The Shifting Framing Strategies and Policy Positions of the Bloque Nacionalista Galego

This article asks why, in contrast to other historic territories with a regional language, such as Catalonia and the Basque Country, nationalist parties in the Autonomous Community of Galicia receive less electoral support. Going beyond prior explanations of this counterintuitive political outcome, which were mainly based on economic, sociological, and institutional factors, this piece of research sheds light on the strategies of political parties. It examines not only nationalist forces but statewide ones that successfully compete in Galicia. Our analysis is focused on the Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG) because this is the only nationalist force that has consistently achieved representation within the regional Parliament. Along with BNG's translation into party positions in both the left-right and center-periphery dimensions, the article's main contribution is its updating of the BNG's three framing strategies: the nationalism/“Spanishism” (1982–1993), the “common project” discourse (1993–2005), and the sovereigntist one (2005 onward). Shifts in public opinion regarding the territorial model and other attitudes toward self-government are also examined.     

The Rules of the Game—Nationalism,Globalisation and Football in Spain: Barça and Bilbao in a Comparative Perspective

This paper discusses the triangular relation between nationalism, globalisation and football in Spain. The aim of the work is to compare the way two Spanish football clubs—the Catalan FC Barcelona (known as “Barça”) and the Basque Athletic Bilbao—respond to the challenges posed by the game's globalisation, and through this comparison learn about the nexus between nationalism and globalisation. The main claim is that the differences between the two clubs’ behaviour can be attributed to varying characteristics of Basque and Catalan nationalism. Focusing on different path dependency, the development of a civic Catalan nationalism is contrasted with the growth of Basque nationalism as essentially ethnic. These characteristics emerged and crystallised primarily during the regions’ industrialisation, and the nationalist response to this advent of modernism would later shape the response to post-modern globalisation. The diametrically opposed ways in which the two football clubs react to the game's globalisation reflect the significant differences between the two national movements’ core values. This illustrates the importance of path dependency as a factor that produces diverse responses to globalisation—the results of which are not predetermined.     

Nationalist Politics at the Crossroads: The Basque Nationalist Party and the Challenge of Sovereignty (1998–2014)

In the past two decades the Basque Nationalist Party's political strategy has exemplified its historical oscillation between, on the one hand, a more radical claim to Basque sovereignty supported mostly by nationalist forces and, on the other, a comparatively more moderate Realpolitik aimed at achieving higher degrees of regional autonomy and cross-party consensus as a means of more gradual Basque nation-building. In contrast to the mainstream interpretation forwarded by the media and other political parties, the main difference between the relatively more radical or moderate strategies of the PNV is not a higher or lower ideological profile of the claim for Basque sovereignty but a different strategic decision concerning the problem of how to bring together the struggle for sovereignty and the reality of Basque pluralism.     

The Evolution of Substate Nationalist Parties as Statewide Parliamentary Actors: CiU and PNV in Spain

This contribution examines party competition between the Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), two substate nationalist parties, and the statewide governing party based on the degree to which they ally in Spain's statewide parliament. It demonstrates that party competition during statewide minority governments is quite cooperative, though with variation, and statewide majority governments are associated with less cooperation. The weight of properiphery stances in the nationalist parties’ manifestos does not explain the patterns of party competition. In part, their behavior is associated with opportunities to influence policy and interparty competition in their respective regions.     

Between Accommodation and Contestation: The Political Evolution of Basque and Catalan Nationalism

The recent emphasis placed by several mainstream nationalist parties in Europe on sovereignty objectives invites analysis of the drivers behind this phenomenon. Their evolution is characterized by a complex set of dynamics that influences their options when faced with strategic decisions over participation in an existing state and/or challenging it by pressing for statehood. Spain constitutes a major laboratory for studying such dynamics owing to a diverse range of nationally- oriented parties. The experiences of the Basque Country and Catalonia show the continued relevance of center-periphery cleavages, especially when aggravated by European and global pressures and constraints, but party positioning between accommodation and sovereignty politics is influenced too by changing relationships between Basque and Catalan nationalist elites and civil societies and between mainstream nationalist parties and their direct competitors within party systems.     

ETA: From secret army to social movement – the post‐Franco schism of the Basque nationalist movement

Under the Franco dictatorship, post‐Civil War generations of Basques grew up in a climate of physical violence and symbolic repression. Through the imposition of controls on all manifestations of Basque cultural and linguistic expression, the Spanish state transformed even the simplest of actions into defiant symbols of Basque identity. Rejecting, as ineffectual, attempts by the existing Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to defend Basque culture, the more militant members of the PNV's youth organization attempted to stimulate a radical ethnic movement through a new organization, Euskadi ‘ta Askatasuna [Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA)]. From its founding in 1959, ETA's principal goals have been the achievement of Basque independence and the revival of Basque culture and language. Its principal strategy has remained armed resistance to Spanish rule. To date, ETA has been responsible for approximately 600 deaths. In this article, we focus on the strategic and organizational evolution of ETA from secret army to social movement in the post‐Franco era. In particular, we seek to clarify the role that violence plays in the symbolic conflict of Basque/Spanish collective identities and to identify how the democratization process has influenced the strategies and tactics adopted by ETA as well as by those political organizations which have emerged from ETA and its numerous factions.     

Organizing for Resistance: How Group Structure Impacts the Character of Violence

How does the way in which a group organizes change the lethality of the group's attacks? In this article, we argue that groups organized vertically as hierarchies are likely to conduct more lethal attacks. We build our argument around three advantages inherent to centralized structures: functional differentiation, clear command and control structures, and accountability. We argue that each of these characteristics positively impacts an organization's ability to deliver an effective lethal blow. To test our argument, we use a mixed method approach, drawing on empirical evidence and support from a time-series case study. Our large-N analysis examines the trends in more than 19,000 attacks. In this test we develop a novel proxy measure for hierarchy based on a group's bases of operation and non-violent activities. To complement the empirical work, we examine the history of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Basque separatist group. Over several decades of violent operations, this group's structure has changed dramatically. We analyze how these shifts impacted ETA's ability to maximize the effectiveness and damage of their attacks. In both the case study and large-N analysis, the more hierarchically organized the group, the more easily the group can orchestrate lethal attacks.     

BORROKA—The Legitimation of Street Violence in the Political Discourse of Radical Basque Nationalists

The present article analyzes the discourse employed by the left-wing nationalist movement in Spain's Basque Country to legitimize the use of street violence for political ends. I distinguish four “faces” of legitimation (“ex ante” vs. “ex post,” “for us” vs. “for others”) and argue that in a situation of radicalization of politically inspired (terrorist) violence, the discourse developed to justify violent action is principally meant for the organization's own following, and less to communicate with the outside world. Basque militants claimed that their strategy of political and military radicalization in the 1990s had been responsible for recent political successes of their movement.     

The Importance of Historical Context: A New Discourse on the Nation in Basque Nationalism?

All nationalist movements make use of a variety of aspects (language, history, race, etc.) of the territory claimed as a nation to build their discourse on said nation, and, though these discourses are often presented as something permanent and unchanging over time, they can change depending on the historical context. This is indicated by the Basque nationalist movement's two main discourses on the nation, as well as by what appears to be a tendency towards a new discourse currently being developed within this movement. The new discourse seems to have adopted the concept of democracy as a key element in its theorization.     

Richard Nixon and Economic Nationalism in Latin America: The Problem of Expropriations, 1969–1974

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Nixon administration confronted the problem of how best to protect US economic interests in Latin America during a period of rising economic nationalism. After extensive debate, the president approved a policy designed to deter expropriations and rein in nationalist economic sentiment by threatening to terminate US and international financial assistance to countries that expropriated American holdings without prompt and adequate compensation. As it turned out, however, this policy was little short of a disaster. Nixon's stance heightened American unpopularity during a period when US credibility in Latin America was already on the wane, and failed to have any restraining effect on either the number of expropriations by Latin American countries or the strength of economic nationalism in the area. Informed by domestic and bureaucratic pressures and the same ideological proclivities that have long characterized American relations with the underdeveloped world, Nixon's policy on the expropriations issue ultimately proved ineffective and even pernicious to US interests in Latin America.     

The Determinants of Civic and Ethnic Nationalisms in Kazakhstan: Evidence from the Grass-Roots Level

This article investigates the determinants of ethnic and civic nationalism in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Using data from an original nation-wide survey (N = 1600), the regression analysis is applied to evaluate the influence of trust and perceptions of discrimination as well as sociodemographic factors on people's support of civic and ethnic nationalism(s) in Kazakhstan. The results show that trust in political institutions, perceived discrimination, and the knowledge of the Kazakh language have an impact on both types of nationalism. In addition, intragroup (ethnic) trust and income determine civic–nationalist attachments, while rural residence, Kazakh ethnicity, income, and other ethnic minorities influence ethnonationalism in Kazakhstan.     

Changing the Rules of the Game: Comparing FIFA/UEFA and EU Attempts to Promote Reform of Power-Sharing Institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina

This article compares two international attempts to promote reform of power-sharing institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina: failed European Union-led efforts to promote reform of the country's constitution, which was established by the 1995 Dayton Agreement; and the recent successful reform of Bosnia-Herzegovina's institutions of football governance, promoted by the game's international and European governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA. The article outlines the history of these two reform processes and seeks to explain why FIFA and UEFA have been more successful in promoting reform in this post-conflict setting than the EU. It argues that, in contrast to the EU, which has been vague about the precise reforms expected of Bosnia-Herzegovina's politicians, leaving the details to be negotiated by domestic political elites, FIFA and UEFA were more precise in their demands and were also willing to capitalise on popular frustration with the governance of the sport and to bypass nationalist elites who stood in the way of reform.     

Exporting Iran's Islamic revolution: Steering a path between Pan‐Islam and nationalism

This article focuses on the question of whether Iran's foreign policy over the period 1979–94 was a pure reflection of the clerical regime's millenarian crusade and its stated doctrine of exporting the Islamic revolution worldwide. Taking, inter alia, the controversy surrounding Iran's takeover of the island of Abu Musa in 1992, the article argues that Iran's actions were determined by a persistent sense of nationalism which was not less potent than its pan‐Islamic vision. Iran's nationalist tradition has been able to survive as a major force in Iranian political culture, its sometimes ‘Islamicized’ form notwithstanding.     

印度教与印度民族主义

本文探讨了印度教对印度民族主义的负面影响 ,以及印度民族独立运动的领袖如何利用印度教来促成印度民族主义的形成、教派民族主义者如何利用印度教来为教派民族主义服务 ,并指出以印度教为基础的民族主义对印度社会的的双重作用。     

Is Nationalism Intrinsically Violent?

This article analyzes the complex and contradictory relationships between nationalism and organized violence. The author challenges the approaches that see nationalism as being inherently linked with violence and demonstrates that nationalist ideology by itself is rarely a main cause of hostile acts. The article focuses on the different forms of organized violence including wars, revolutions, terrorism, and genocide. It aims to show that the relationship between violence and nationalism cannot be properly captured by the dominant intentionalist, naturalist, and formativist perspectives. Instead the case is made that the emphasis should be given to the long-term historical processes and the relative modernity of both nationalism and organized violence. The author argues that it is very difficult to generate sustained and organized violent nationalist action. The mutation of nationalist doctrines into violent acts is generally a product of unintended structural circumstances and is characterized by its temporary nature and volatility. More specifically, this process is usually generated by the coercive bureaucratization, centrifugal ideologization, and their capacity to be embedded in the networks of microsolidarity.     

Catalan Independence and the Challenge of Credibility: The Causes and Consequences of Catalan Nationalist Parties’ Strategic Behavior

This contribution examines the role of Convergència i Unió and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya in putting the issue of Catalonia's constitutional relationship with the rest of Spain at the top of the Catalan and Spanish political agenda. It focuses on the strategic behavior of these two parties in pursuit of their territorial goals since 1978 and identifies the complex dynamics that led both parties to converge around a shared commitment to Catalan sovereignty. It is argued that the extent to which past strategic decisions have strengthened or weakened nationalist parties’ credibility on their core business of territorial empowerment has a significant impact on the options currently available to them as they seek a satisfactory answer to the Catalan question.     

The re‐equilibration of democracy in inter‐war Ireland

This article examines the process of democratic stabilization in inter‐war Ireland. The Irish case is a classic example of what Linz calls re‐equilibration. Re‐equilibration is a political process that, following a crisis which has seriously endangered democratic institutions, results in their continued existence at the same or higher levels of effectiveness and legitimacy. The contention of the article is that the Fianna Fáil party's transformation of the democratic institutions of the Irish Free State in the 1930s constituted a case of democratic re‐equilibration, whereby the institutions of independent Ireland were given a greater degree of effectiveness and legitimacy. Indeed, since the main Irish parties had only recently been involved in a civil war, the Irish example could well be the classic case of re‐equilibration this century. The analysis of democratic re‐equilibration between 1922 and 1937 focuses on the Fianna Fáil party's transformation from being a semi‐loyal opposition party to being a party of government, emphasizing the impact on those political actors who remained hostile to the existence of the Free State.     

From Civic Pluralism to Ethnoreligious Majoritarianism: Majority Nationalism in India

Abstract

This article analyzes the changing nature and substance of Indian nationalism since independence in 1947. India provides insights into how state and majority nationalism manifests itself in a democratic post-colonial society. It also draws attention to how state-making and nation-building reflect the dominant political position of the majority nation in a specific state. In India, the state actively sought to accommodate ethnic and linguistic demands through a consensual federal system. In this form, the majority nationalism did not always imply majoritarianism. The outcome was complex asymmetrical federalism that sought accommodation but also actively opposed secessionist demands by nationalist movements. This accommodationist form of majority nationalism has in recent decades been replaced by an ethnoreligious nationalism based on majoritarian and exclusivist principles. The political success of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has weakened India’s asymmetrical federalism. The trend is away from pluralistic possibilities to a unitary nation-state model. This majoritarian nationalism is characterized by an insistence on Hindutva or Hindu nationalism, intolerance of difference and an insistence that all those who live in India share a common culture, Identity and historic past. The decision to repeal Article 370 of the Constitution, which provides a special status for Jammu and Kashmir, is discussed in this context.     

Mainstream Revolutionaries: Sinn Féin as a “Normal” Political Party?

Despite the seismic shift of Sinn Féin from being the “mouthpiece” of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to the largest nationalist force in Northern Ireland, the party continues to project its objectives within the revolutionary politics and tradition of 1916. Whilst various groups across the island of Ireland stress their loyalty to Irish independence and allegiance to their republican forefathers, 2016 also plays host to devolved assembly elections in Northern Ireland. The centenary of the Easter Rising is therefore a poignant moment to reassess republican politics, more specifically, the relationship between the armed revolutionary tradition and constitutionalism. Within the post-peace process era Sinn Féin have been accused of maintaining an autocratic culture and an intra-party framework that is more representative of a clandestine revolutionary organisation than a political party. Yet, simultaneously, Sinn Féin have not been immune to the pressures experienced by other modern political parties, bound by the laws of electoral competition and driven by office-seeking priorities. In order to explore Sinn Féin within the modern political arena, this article firstly examines the broader debate surrounding how armed groups make the transition into constitutional politics. Secondly, public opinion survey data is used to judge the basis of Sinn Féin's electoral appeal. Finally, internal party documents are used to examine party structure, intra-party democracy, and professionalisation in order to judge the extent to which Sinn Féin have completed the transition from being a “mouthpiece” to their armed counterpart, towards being a “normal” political party.     

The political economy of stalemate: organised crime,corruption and economic deformation in post-Dayton Bosnia

‘The biggest security threat to this country is not nationalism; it’s criminality, corruption and unemployment'2 More than seven years after the end of the Bosnian war and despite some $5 billion in international reconstruction assistance, Bosnia's economy remains stagnant and dysfunctional, while the country is rapidly gaining a reputation not as an emerging market economy but as a lawless and ungovernable state dominated by organised crime and corruption. This paper assesses Bosnia's post-Dayton political economy, arguing that the nexus between organised crime and corruption, on the one hand, and nationalist political forces, on the other, represents the most significant obstacle to the development of a market economy in Bosnia and poses a growing threat to the country's peace process. This situation is the product of Bosnia's particular post-war and post-socialist environment, which has created a powerful class of elites with an interest in perpetuating the status quo of a largely unreformed economy. In this context, international efforts to impose economic reforms from above, and to encourage local authorities to embrace a reformist marketisation and rule of law agenda, have met with little success. The paper concludes by suggesting that international peace building efforts need to pay greater attention to the ‘enforcement gap’ that has en abled crime and corruption to flourish in Bosnia.