated net worth of $450 million, and his name has come up in various scandals. But he is widely seen as more capable and honest than Zuma, and as a candidate would attract more popular support.

Next door in Mozambique, FRELIMO has survived by dirty tricks. Its modus operandi of election fraud and corruption ensure that party cronies control both politics and wealth. The economy is one of the better performers on the African continent, but more than half the population struggles under the poverty line. The main opposition, the Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO), has returned to arms in frustration over its sidelining. RENAMO wants more power in minerals-rich provinces, whose heads are appointed by the federal government. A resolution of such demands anytime soon remains a distant possibility.

The country with the cleanest record is Namibia. Yet the long-serving SWAPO has nonetheless managed to keep the opposition from gaining any real sway in the political, and by extension financial, space. According to Freedom House, corruption continues to be a problem and investigations into major cases proceed slowly. Enforcement of legislation is uneven, due to the influence of state-owned companies.

This one-party dominance in the five nations will probably continue for some time. In all of these countries, more than 40 percent of the population is under 25, and these young people have known only one party. Their biggest concerns are jobs. The plundering of state resources has left many in bad shape, and income disparities are broad between the haves and the rest. If Lourenço, Mnangagwa, and whoever succeeds Zuma can enact reforms to restore economic health, they will gain more legitimacy. So, too, an end to malfeasance by the governing class. But whether that is achievable is anyone’s guess. And for the time being, there are no viable opposition groups to replace them.

Attempts by Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan to break free have backfired, posing sobering lessons for other separatists and those who rule them. If there’s any takeaway, it’s that both parties should exhibit flexibility, in case the bluff is called.

Without question, the organizers of the twin independence referenda miscalculated by ignoring warnings of a harsh reaction from above. Rather than enjoying newfound freedoms, what were once semi-autonomous regions with substantial powers are left, at least for now, with little or none. And it’s not clear they’ll ever get any back.

Iraq acted decisively to punish the vote held on September 25, sending in troops to seize the oil fields and territory around Kirkuk, considered by Kurds to be a cultural capital. The humiliated regional president, Masoud Barzani, resigned. Meanwhile in Spain, Madrid sent police, who beat up hundreds of peaceful Catalan voters on October 1. Last Friday, it sacked the provincial government and parliament and imposed direct rule. Yesterday, protests erupted after nine Catalan ministers were jailed for disobedience, and the demonstrations are likely to gain force in the coming days. Catalan secessionists are unlikely to limp away quietly and forget the sorry chapter.

These fiascos should trouble any of the dozens and dozens of separatist groups globally that might be contemplating exit strategies, among them Belgium’s Walloons and the Faroe islanders of Denmark. More importantly, the political chaos following the referenda should also give pause to central governments facing restive ethnic minorities. While the secessionists were shortsightedly stubborn, their national governments equally should have been more willing to discuss concessions. Rigidity and force encourages grudges and radicalism rather than capitulation. Better to recognize identity concerns and not force integration. That’s what Britain did with Scotland, and Canada with Quebec. That’s how Switzerland achieved its fabled peace in the last century.

What Iraq and Spain fail to understand is that these peeved groups have legitimate local support for their cause. Cultural memories remain powerful, which is why the Kurds and Catalans have clung to grievances that are decades or centuries old. Those that have been aggressively denied a voice will continue to be confrontational. Renewed defiance might not be immediate, but, as we have seen in countless other examples, dreams of self-determination pass on through generations if brusquely ignored.

The Kurds have been trying for a century to get their own homeland, to the discomfort of the countries that host the scattered population: Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. They have a distinct language and their population of more than 25 million is the world’s largest group of stateless people. They almost achieved their dream of home rule under the 1920 treaty that abolished the Ottoman Empire, but a subsequent international agreement that etched modern Turkey’s borders erased that provision. Hopes rose again after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when the new constitution that followed created a proto-state, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), helmed in Erbil. It won significant powers, including its own army, which later played a decisive role in expelling ISIS from Iraq’s northern territories including Kirkuk. Emboldened by this achievement, the KRG gambled on calling for full independence, to the great consternation of its US allies and neighboring countries with sizable Kurdish populations.

Catalonia, in contrast, was self-governed back in the Middle Ages. A merger with other parts of what is now modern Spain brought it under Madrid’s rule, where many have complained that their traditions and culture have been sidelined. Catalans especially suffered under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, from 1939 to 1975, who repressed their language. Ever since, many have felt an urge to assert their identity.

However, money as well as identity motivates Kurdish and Catalan go-it-alone sentiment. Both provinces have valuable resources that are diverted to benefit other parts of the nation. The Kurds understandably feel entitled to more monetary fruits after shouldering much of the fight to push out ISIS from territory it had seized. Kirkuk produces about half of Iraq’s oil exports, a lucrative source of income that would help support a new state.

Catalonia is one of the wealthiest regions of Spain, and secessionists unhappily note that it accounts for nearly one-fifth of Spain’s economy, and contributes more in taxes than it gets back from the government. This sense of economic injustice deepened during the euro-debt crisis over the past decade, when at one point one in four Catalans were without jobs. Not surprisingly, public opinion polls showed a big rise in support for independence, even if regional leader couldn’t explain how a new country would survive economically.

The international community normally views secession as a local matter, not withstanding the unease by Washington and Iraq’s neighbors over Kurdistan and by the EU over Catalonia. As a general rule, it rejects or ignores the legitimacy of separatist movements. While the charter of the UN embraces the principle of self-determination, in practice no international laws permit a community from severing itself from the whole. This lack of clarity in global norms often leads to rough treatment by the central governments fighting dismemberment, as we have seen in the Indian occupation of Kashmir and Russia’s vicious crackdown in Chechnya.

So what is a central government to do?

Copy Canada and Britain, which showed flexibility toward statehood strivers in, respectively, Quebec and Scotland. Such pushes for freedom are often ways to win more rights, which are more wisely granted rather than exercising brute force. Spain’s Constitutional Court lost such a chance in 2010 by rejecting a statute of autonomy that would have referred to Catalonia as a “nation” and allowed more judiciary and fiscal powers. (While Catalonia had control over such matters as education, police, and commerce, administering justice largely fell to the Spanish state.) It’s worth noting that some of Madrid’s autonomous regions have more local powers than others, the Basque Country among them.

Scotland and Quebec, like Catalonia and the Kurds, had a fraught history with central government. They both had independent sources of income—Quebec is the second-richest province, which pays the highest taxes to the federal government. North Sea oil lies off of Scotland. Britain and Canada undermined feisty secessionism by allowing independence referenda, which then failed to muster enough votes in favor. We’ll never know for sure, but it’s probable that simply allowing the vote meant less people felt they needed to take a stand at the polls. The free-Quebec movement lost two independence votes, in 1980 and 1995. Scotland’s attempt fell flat in 2014. Rather than dismissing the defeat with a “we told you so,” the British government pragmatically handed more power to the Scottish Parliament, including control of some taxes, welfare policies, and fracking. In Canada, the House of Commons in 2006 passed a motion that recognized the Québécois as a “nation” within unified Canada. It was largely symbolic, but words carry weight.

Going forward, it is hard to imagine Catalans and Kurds giving up on their exit aspirations. The best-case scenario in Iraq would be serious negotiations between Erbil and Baghdad on managing wealth, something unlikely to be resolved any time soon. In Spain, snap regional elections called by Madrid for December 21 in Catalonia are unlikely to dampen separatist sentiment, especially if the sacked parliamentarians and erstwhile leader Carles Puigdemont are arrested for defying the state. The Spanish government would be wise to keep them out of jail rather than making this an issue.

Policy-makers weighing devolution elsewhere ought to look to Switzerland. We tend to forget that this paragon of neutrality has a violent and divisive history. Its main exports in during the Renaissance were hardened mercenaries, who served the princely states of France and Italy. (The Swiss Guard of the Vatican with its antiquated uniforms and halberds harkens back to that era.) Afterward, leaders had to contend with uniting four language groups and two hostile religions. Just 170 years ago, civil war tore at Switzerland. The modern confederation of 26 cantons that emerged thereafter brought stability by devolving financial and other powers in the most direct form of democracy anywhere. This system essentially revived one that preexisted in the Middle Ages, in which towns were left alone to run their own affairs. Furthermore, Switzerland granted equal status to the various linguistic groups, thus avoiding the imposition of a singular national identity that would favor one over the others. According to studies on happiness, the residents of cantons with the highest degrees of self-rule are the most content.

For sure, national governments want to protect their territorial integrity and should not give into every demand posed. But they need to spend more time listening closely. Understanding why certain ethnic quarrels persist so obstinately would help dissolve them. Imagine the bloodshed that could have been avoided if India allowed Kashmiris to vote on secession. Or if the Soviets had permitted Chechnya to form its own state in the 1990s. Along similar lines, think, too, of what could have been if Mexican authorities had been flexible in Chiapas rather than fomenting more disobedience with suppression. Over the course of history, separatist struggles repeat themselves in the same locales. We live at a time of resurgent identity politics, and ignoring voices will not make for peace with defensive populations with lasting umbrage. Conflict resolution often depends not on cracking down but on letting go. Central states need to use a lighter touch, or else the same problems will come back to haunt them.