The big powers and their imperialist institutions decide. [S]ome recognition means the state "enjoys some of the benefits of being a state such as access to the World Bank, the IMF, and the International Olympic Committee." "It's essentially impossible for a group to become independent and claim its own statehood unless others, other powerful states, are willing to support it" The cases of Somaliland, Kosovo, and East Timor
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51