Contesting Spain? The Dynamics of Nationalist Movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country

by Richard Gillespie

Author	: Richard Gillespie
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 161
Release	: 2015-06-26
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1317409485

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Contesting Spain? The Dynamics of Nationalist Movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country offers an exploration of the dynamics behind contemporary shifts in the orientation of nationalist parties and movements with reference to Catalonia and the Basque country in Spain. The chapters were originally papers presented at a workshop held at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) in September 2014 as part of a research project on ‘The Dynamics of Nationalist Evolution in Contemporary Spain’, whose purpose was to gain a better understanding of why regionally-based nationalist movements have experienced shifting relationships with the Spanish state over time, in some periods appearing content with accommodation between central and regional government and at other times pushing to go beyond autonomist demands to seek sovereignty or even attain full independence. The volume is one of the first to focus comparatively on the rise of pro-sovereignty politics in mainstream nationalist parties, whose evolution has also featured more traditional impulses towards territorial accommodation within the wider state. Using the exceptionally rich laboratory provided by Spain, the book explores the dynamics behind shifts in the orientation of nationalist parties and movements once they have established themselves as electorally successful at regional level. Dimensions to the analysis include: the interaction of nationalist parties with central government; pressures from their support bases; competition between parties within the home region; and international influences. This title is innovative in bringing together experts with a range of disciplinary approaches: primarily political scientists but also historians and scholars located at the cusp between social sciences and humanities.

Contesting Spain? The Dynamics of Nationalist Movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country

by Richard Gillespie

Author	: Richard Gillespie
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 180
Release	: 2015-06-26
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1317409477

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Contesting Spain? The Dynamics of Nationalist Movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country offers an exploration of the dynamics behind contemporary shifts in the orientation of nationalist parties and movements with reference to Catalonia and the Basque country in Spain. The chapters were originally papers presented at a workshop held at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) in September 2014 as part of a research project on ‘The Dynamics of Nationalist Evolution in Contemporary Spain’, whose purpose was to gain a better understanding of why regionally-based nationalist movements have experienced shifting relationships with the Spanish state over time, in some periods appearing content with accommodation between central and regional government and at other times pushing to go beyond autonomist demands to seek sovereignty or even attain full independence. The volume is one of the first to focus comparatively on the rise of pro-sovereignty politics in mainstream nationalist parties, whose evolution has also featured more traditional impulses towards territorial accommodation within the wider state. Using the exceptionally rich laboratory provided by Spain, the book explores the dynamics behind shifts in the orientation of nationalist parties and movements once they have established themselves as electorally successful at regional level. Dimensions to the analysis include: the interaction of nationalist parties with central government; pressures from their support bases; competition between parties within the home region; and international influences. This title is innovative in bringing together experts with a range of disciplinary approaches: primarily political scientists but also historians and scholars located at the cusp between social sciences and humanities.

European Studies and Europe: Twenty Years of Euroculture

by Janny de Jong

Author	: Janny de Jong
Publisher	: Göttingen University Press
Total Pages	: 230
Release	: 2020
Genre	: Social sciences (General)
ISBN	: 3863954319

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In 1998, the Master’s programme Euroculture started with the aim to offer, amid the many existing programmes that focused on European institutional developments, a European studies curriculum that puts the interplay of culture, society and politics in Europe at the heart of the curriculum. Among other topics, the programme focused on how Europe and European integration could be contextualised and what these concepts meant to European citizens. In June 2018, Euroculture celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a conference to discuss not only the changes within the MA Euroculture itself, but also to reflect upon the changes in the field of European studies over the last two decades writ large. This volume brings together the main findings of this conference. Since its start, Euroculture has engaged with European studies by providing a space for cooperation between more mainstream-oriented research on the one hand and a variety of sociological, historiographical, post-structuralist, and post-colonial perspectives on Europe on the other. This has enabled Euroculture to contextualise the emergence and development of European institutions historically and in relation to broader socio-political and cultural processes. Its methodology, that treats theoretical and analytical work, classroom teaching and engaged practice as integral parts of critical inquiry, has significantly contributed to its ability to continuously enhance scholarly discussions. The volume is divided into two parts, which are intrinsically linked. The first part contains reflections on the field of European studies and on concepts, analytical perspectives and methodologies that have emerged through interdisciplinary dialogues in Euroculture/European studies. The second part contains contributions that reflect upon the Euroculture programme itself, discussing both changes and continuities in the curriculum and didactic methods, outlining possible venues for further developing the educational and research programme that is firmly embedded in a network of partners that have been closely cooperating over a span of no less than two decades.

Federalism as a Tool of Conflict Resolution

by Soeren Keil

Author	: Soeren Keil
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 148
Release	: 2021-05-13
Genre	: Business & Economics
ISBN	: 1000356302

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Looking at the growing use of federalism and decentralization as tools of conflict resolution, this book provides evidence from several case studies on the opportunities and challenges that territorial solutions offer when addressing internal conflicts within a variety of countries. Federalism has been used as a tool of conflict resolution in a number of conflict situations around the world. The results of this have been mixed at best, with some countries moving slowly to the paths of peace and recovery, while others have returned to violence. This volume looks at a number of case studies in which federalism and decentralization have been promoted in order to bring opposing groups together and protect the territorial integrity of different countries. Yet, it is demonstrated that this has been incredibly difficult, and often overshadowed by wider concerns on secession, de and re-centralization and geopolitics and geoeconomics. While federalism and decentralization might hold the key to keeping war-torn countries together and bringing hostile groups to the negotiation table, we nevertheless need to rethink under which conditions territorial autonomy can help to transform conflict and when it might contribute to an increase in conflict and violence. Federalism alone, so the key message from all contributions, cannot be enough to bring peace – yet, without territorial solutions to ongoing violence, it is also unlikely that peace will be achieved. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Ethnopolitics.

Regional Governance in the EU

by Gabriele Abels

Author	: Gabriele Abels
Publisher	: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages	: 255
Release	: 2019
Genre	: Electronic books
ISBN	: 1788978625

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The role of regions in the European Union has been frequently debated since the 1980s. This comprehensive book provides a thorough overview of the issue from a variety of perspectives, analysing regional governance and territorial dynamics in the EU and its member states. Focusing on the implications of the democratisation–regionalisation nexus, it argues that a ‘Europe with the regions’ may promote good governance and ameliorate the democratic deficits of the EU.

The Currency of Cultural Patrimony: The Spanish Golden Age

by Robert Bayliss

Author	: Robert Bayliss
Publisher	: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages	: 155
Release	: 2024-05-15
Genre	: Literary Criticism
ISBN	: 1835532756

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The Spanish Golden Age, a cultural narrative that has developed and over four centuries, remains a key element of how Spaniards articulate cultural identities, both within Spain and to the outside world. The Currency of Cultural Patrimony examines the development of this narrative by artists, intellectuals, historians, academics, and institutions. By defining the Spanish Golden Age as a diachronic problem, it examines several of Spain’s most canonical golden-age literary narratives (including Don Quixote, Fuenteovejuna, and Las mocedades del Cid) as texts whose institutionalization, mediation, and commercialization over the course of four hundred years inform their meaning both for contemporary Spaniards and for the field of Hispanic Studies around the world. Spain’s persistent deployment of this cultural patrimony as the canonical epicentre of a national literary tradition has stimulated diverse and often contradictory interpretations, the cumulative effect of which informs their reception by each new generation of Spaniards. This book’s analysis of how this patrimony is interpreted according to both tradition and current circumstances illuminates new angles from which scholars can approach some of Hispanism’s most persistent and vexing questions, including the growing divide between popular and academic understandings of the Spanish nation’s “classics.”

The Rise of Catalan Independence

by Andrew Dowling

Author	: Andrew Dowling
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 332
Release	: 2017-12-01
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1317169441

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As recently as the mid-2000s, Catalonia was described and analysed by scholars as exhibiting a non-secessionist nationalism and was seen within Europe and beyond as a role model for successful devolution which had much to teach other parts of the world. The Spanish state seemed to be on a journey towards an authentic federal order and was generally admired. However, the new century has been marked by an ever-growing independence movement, with 47.8 per cent of Catalonia voting in favour of independence in September 2015. Pro-independence mobilization has produced a rupture in political relations with the rest of Spain leading to a sovereignty struggle with Madrid. This book explores how an accumulation of long-, medium- and short-term factors have produced the current situation and why the Spanish territorial model has been unable or possibly, unwilling, to respond. The Catalan question is not purely a Spanish problem: it has direct implications for the traditional nation-state model, in Europe and beyond.

The Iberian Legislatures in Comparative Perspective

by Jorge M. Fernandes

Author	: Jorge M. Fernandes
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 302
Release	: 2019-05-23
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1351065203

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This comprehensive book analyses the development of the legislatures in the Iberian countries over the past 40 years, since democracy was introduced, to comparatively understand their role in these political systems and in sustaining their democratic systems. Sharing many historical developments and institutional characteristics, Spain and Portugal also present crucial differences, notably Spain’s pure parliamentary system, a King as Head of State and a quasi-federal structure, and Portugal’s semi-presidential democracy. Starting with a historical and institutional contextualization of these two legislatures, the book examines the most important organizational and behavioural features of legislative life in Iberian legislatures in a comparative perspective. It also shows how new legislatures develop resilience capacity to support lasting democratic systems as fully fledged institutionalized bodies. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Spain and Portugal, legislative politics and parliamentarianism, and more broadly to European politics and comparative politics, journalists and practitioners.

Catalonia, Scotland and the EU:

by Niklas Bremberg

Author	: Niklas Bremberg
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 139
Release	: 2022-03-10
Genre	: Reference
ISBN	: 1000549879

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The electoral success of secessionist parties in Catalonia and Scotland over the last decade, together with Brexit and the support for Eurosceptic parties in many EU member states, have prompted a rethink of many taken-for-granted notions about politics in Spain, the UK and the EU. Secessionist parties in Catalonia and Scotland often combine calls for independence with support for the EU, but independence for Catalonia might entail the loss of EU membership. In the UK, Scotland voted for the UK to remain in the EU, yet it was forced to leave the Union along with the rest of the country: what effect has Brexit had on Scottish independence claims? Through comparing Catalonia and Scotland, this short volume aims to contribute to debates on, and advance knowledge of, visions of independence and integration, how they interrelate in Europe’s emergent political order, and what they entail for European integration and democracy in the EU.