The crisis in Catalonia: How did we get here and how do we get out?

By Javier Carbonell and Luis Cornago Bonal

This post summarises the second debate of the conference cycle about the crisis in Catalonia, titled Spain and Catalonia: Is There a Way Out of the Impasse?, catalan crisis debatetook place on February 8 at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). This debate analysed the political causes of the conflict, the current crisis, and the possible means of resolution. Jonathan Hopkin, Sandra León and Toni Rodon, three academics whose research has addressed the Spanish political system from different perspectives, were the speakers responsible for discussing these issues. In this post we collect the main ideas that emerged throughout the conference.

The causes of the conflict: How much does the economic crisis explain?

The moderator of the session, Antonio Barroso, opened the debate by asking Hopkin to what extent the Catalan case is unique in Europe or if it is comparable with that of other regions. In addition to referring to the dynamics of party competition in Catalonia -particularly the struggle for hegemony between the independence parties- the English political scientist defended the need to place Catalonia in the context of comparative politics. For him, the secessionist movement must be framed within the many anti-establishment movements that have emerged in recent years in many advanced democracies, such as Brexit, Trump’s victory, or the triumph of Syriza. All these phenomena share the fact that they emerged after the Great Recession that began in 2008. According to Hopkin, high levels of unemployment and the increase in inequality tend to provoke the radicalisation of political positions. In addition, in adverse economic circumstances identity politics prove to be an especially powerful weapon. Therefore, even if each of these anti-establishment movements is presented as unique, in reality, all originate in the important deterioration of the economic situation.

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The Conflicting Identity Politics of Brexit

By Henry Radice

So far, for many people, the experience of Brexit appears to be one of real individual anxiety and pain set against a prospective, and increasingly unlikely, collective gain. This is the case for both non-British EU citizens resident in the UK, and the many British EU citizens who cherish and benefit from that extra layer of democratic citizenship, whether resident in the UK or elsewhere in the EU. It is highly unusual for a liberal democracy, in peacetime, to attempt to remove so many rights from so many people, including its own citizens, so rapidly. But that is exactly what appears to be happening, and it seems likely to have a damaging and polarising effect on many individuals’ sense of identity.

It is baffling that any of the groups mentioned above could be expected to be grateful for, or even reassured by, an offer to replicate some, but not all, of the benefits they currently enjoy as a matter of right. Teresa May’s recent ‘fair and generous’ offer was rightly greeted as anything but by many EU citizens in the UK. There is an overwhelming feeling of hurt and resentment among people who had organised their lives in good faith within an apparently stable system of reciprocal rights that the UK has unilaterally undermined.

British ‘expats’ might have been exempt from the discursive opprobrium heaped on almost every type of migrant in recent years in the UK, but migrants they are (indeed, stripped of EU citizenship, will become only migrants). The EU27 preceded Teresa May’s offer with one to UK residents of the EU27 states that was arguably both fairer and more generous. But many pro-Remain British migrants have clearly been distressed by the uncertainties of their status and by other issues such as the future restriction in choices for family members resident in the UK. Perhaps more profoundly, this group have experienced the utter despoilment of their specific political identity which combined Britishness with European citizenship.

Then there is a group with slightly fuzzier but no less real grievances, those of us who have enjoyed the benefits of EU citizenship in various ways, but do not happen to be living in a different EU state at the moment. This group embraced, but often took for granted, the apparent normality of a frictionless ability to live, love and work throughout the continent. The necessity of this group finding its voice to renew the European political project was apparent well before the Brexit vote. But it is only now realising the full extent of the underlying Europeanness of its identity. These citizens may prove to be crucial to negotiating the politics of Brexit (indeed, they may already, in voting for or lending their votes to Labour, have had a key role in depriving Theresa May of her expected majority).

Arguably together the groups above represent the biggest collectivity of actually existing cosmopolitans in British politics (the other, smaller and overlapping group, being the genuine globalists whom liberal Leavers like Daniel Hannan think will spearhead a globally orientated Brexit). The key question now arises of how representative politics accords a voice and space to these groups, and does justice to the ‘liberal’ in ‘liberal democracy’ (admittedly a mode of politics that exists in constant tension between collective and individual self-determination). Of key importance will be how the non-cosmopolitan liberal majority in Parliament collaborates with cosmopolitan Hard Remainers to counter-balance the disproportionate influence of Hard Leavers and their increasingly delusional narratives. Continue reading “The Conflicting Identity Politics of Brexit”

Identity politics and kin-state relations from the bottom-up in Crimea and Moldova

By Eleanor Knott

In 1991, Moldova declared itself an independent state as part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 2014, the recognised Ukrainian territory of Crimea was annexed by Russia. Here, Eleanor Knott discusses identity politics and kin-state relations in Moldova and Crimea, and writes that in order to understand what ethnicity and citizenship mean in the context of people’s everyday lives, bottom–up, people-centred research is crucial, yet underutilized.

I recently contributed to a special issue, “Whither Eastern Europe? Changing Approaches and Perspectives on the Region in Political Science” which explores the disciplinary relationship between political science and Eastern Europe as an area studies region, 25 years after the collapse of Communism. In my article, I argue that political science needs to engage more with an everyday, people-centred bottom-up approach, as opposed to a top-down state-centred and institutional approach. In particular, I argue kin-state relations research, which analyses relations between states and external co-ethnic communities, has predominantly analysed these relations and tensions from the perspective of the states involved. This has overlooked the bottom-up perspective of kin-state relations, in terms of what it means to identify as a member of a kin community, i.e. a community claimed by an external (kin-)state as co-ethnic.

This article was drafted, following the fieldwork I conducted in Crimea and Moldova in 2012 and 2013, in the months preceding the height of the Euromaidan violence in Kyiv when Crimea remained an autonomous region of Ukraine. Since then, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, has unalterably shape post-Soviet politics and relations between post-Soviet states and Russia, and Russia, the EU and US. In this sense, the main argument of the article became the importance of studying bottom-up politics, engaging people who live in these contexts, not just to put people back into political science but also offer a point of reflection in a period of shifting political and geopolitical contexts.

“Moldova is (not) Romania” (Ellie Knott, Chisinau, Moldova, June 2012)

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