Nationalisms in Spain....and Europe

The original project on ‘The Dynamics of Nationalist Evolution in Contemporary Spain’ lasted for three years (2012-15) and in its final stages extended the comparative framework beyond Spain to compare nationalist party behaviour and state responses in a number of western European countries, including the UK, Belgium and Italy.

About the Project

The central aim has been to understand the drivers and dynamics behind the behaviour of nationalist parties, some of which have come to adopt sovereignty-based objectives while others have sought to achieve greater autonomy within the context of the existing state.

The parties examined in most depth have been those that have enjoyed political dominance in Catalonia and the Basque Country since 1980, namely Convergence and Union (CiU), particularly Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC), and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). In the past, both have made gains at times by taking the path of pragmatic accommodation, negotiating concessions on decentralisation in return for supporting minority Spanish governments. However, the viability of such strategies has come into question since the 1990s, leading the PNV and Convergència to reconsider their strategies and at times express ambitions that go well beyond the bounds of traditional devolution. This study explores the economic, political and social drivers behind this process and seeks to explain why CDC and the PNV have dissimilar positions today.

Funding

The project has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK. The award (ES/J007854/1) provided for a series of workshops and an extensive programme, including scores of elite interviews undertaken in Catalonia and the Basque Country by the principal investigator, , and doctoral research student, Caroline Gray, also funded by the ESRC through the North West Doctoral Training Centre.

Specific Aims

More specific aims have been:

  • To identify the pattern of evolution of nationalist movements in Spain (and other parts of Europe) in terms of a series of dynamics:
    • Interaction with central government
    • Pressures from the support bases of nationalist parties
    • Competition between parties within the home community
    • International influences
  • To compare and contrast the experience of Basque and Catalan nationalist parties in respect of competing trends towards radicalisation on one hand and territorial accommodation on the other.

Publications

Early outcomes from the project include:

  • Richard Gillespie and Caroline Gray, eds., Contesting Spain? The Dynamics of Nationalist Movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country (Routledge, 2015)
  • Evolving Nationalism Research Briefs

 

 

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