SECESSION IN WESTERN EUROPE
LAIA BALCELLS
HÈCTOR LÓPEZ BOFILL
Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona
URSKA MAVRIC
Central European University, Budapest
During the last two decades, secessionist demands have increased among Western European
non state national communities, as it is exemplified by the cases of Scotland, the Basque
Country, Catalonia and Flanders. In this paper we conduct an inquiry on the causes of this
upward trend in secessionist demands, as well as on the causes of variation in the salience of
secessionist claims among Western European national minorities. We argue that demands for
statehood can be explained by what we call “community building” factors —which underlie
the consolidation of national minorities (i.e. devolution, democratization)–, on the one hand,
but also by economic factors and international factors —which have an impact on the
structure of opportunities for national mobilization. These are highly connected to regional
and global trends (i.e. European integration, trade openness, clarification of international
rules). We provide qualitative evidence from a selected number of cases.
Key Words: Secession, Self-Determination, Democratic Principle, Constitutional Law
INTRODUCTION
The building of new states in Central and Eastern Europe and their success in terms of
democratization, stability and economic progress has been one of the most striking political
and judicial phenomena of the last two decades. The rise of national groups to the status of
full sovereign states, and the integration of some of them in continental transnational
organizations like the European Union (as is the case for Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), has promoted the scholarly discussion about the relationship
between democratization and the emergence of new states, 1 the optimal size of the states with
regard to their economic efficiency,2 the relationship between free trade and the number of
countries,3 the value of the state as a guarantor of cultural communities4 and its role as a
sponsor of national groups’ visibility in the context of globalization.5
In this paper, we focus our interest on the burgeoning of secessionist movements in
Western Europe, which has been particularly significant during the last decade, and which is
manifested both in the increase of support for parties that include secession in their manifestos
and the increase of demands of these separatist parties. We also believe that this is partially
connected to the aforementioned political developments in Eastern and Central Europe.
The rise of secessionism among national minorities in Western European is clearly
illustrated by the cases of Scotland, Flanders, Catalonia and the Basque Country, which are
advanced industrial societies where national identity movements that flourished more than
thirty years ago have recently tended towards increasing demands for statehood.6
In Scotland the Scottish National Party (SNP) won the elections to the Scottish
Parliament since 2007 and in 2011 it has won an overall majority of seats (69 out of 129).
Secession is included in the SNP’s manifesto and following the last year’s victory the
willingness to perform a referendum on independence has been mentioned several times by
Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland. In 2012 it was announced that the referendum
on independence would be held in 2014. 7 In the autumn 2012, the British Prime Minister,
David Cameron and the Scottish Prime Minister, Alex Salmond, signed a deal that gives the
Scottish government the power to hold a referendum on the independence from the United
Kingdom.
In Flanders the New Flemish Alliance (NFA) won the Belgian elections of 13 June
2010 with 29.6% of the vote of Flanders and 27 seats in the Federal Parliament. This
overwhelming victory marked the beginning of a complex negotiation in order to form a new
federal government, which was blocked by the refusal of NFA to participate in the
negotiation. Nonetheless, in autumn 2011 an agreement to form a government was reached
among other Flemish and Francophone parties represented in the Federal Parliament. Despite
this agreement and the lifting of the institutional paralysis according to the polls the NFA
would gain a broader parliamentarian majority in the Federal Parliament and in the Flemish
Parliament (the NFA would get 40% according to the polls in November 20118). If that were
the case it would be able to achieve the political aim of the progressive “evaporation” of
Belgium as declared by the NFA leader Bart De Wever during the 2010 elections campaign.
In the Basque Country, during the first decade of this century, the autonomous
government (PNB-EA and IU) presented two secessionist projects: a project to reform the
autonomous chart in order to generate a “free associated state”, and a project of popular
consultation of the political status of Euskadi. Even though none of these projects went
forward, a new secessionist coalition –Amaiur- succeeded in the Spanish general elections in
November 2011 [finished first in Euskadi with 333.628 votes and seven representatives in
Spanish Congress]. The Basque National Party, which had leaded the above mentioned
project of a “free associated state”, won the Basque Parliamentary elections on 21 October
2012 and allowed this political group to form government again after a three year lapse of a
socialist and unionist government. On the other hand, the left-wing separatist coalition, now
under the name “EH-Bildu”, became the region’s second biggest political group with 21 of
the 75 seats in the parliament.
In Catalonia, from 2010 the polls indicate that almost 50% of the population of
Catalonia would support secession if there was an official referendum. 9 Moreover 21% of the
population declares itself as being pro independence; three times more than in 2000. Only
30% of the citizens of Catalonia are happy with the current political and legal status of the
region within Spain. 10 On 11 September 2012, during Catalonia’s National Day, a massive
demonstration with more than 1.5 million of estimated participants claiming for the
independence under the slogan “Catalonia, next state in Europe” forced the nationalist
government of Convergencia i Unió (CiU) leaded by Artur Mas, to call elections and to
include the commitment to hold a referendum on Catalonia’s independence in the CiU’s
electoral manifesto.
The rise in secessionist movements in Western Europe has been highlighted by the
coordinated strategies adopted by some actors in these movements, which have developed a
consciousness of belonging to a common framework (for example, the normative structure of
the European Union) as well as of having a set of common traits (e.g., democracy). This has
had consequences such as the signature of a number of agreements emphasizing their shared
interests. That is for example the case of the Edinburgh Declaration signed on January 19 th
2008 by a number of secessionist political parties from non state nations.11 In this declaration,
each party made the commitment (in front of the European Union) that if any of them was to
become a full sovereign state in the future, they all would automatically get EU membership
as well, as successors of member states.
In this paper, we try to answer the questions of (1) why secessionist trends are
burgeoning in Western Europe and (2) why they had been largely hidden or politically
marginal until recently. We do so by focusing on the cases mentioned above, although we do
not provide a detailed report on their political developments; rather, we focus on a set of
explanatory factors potentially explaining their new found status, and we use the cases to
provide empirical evidence for our claims. In addition, we also briefly refer to some other
national communities in Western Europe with more marginal secessionist movements (e.g.
Bretagne, Occitanie and Corsica, in France). The comparison with these negative cases should
help us explain spatial and temporal variation: that is, why secessionist movements have
burgeoned in some places and not in others, and why these movements have developed
strongly during the last decade and not earlier. We focus on secession in western european
democracies, setting aside or only briefly dealing with non-european processes (e.g. Quebec)
and processes which have recently taken place and are taking place in non-democratic
societies and failed states (e.g. South Sudan). While we do use two examples of secessions
from non-developed democracies, i.e. Kosovo and Montenegro, we do so solely to illustate
how these cases influenced the international factors. Even though it may seem that secession
is prevalent in the latter cases, secessionist movements have also increased and are becoming
a common topic in developed democracies.
EXPLAINING SECESSIONISM IN WESTERN EUROPE
We argue that the rise of secessionism in Western Europe is explained by a
combination of three different types of factors:
1) Community building factors: these are both necessary and prior factors, which
contribute to the creation and consolidation of national communities as entities able to
articulate secessionist demands. These factors are prior to the economic approach, and the
clarification of the international rules, which —as we will see– affect the structure of
opportunities leading to secessionism. They are underlying variables, which we can
understand only through an interpretation of historical, cultural and institutional factors, and
which are often associated to the visualization of identity traits of the national community,
e.g. the international subjectivity, the satisfaction of introducing oneself according to one’s
own national identity in the international relationships and, in general, the assumption that an
agent prefers to be involved in a political and intuitional framework which minimizes cultural
distances12. Cultural and identity traits, and the differences contrasted with other cultural
communities in the matrix state, are the core of community building factors. Nevertheless,
beyond the assumption that these cultural traits are spread with more or less homogeneity in a
non state community (the existence of a language, for instance, could be considered as a main
feature among the cultural factors that embeds a community building process and, with
different intensity, it is present in the above mentioned four Western European communities,
Basque Country, Catalonia, Flanders and Scotland) we consider that cultural and identity
traits must be developed in the frame of the institutional factors included in a community
building process in order to boost an emergence of secessionist demands. Under this
parameters, in the context of Western Europe, we assume that democratic consolidation and
devolution processes as two prior and necessary factors among the community building
factors for secessionism: they allow the creation and visualization of the national community
and the potential articulation their statehood demands. Democratic consolidation creates an
institutional framework for democratic processes by means of which national communities
have the opportunity to voice their demands for secession. Devolution on the other hand is a
process, which creates the boundaries around a national minority and gives it institutions
which can be said to be representative of their wishes and agendas. The absence or the fail of
devolution processes could partially help to understand why some cultural communities in
France as Bretagne, Occitanie and Corsica have not developed a secessionist strategy beyond
some marginal movements. In addition, we argue that the historical background or the way in
which matrix states were built has an impact on their Constitutional framework, and this is
also affecting the way in which democratic consolidation and devolution processes take place.
2) Economic factors: these include regional leaders’ considerations related to
redistribution demands and the size of the markets. These factors have a clear-cut effect on
the demand for secessionism from the preexisting national communities, as they affect the
structure of political opportunities for secessionist mobilization.13
3) International factors: these factors are concerned with the development and
clarification of international rules regarding secession and recognition of seceding units as
well as to the limitations to the use of violence to repress secessionist demands. As they pull
secession out of the legal limbo they have an effect on the readiness of national communities
to take steps towards full sovereignty.
In this paper, we start with some historical and constitutional framework
considerations, which will lead us to the description of the community building factors
(democratic consolidation and devolution). We then consider the so-called economic factors
(globalization) and lastly we deal with international factors (clarification of international
rules, limitations to the use of violence). Again, we consider community-building factors as
prior and necessary conditions for secessionism, and economic factors as well as international
factors as contextual. All of them are accounting for the rise of secessionism in Western
Europe in recent times.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK
In democratic regimes, political legitimacy relies heavily on the existence of democratic
procedural rules behind any decision related to issues of public interest.14 Until recently,
issues related to the essence of the state have been left out of the domain of democratic
scrutiny; the possibility of secession and the building of new states have been relegated to the
silence of political theory. 15 In fact, it has not been until the secessionist experiences of some
Eastern European states that there has been an emergence of theories and political practices
focusing on the legitimacy of state boundaries, which have connected democracy to the
definition of basic political entities.16
In relation to the idea of democratic legitimacy, it is important to pinpoint that a
number of European Western states were not built according to democratic standards. While
there is almost a taboo with regard to the foundations of currently developed democracies
such as France or Spain, these countries -like many others- have their roots in a past of wars,17
“cultural genocides”, repression, and destruction of minorities.18 In fact, the elimination or
attempted elimination of minority groups was very often planned by the elites of the majority
national group.19 During the middle Ages, France was a pioneer in the demolition of cultural
minorities in order to enforce the political and cultural hegemony of the majority group (this
is, for instance, demonstrated by the systematic siege against the Occitan culture of the French
Midi since 1213). This modus operandi for consolidating cultural unitarism persisted in
democratic periods following the French Revolution, in which ideals of freedom and equality
were linked to the existence of a unique and indivisible people (i.e. the French). 20 The
imposition of a common language and the implementation of strong national identity policies
clearly discriminated against national minorities.21 On the other hand, the destruction of
national diversity in Spain reached paroxysm from the time of the War of Succession at the
beginning of the 18th century, which led to the elimination of the sovereign institutions of
Valencia, Aragon, Catalonia and Majorca. This continued during the 19th century during the
so called Carlist wars, which led to the abolition of public Basque institutions, and lasted
until the contemporary era as a consequence of the Civil War (1936-1939) and the Francoist
dictatorship (1939-1975).22
Thus, both France and Spain reached modernity (that is, liberalism and
constitutionalism) with a definition of state’s attributes (such as territory, population, and
national and cultural features) that was either not —or very loosely– inspired by democracy or
democratic principles. Quite the opposite: in these countries, modernity found its roots in the
destruction of national and cultural minorities. Interestingly, contemporary France and Spain
are still reluctant to confer political status to minorities, or to adjust the core of their
constitutional architecture to some kind of multinational recognition. In the case of Catalonia
for instance, Spain was reluctant to accept the proposed reform of the Statue of Catalonia of
2006 in part because it characterized Catalans as a nation.23 Moreover in the case of Spain, the
decentralization process associated with the system of Autonomous Communities established
in the 1978 Constitution has not been accompanied by the full recognition of national features
for territories such as Catalonia, Basque Country or Galicia.24 In both the Spanish and the
French constitutional systems secession of a piece of the country’s territory is perceived as a
threat against the foundations of these countries, and they therefore do not permit the
inclusion of secession clauses through constitutional amendment or a constitutional
amendment concerning this issue requires such a huge majority among the matrix State’s
institutions and population that make it almost impossible.25
Both the historical background and the current treatment of national minorities are
quite different in the United Kingdom. The case of Scotland is quite illustrative of this: 26 on
the one hand, the union of Scotland and England took place in 1707 with the Treaty of Union,
which did not involve colonization nor forced assimilation, but an agreement that allowed the
Scottish elite to participate in the British government while it preserved some institutions and
a separate national conception of the country.27 On the other hand, the access of the Scottish
National Party (hereafter, also SNP) to the Scottish regional government from 2007 has not
generated a large opposition among the British public.28
Belgium is another case of state-building based on a negotiation between national
communities: the country itself was founded in the context of a liberal revolution in the 1830,
which was a reaction towards French monarchy’s restoration, and of a unity along religious
Catholic lines in front of the Protestant influence of the Netherlands. In this country, the
constitutional framework has not been reluctant towards reforms leading towards a greater
autonomy and political status to the national communities, as is exemplified by the
constitutional reforms of 1993, which ended the transformation of a unitary state into a federal
one.29
Thus, it seems that there is a pattern by which states that were founded on the basis of
internal violence in the Modern Age and/or in a pre-democratic period (as it is the case for
France and Spain), have led to systems where secessionist claims held by national minorities
are strongly perceived as an attack against the core of the character of the national majority;
and states that were founded in more peaceful and democratic circumstances such as the UK
and Belgium are constitutionally more flexible.30 The latter is also a part of the explanation
why secessionist demands are more developed in this framework.
COMMUNITY BUILDING FACTORS
Democratic Consolidation
We consider democratic consolidation as a factor that is both necessary and prior to
secessionism in Western Europe. Democracy allows the expression of the willingness to build
a national community through identity-building policies, and it ultimately allows the decision
over statehood. Some examples of the former type of policies are those related to language,
cultural practices of groups, decisions on resources, or creation of sub-state administrative
units. Indeed, with democracy, non-state communities can take decisions that help constitute
them as political entities within a state (this is not a necessary outcome of democratic
consolidation, but it is a possible one).
The democratic decision on self-government has its ultimate expression in referenda
on statehood. Indeed, in a number of polities, formerly diffuse claims regarding national selfdetermination have recently been replaced by the idea of a referendum on statehood claiming
full international and legal status as an expression of the democratic principle.31 There has
been a spread of the idea that state-building, i.e. the definition of the boundaries and the
communities composing a state has to be defined through free and public discussion;
something that has been also referred to as the “right to decide.”32 Claims defending
secessionism as an expression of a democratic principle have been encouraged by processes
of democratic consolidation.
The idea of a plebiscite as a way to show and justify the fundamental decisions of a
community (including the decision to build a state) has deep roots in Western democratic
traditions. In fact, it is commonly believed that the first signs of this practice occurred in
Europe. This is exemplified by the successive referenda that took place in several Italian
territories during the unification process in the mid-19th century.33 In more recent times the
plebiscite as a way to show the will of a national community to form a state has been shaped
by the experiences of some Eastern European countries in the disintegration process of the
former Soviet Union (such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1992) and the former
Yugoslavia.34
The idea of a referendum on statehood has been strongly present in Scotland since
SNP’s accession to the Scottish government in 2007. In the following years the Scottish
government has promoted several initiatives about Scottish independence. After the elections
of 2011, won by SNP with an overall majority, the principles on which the referendum for
independence would be conducted were introduced by the Scottish government in the paper
Your Scotland, your referendum. What followed were the announcements of a referendum to
be held in 2014 and the clarification of the previous agreement with the UK government
(autumn 2012) which transfers the power to the Scottish institutions in order to hold the
referendum. What is crucial in this discussion is the willingness of the UK government not to
stand in the way of the holding of the referendum on independence and to respect its outcome.
This attitude can be explained by describing the opinion of the UK government as a matter of
democratic principle 35 and opens the door to conduct the Scottish secessionist project as a
case of a bilateral process. The bilateral agreement among the Scottish government and the
UK government could be considered as a consequence of the above mentioned flexible UK
constitutional framework and the democratic consolidation. As we suggested, since this
factors still present notorious deficiencies within other Western European scenarios with
secessionist demands, such as Spain, the secessionist processes within these contexts
(Catalonia or Basque Country) seem to be developed under unilateral perspective.
The link between popular consultation and independence was also present in the
Basque Country where the former Lehendakari (Basque Prime Minister) Juan José Ibarretxe
called for several referendums on the status of the Basque Country in 2008. The process,
however, had been stopped. First, this was because the Spanish Constitutional Court declared
the referendum unconstitutional (Sentence 103/2008, of September 11th). Second, because
after the elections in March 2009, and the ban of Basque pro-independence leftist political
parties, the socialist party of Euskadi, opposed to independence, managed to form a minority
government in the Basque Country. As it has been said, this situation had changed, since the
definitive end of the violence in Basque Country (from 2011) and the overwhelming majority
gained by the Basque nationalist parties in the 2012 regional parliamentary elections: the
Basque National Party now leaded by Urkullo defended its position as the strongest party
while the left-wing separatist Bildu coalition, legalized after the end of violence, became the
second region’s political group.
In Catalonia, the government’s regional Vice president suggested in 2008 the holding
of a referendum on independence in 2014. Later on (since September 2009), making use of
the right to free speech and demonstration, several civil associations have organized popular
consultations about the independence of Catalonia in more than 500 Catalan municipalities
including the capital, Barcelona (April 10th 2011). While these referenda are the outcome of a
social movement without institutional support and they lack legal consequences, they may
reinforce the political legitimacy of the pro-independence claim by showing popular support
to the independence project. The nationalist coalition (Convergència i Unió) that ruled the
autonomous government since 2010 (after seven years of a left-wing parties coalition) got in
office under the promise of leading the country to a national transition towards the “right to
decide”. As we have mentioned, the massive demonstration for independence on 11
September 2012 promoted the inclusion of the independence referendum not only in the
electoral manifesto’s of CiU, the strongest Catalan coalition, but also of other parties such as
the left-wing political groups ERC (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya) and ICV (Iniciativa
per Catalunya Verds).
As has been argued by Peter Lynch,36 the move from conceiving secession as a right to
self-determination towards the more general idea of secession as a right derived from the
democratic principle has been widespread among Western European nations as a consequence
of the case of Quebec. This has been the most clear-cut secession attempt in an advanced
democracy in the latest years. In an advisory report enacted August 20th 1998, the Canadian
Supreme Court answered three questions posed by the Federal government relating to
Quebec’s secession. This report rejected the idea that Quebec had a right to secession under
international law, which would allow the Quebec Assembly to unilaterally declare the
independence of Quebec from Canada. The Canadian Supreme Court held that, according to
the democratic principle, if a clear majority of québécois unambiguously opted for secession,
the federal government and the other provinces would have a constitutional duty to negotiate
it. In other words, it was stated that it is not the right to self-determination generated by a
diffuse entity such as a nation that provides the legitimacy for secession but the exercise (by
means of a referendum) of the democratic principle, and the decision made by a clear majority
of citizens, that it does so. The Supreme Court implied that a referendum may provide a
democratic method for ascertaining the views of the electorate on important political
questions, including the question of statehood and full international sovereignty. 37 As we will
explain, this has helped some international organizations (e.g. the Venice Commission, of the
European Council) establish a clearer framework to regulate secession processes through
democratic methods.
The idea of the right to vote on secession is partially encompassed in the so-called
plebiscitary theories of secession.38 According to these theories, as a result of the democratic
principle, any geographically definite group may become independent if the majority of its
members vote in favour of this. The latter should not be affected by fact that the claim of
plebiscitary secession usually comes from groups that hold a different national identity. In this
framework, the right to vote on secession goes beyond the right to self-determination: it
becomes a consequence of the democratic principle.
At this point it should be noted that democratic consolidation is just one of the
important factors when it comes to secession. While it is prior and necessary it is not
sufficient. For instance in the cases of UK (Scotland) and Belgium (Flanders) democratic
consolidation is not a recent phenomenon nonetheless the secessionist movements burgeoned
at around the same time as in Spain (Catalonia, Basque country) where democratic
consolidation is a much more recent development. This is due to the fact that while the
community building factors were present, the economic factors and the international factors
were not and so secessionist claims were facilitated only when all factors were present. In the
cases of Scotland or Flanders, even though they belong to a long democratic tradition frames
(a factor that, as we have seen, explains the less reluctance of the Governments of their matrix
states, UK and Belgium, to allow the secessionist political parties in Scotland or Flanders to
develop pro independence strategies according to the democratic principle) the claims for
statehood haven’t be until recently expressed with a broad political and social support in part
because in both Scotland or Flanders the institutional framework that confers a devolution
process wasn’t create until the 90’s of the past century (in Belgium through the federal
constitutional reforms of 1993 and in Scotland through the Scottish Act 1998 passed by the
British Parliament). As we will see immediately, the previous existence of a devolution
process could be a crucial factor among the community building factors to explain the rising
of secessionist trends.
Devolution Processes
In the context of advanced industrialized societies such as those in Western Europe,
we also consider federal or decentralization processes are a necessary condition for
secessionism.39 First, for some political groups, autonomy is perceived as a first step on the
road to independence, and institutions at regional level as “states in embryo”; these groups
can therefore mobilize for secession along the territorial lines drawn by decentralization.
Second, the decentralized units draw the borders within which an independence plebiscite
could be exercised, in other words, they define the framework where the democratic principle
or the right to decide could be applied. Third, autonomy usually helps maintain a distinctive
group identity, which can be mobilized in support of separation, promote the appearance of a
regional party system,40 new political leaders, and may even support the creation of a subnational mass media system, which permits the diffusion of a symbolic and national
discourse.41
While it is obvious that the relationship between decentralization and secessionism
could be the reverse —that decentralization was more prone in places with potential
secessionist demands, in other words, that the latter preceded the former–, the evidence in
Western Europe seems to be quite supportive of the direction of causality we are pointing out.
For example, levels of political devolution can partially explain why secessionist movements
are more developed in more decentralized countries such as Spain, the United Kingdom and
Flanders, and less developed in more centralized countries like France, where national
minorities such as the Briton or the Occitan present very weak levels of mobilization, and
they are far from making secessionist demands; the fact that these groups do not have an
autonomous political unit under which they can organize and mobilize probably affects this.
Also, the case of Scotland is quite illustrative of how devolution processes might be
associated with a rise in secessionism: Scotland has gone from having rejected a project for
devolution in 1979 (which was rejected by the British House of Commons) to having
prospects for a referendum on independence in the near future. This change in the Scottish
context seems to have been promoted by the devolution process, which has given Scotland
autonomous regional institutions. It is in the context of these decentralized institutions that a
secessionist discourse has been articulated, mostly through the mobilization action of the
SNP, and in which the possibility of independence has been conceived. Furthermore, as has
been argued in the declaration Choosing Scotland’s Future-A National Conversation, enacted
by the Scottish government, the afore mentioned referendum on independence has been
inspired by the 1998 devolution referendum: it has been conceived as a continuation of the
devolution process that took place after consultation with the Scottish citizenry on the
necessity to negotiate devolution with the British government. In a nutshell, without
devolution, Scottish secessionism would probably be inexistent nowadays.
While it is a necessary condition, decentralization does not deterministically predict
secessionism, i.e. it is not a sufficient condition. This has to be in combination with other
factors such as the existence of minority national groups, and with a particular set of
economic characteristics of these groups (which we will now analyze). Nevertheless, the
empirical evidence confirms that among multinational states of Western Europe, and
considering communities that, among their community building factors, reflect a remarkable
cultural distance in relation to other nations of the matrix state, secessionism is more prevalent
in places where there has been devolution than otherwise. The absence of deep cultural
differences between communities that belong to the same political unity could exclude some
communities in Western Europe (which traditionally have enjoyed of a broad selfgovernment)
from the described secessionist demands. Bavaria, that actually enjoys of a statehood status
among the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as some Italian regions, would be the most
remarkable cases.
ECONOMIC FACTORS
Economic factors regarding the control of resources are a classic variable considered in the
literature on secessionism.42 The relationship between the demand for secession and the
control of resources should exist both regarding specific resources in the territory of the
national community (e.g. in regions with natural resources such as Scotland, which is rich in
oil), and regarding the wealth created by the national community (e.g. in regions that have
GDP per capita over the mean income of the state –before redistribution). Economic
liberalization has changed the economic calculus of regions that to date were redistributing
resources in exchange of access to markets, which were limited to the territory of the state. As
we will explain, trade and capital liberalization has decreased the cost of secession, and this
can partially explain the increase in secessionist demands in recent times.
Globalization
The literature on the size of the states has pointed out that there is a trade-off between
the economic gains of big states (related to the ability to create economies of scale,
commercial
markets,
etc.),
and
the
benefits
of
ethnic
homogeneity
of
small
states/jurisdictions, which are associated with a better aggregation of preferences by the
political authority and with a more peaceful cohabitation between ethnic equals within a
particular territory.43 As Bolton and Roland argue: “When contemplating a move toward
independence, voters in each region must then weigh the efficiency benefits of the union
against the benefits of having a government ‘closer to the people’ (that is, a redistribution
policy closer to the preferences of a majority in the region)”.44
Large states that were built during the Modern Age were efficient during the era of
industrialization, as international trade was burdened with tariffs.45 Yet, with the spread of
free trade in continental regions such as the European Union, or even in a globalized context,
the “optimal size” of states has decreased. In a globalized context, smaller units can provide
the benefits of proximity while not incurring in economic costs of having small markets. Due
to economic openness, some national communities have started to conceive of the possibility
of small and more homogeneous entities directly adopting their own economic decisions (with
a direct link to commercial worldwide interests) as more efficient, and this has contributed to
the enhancement of secessionist demands. In a way, as commercial borders disappear, nonstate national communities have less economic incentives to be tied to each other under the
awning of the same political unit. Catalonia provides a clear example of this dynamic: Catalan
industry that was developed during the last half of the 19th century and the beginning of the
20th century had the agricultural areas of Spain as its natural market. Moreover, Madrid’s
Spanish political power protected the Catalan industry from the competition in France,
England or other industrial powers through tariffs.
This scheme, according to which the center retained the political power and provided
the main market for the industrial areas, has however collapsed because of three main reasons:
First, as we have mentioned, tariffs have disappeared in the European Common Market
framework, as well as in the global market (i.e. thanks to GATT, first, and WTO, later).
Second, Spain has lost its status of being a “natural market” for Catalan industry (indeed,
almost 70% of what is produced in Catalonia is either consumed in the region or is exported.
Maybe it is significant to remember that immediately before the breakup of Yugoslavia, one
of the firsts republics to declare the independence, the tiny Slovenia, was responsible for 28
percent of Yugoslavia’s total exports46). Third, the Spanish center has also become
industrialized and has become a competitor in the global context. Indeed, Madrid has a great
deal of the country’s economic resources, and big corporations have established their main
Spanish delegation (or even their main delegation in Southern Europe) in this city. This has
privileged Madrid, which has become the bridge between Europe and South America. Catalan
secessionists claim that this economic growth of the Spanish center has been the outcome of
inner state tax redistribution in which Catalonia has been the main contributor, and that
Catalonia and the Spanish center do not compete on equal terms in the global market.
The scenario in Catalonia has strong analogies with other Western European national
communities (like Flanders or the Basque Country), and is coherent with the rational
cost/benefit approach applied in the analysis so-called “secession crises.”47 Ending with the
transfer of resources to the country’s center as a “solidarity” contribution (is estimated that
Catalonia keeps a fiscal imbalance with the center of almost 17 billion euros, or 9.8% GDP48),
having a direct link with the globalization process in a continent or in a world that has almost
no tariff borders, and the possibility to fully enjoy their own resources in order to be more
competitive and to improve the population’s welfare are all big incentives of national
communities leaders in attempting to create their own states.49
The exportation growth outside the matrix state beyond the 30% of the production and
the transfer of resources to the center are two features that are also present in secessionist
demands in Scotland. The latter involves not only the public revenues coming from natural
resources such as North Sea oil and gas, that currently are mainly perceived by the British
Government, but also the fiscal balance excluding the benefits that Scotland would perceive
from the mentioned natural resources. Thus, as happens in the cases of Catalonia, Basque
Country and Flanders, also could be considered that Scotland pays to the London Exchequer
in taxes more than it receives from the central government in spending50.
As small states are becoming less inefficient due to global economic integration
processes, there is a lessening of the costs of secession for national communities, which can
conceive of the economic success of their own (small) states in the context of a globalized
economy. Considering that the efficiency of national communities that currently belong to a
multinational states in Western Europe (and that keep a fiscal imbalance with the center)
would grow with independence there are stronger economic incentives that explain the rise of
secessionist demands in some Western European national communities.
INTERNATIONAL FACTORS
International factors relate to the changing status of secession in the international institutions
and to the limitations to the use of violence to repress secessionist demands. Secession is not
an explicit part of international law. While there are provisions regarding the right to selfdetermination, secession is seen as ‘neutral’, i.e. neither legal nor illegal. This means that the
success of unilateral declarations of independence relies solely on the political decisions of
international community on whether to recognize the seceding unit or not. 51 Recently it has
come to the clarification of international rules regarding secession meaning that the costs of
secession diminished with the reduction of legal uncertainty. Furthermore existence of
peacekeeping institutions that make violence issuing secession demands less likely. Again,
this reduces uncertainty and lessens the cost. In the following pages, we deal with these
international factors.
Clarification of International Rules
During the last decade, the international community has made important steps towards
the clarification of democratic rules regarding the recognition of full sovereignty of national
communities. In Europe, these rules have been established by international organizations such
as the European Union and the Council of Europe. These democratic procedures have been
seen as an alternative to possible violent uprisings, and to what in international public law has
been called the “effectiveness principle” for recognizing an emerging new state.52 Democratic
rules prevailed in the process of independence of Montenegro in 2006. Yet the idea of the
effectiveness principle still played a preeminent role in Kosovo’s independence in 2008.
Montenegro
In the case of the independence of Montenegro (i.e. secession from Serbia), the European
Council and the European Union determined a framework of rules concerning this national
community’s accession to the status of independent state. Given the plan of the Montenegrin
authorities to organize a referendum on the independence of the region, the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe requested an opinion from the Venice Commission, which
is an advisory body on constitutional matters of the Council of Europe, about the conditions
required to organize a referendum on statehood. The Parliamentary Assembly requested
references on the compatibility between the existing Montenegrin legislation regarding the
organization of referendums and the “applicable international standards” in a referendum of
this nature. The Venice Commission traced a framework of rules inspired in comparative law
and previous independence referenda (e.g. the referenda in Quebec) from which it inferred
some “internationally recognized democratic standards” that were accepted by the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In addition, the rules determined by the
Venice Commission were accepted by the European Union Council of Ministers in January
2006 and by the European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security
Policy (Mr. Javier Solana), who appointed a Special Envoy (Ambassador Miroslav Lajcak) to
lead negotiations between the pro-independence Government of Montenegro and the
opposition groups that supported the continuation of the Union with Serbia.
The conditions for holding the referendum recommended by the Venice Commission
were introduced in the Montenegrin legislation once the Government and the opposition
reached an agreement on the independence referendum —through EU led negotiations. A lex
specialis for the independence referendum was approved by the Montenegrin Assembly on 1
March 2006 with consensus of the pro-independence and the pro-union blocs. This law would
regulate the referendum that finally took place on 21 May 2006. At that time the Council of
Europe and the European Union agreed to two main conditions for considering accession to
independence through a referendum (of any community): 1) a community could become an
independent state if the “yes” option was supported by 55% of the valid votes and 2) this 55%
per cent of the valid votes supporting independence was reached in an election with a
participation of at least 50% of the total number of registered voters plus one. The Venice
Commission concluded that a required level of participation established in the majority plus
one of the electorate was a condition consistent with international standards, and that a
qualified majority of 50% for the “yes” option provided legitimacy for the outcome of a
referendum on independence. International organizations and Montenegrin political actors
decided to agree on this qualified majority with the threshold of 55% of the valid votes.
Finally, in the referendum held on 21 May 2006, independence was supported by 55.5% of
the valid votes, and Montenegro therefore became independent. 86.5% of the total number of
registered voters participated in the referendum.53
Although the context of Montenegro, an Eastern European country, differs from the
political, economic and social features of Western European national communities, from the
legalistic point of view, the case of Montenegro is a clear precedent for the clarification of the
rules that may allow territorial communities to access full sovereignty through democratic
means. This case makes it challenging for Western European States to deny the possibility of
an independence referendum within their territories, or for them to oppose independence if
this is supported in a referendum matching the two criteria already established in this case
(that is, if at least 55% of the valid votes are cast for the “yes” option, and if there is a turnout
of at least 50% of the total number of registered voters). These requisites must obviously be
met in the context of a free and fair election, which must guarantee respect for fundamental
rights (freedom of expression and press, freedom of circulation inside the country, freedom of
assembly and freedom of association for political purposes), and which must be organized and
overseen by impartial electoral commissions.
It could be argued that Montenegro’s independence referendum was backed
constitutionally: secession was expressly established by the Constitutional Charter of the
Union of Serbia and Montenegro, which entered into force on 4 February 2003. Under the
terms of article 60 of the Constitution of the former Union of Serbia and Montenegro either of
these states could withdraw from the Union within three years after the adoption of the
Constitutional Charter —as far as this followed a referendum fulfilling recognized democratic
standards. The Union of Serbia and Montenegro was in this sense a rare example in
comparative constitutional law, in which the right to secession was expressly contemplated
and, in general terms, regulated. As we have seen in the examples of France and Spain,
Western European constitutions are not only reluctant to recognize the right of secession, but
they also stress the indissoluble unity of the state and they reject any constitutional
amendment that aims at changing the state’s territorial integrity. It could thus be interpreted
that international community support for the independence process in Montenegro was subject
to an additional condition: secession has to established, or not prohibited, by the Constitution
of the state.
Kosovo
In the case of Kosovo, both the European institutions and the international community
accepted its independence despite the fact that it was against the core of the Constitutional
Charter of the Serbian constitution. In addition to this, more than forty countries (including
the United States) recognized the parliamentary independence declaration approved by
Kosovo’s parliament on February 17th 2008. The European Union did not make a joint
recognition statement, but instead announced that state members were free to decide
individually whether to recognize Kosovo’s independence or not. The majority of EU states
(including France) recognized Kosovo’s independence by arguing that, in any conflict
between the will of the people (of a national community) and a state Constitution, the former
should prevail. Thus, in the cases of both Kosovo and Montenegro, the international
community (and, in particular, European transnational organizations like the EU) gave
prevalence to the “democratic argument” in front of the “constitutional argument”.54
The international Court of Justice enacted on July 22nd 2010 an advisory opinion
regarding Kosovo’s declaration of independence, which was requested by the United Nations
General Assembly where some states had been favorable to this declaration, and others –led
by Serbia- had not. The verdict of the international Court argued that Kosovo’s declaration
did not violate general international law. The Court avoided making a statement on the
existence of a general right to secession, but it said that international law does not have
general prohibitions to independence declarations,55 and it seems that these are lawful insofar
as they are made following democratic and pacific means.56 Kosovo’s case, as long as an
unilateral independence declaration have been legitimated by international institutions, could
be crucial to inspire secessionist movements in Western Europe in which the constitutional
framework of the matrix State appears rigid and curtails the democratic expression of the
majority that supports the secession (as happens in Spain with the challenge of Catalan and
Basque secessionist demands).
In a nutshell, in recent times there has been a clarification of the international rules
with regard to the recognition of new states, which has been promoted by the actions of
European transnational institutions. As a result, nationalist leaders have somewhat acquired a
better sense of what can be done and what cannot be done given the existing legal framework.
We believe that this has had a fostering effect on secessionist demands in Western Europe.
The achievement of secession through democratic processes has however been constrained by
the constitutional framework of some of these states (e.g. Spain). In a way, this implies that
there is a mismatch between what is being demanded (by national minorities) and what is
offered (by states) with regard to secession in a number of countries.
Clarification of Rules regarding European Membership
European integration has become a double-edged sword with regard to secession: on the one
hand, existing states have used European integration and the European Union as a tool for
consolidating their territorial status quo. For example, central governments have used the
threat of expulsion from the European Union against secessionist movements. On the other
hand, demands for sovereignty or secession have increased substantially as national
communities have realized that they could not be very influential in the European integration
process without having the status of a state.57
The discussion about the permanence in the European Union of seceded communities
(or new countries) is especially relevant for the development of secessionist demands (as the
prospect of having to leave the EU can increase secession costs); at the same time, the
discussion is likely to become more frequent as demands for secession become more
widespread.58 EU membership has been one of the most controversial points in the Scottish
process since the SNP won the election in 2007, and a referendum on independence was
announced. The SNP has suggested that an independent Scotland would automatically
become a member of the EU as a successor to the United Kingdom. This uninterrupted EU
membership condition is what has been called the “internal enlargement process in the EU”.59
European states, as well as some European Commission’s legal advisers, insist on the fact that
a new state seceded from an EU member state would have to apply to be a new member of the
EU. Despite the fact that there is no clear answer to the “internal enlargement process”, from
a legal point of view, it can be argued that international public rules and some previous
experiences concerning EU membership are supportive of the thesis defended by the SNP, i.e.
that there should be automatic EU integration of a new state founded in the territory of an EU
member predecessor state. For example, according to article 34 of the Vienna Convention on
Succession of States in Respect of Treaties (1978) the general principle is that when a piece of
a territory separates to form a new state, any treaty in force within the predecessor state
should remain in force in each of the successor states. This article would eventually be
applicable to the EU treaties. Moreover, article 26 of the Vienna Convention establishes that
the succession in the multilateral treaty in force in a predecessor state applies if the new
independent state gives notice of its intention to the other parts. Article 17.2 of the Vienna
Convention provides an exception to the rule if the application of a multilateral treaty in a
new state emerged from a treaty member state and if the treaty established that its application
in respect of the newly independent state would be incompatible with the object and purpose
of the treaty or would radically change the conditions for its operation. Yet, the EU-founding
treaties do not establish any provision on this aspect.60 The 1978 Vienna Convention on
Succession of States with Respect to Treaties has not been signed by some Western European
states (e.g. Spain), and therefore it would not necessarily apply to these cases. The question
would be, then, if the 1978 Vienna Convention operates as customary international law, as has
been suggested in the case of Slovenia and Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia. Also, this
Treaty was taken into account by the International Court of Justice in the case of the 1978
Treaty between Hungary and Czechoslovakia dealing with the Danube, in which Slovakia
succeeded Czechoslovakia as part in the treaty.61
In general, it can be argued that the European integration factor is nowadays a
powerful factor promoting secessionist demands; this is due both to the experience of
secession in different Eastern European countries, which has been supported by the EU, but
also to the existence of a new framework of rules that provide room for the development of
peaceful secessionist processes in EU member states.
Peace-keeping Institutions and Decreasing Risk of Violence
Since war is costly for all counterparts62, fear of armed conflict is a very powerful deterrent
for secessionism. This is especially the case for minority groups because they are usually
weaker than the states they challenge, and they face greater possibilities of defeat. 63 Only five
internationally-recognized states have been created through violent secession in the post-1945
era: “between 1975-2005 the probability that a separatist group fighting for independence
would create an internationally-recognized state was only 5 percent”.64 Violent reactions to
greater demands for autonomy are very often behind the outset of the so-called ethnic civil
wars,65 and the size of these reactions is partially explained by the characteristics of the
region: the “weakest” regions in the state are more likely to be targeted by armed forces.66
Fear of armed repression and civil war can explain, for instance, why demands for
independence were minimal in Catalonia during the Spanish Transition to democracy in the
late seventies or during the Francoist dictatorship.67
Armed conflict is nowadays conceived as a remote possibility in Western European
states not only due to their high levels of income,68 to the existence of democratic audiences
that hold politicians accountable for the use of force,69 or to the decreased size of their
armies,70 but also thanks to the existence of transnational organizations like the European
Union, which aim at preserving a space of peace and security within their territories, as it is
stated, for example, in the Preamble and Article 3 of the European Union Treaty (in the
Lisbon Treaty version). 71
As war is perceived as less likely, secessionist demands are also conceived as less
costly –for they are not associated with the outbreak of civil conflict, or even with violent
state repression. This also facilitates the emergence and consolidation of secessionist
demands.
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we have pointed out a number of factors accounting for the recent
uprising trends in secessionism in Western Europe. While some of these factors are prior and
necessary for the existence of national communities articulating secessionist demands
(community building factors), others, which are connected to cost-benefit analyses (economic
factors and international factors), are more immediately related to these uprising trends.
According to our framework, if secessionist mobilization has been successful in
Flanders, Catalonia, Scotland and the Basque Country in recent times, this is because
nationalist politicians that have arisen in contexts of democratic consolidation and
decentralized political units, have benefited from a globalized political economy leading to
supra-state markets, a legal room for “new state building”, as well as regional EU framework
providing peace and security. These factors have helped promote the idea that peaceful and
less costly secessionist processes are possible, and this in turn has implied increased popular
support for these movements. Secessionist mobilization has been less successful in countries
with other non state national communities such as France mostly because of the inexistence of
favorable institutional conditions at the domestic level, namely decentralized units allowing
for national community building. (See, for example, the cases of Bretagne or Occitanie; in
Corsica, the level of secessionist mobilization is greater than in these two regions, but it is
currently stagnant).
European secessionist movements are nevertheless far from being equally successful
everywhere. The historical background of some states has led them to be more or less
constitutionally immune to secession demands. Indeed, independently of the strength of
secessionist movements, these are being more successful in more flexible countries (i.e. the
UK) than in more rigid ones (i.e. Spain). The case of the secessionist movement in Scotland is
paradigmatic for in less than ten years it has overcome the achievements of long-lasting
movements such as the ones in the Basque Country or Catalonia, in Spain. In the future, it is
possible that the comparison to neighboring (successful) movements will lead to greater
grievances among these older (non-successful) movements, and that this will generate greater
confrontation with their states. Following patterns observed in the past, contagion effects are
also predicted to happen in the future in the event that new states are created. Similarly to
what has happened with Montenegro and Kosovo, the independence of regions such as
Flanders or Scotland would probably encourage secessionist demands in other European
regions. Not only because this would encourage a greater clarification of democratic rules
regarding secession, but also because it would imply a success of the “democratic” principle
of state-building, which could then be easily claimed by other national communities.
NOTES
1
Allen E. Buchanan, Secession. The morality of political divorce from Fort Sunter to Lithuania and Quebec
(Boulder/St. Francisco/Oxford: Westview Press, 1991); Donald D. Horowitz, “A Right to Secede?” in Secession
and Self-determination, ed. Stephen Macedo and Allen E. Buchanan (New York: New York University Press,
2003): 50-76; Hudson Meadwell, “Secession, States and International Society”, Review of International Studies,
25, no.3, (July 1999): 371-87; Alan Patten, “Democratic secession from a multinational State”, Ethics, 112, no.3
(April 2002):558-586; Cass R. Sunstein, “Constitutionalism and Secession”, University of Chicago Law Review
58, no.2 (April 1991): 633-670.
2
David Friedman, “A Theory of the Size and Shape of Nations”. The Journal of Political Economy, 85, no. 1
(February 1997): 59-77; Patrick Bolton and Gerard Roland, “The Breakup of Nations. A Political Economy
Analysis”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112, no. 4 (November 1997): 1057-1090; Alberto Alesina and
Enrico Spolaore, “On the Number and Size of Nations”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112, no.4
(November 1997): 1027-1056; Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore, “War, Peace, and the Size of Countries”
Journal of Public Economics, 89, no.7 (July 2005): 1333-1354; Alberto Alesina, Enrico Spolaore and Romain
Wacziarg, “Economic Integration and Political Disintegration.” American Economic Review, 90, no.5
(December 2000): 1276-1896; Josep Maria Colomer, Great Empires, Small Nations. The Uncertain Future of the
Sovereign State (London: Routledge, 2007).
3
Alberto Alesina, Enrico Spolaore and Romain Wacziarg, “Economic Integration and Political Disintegration.”
American Economic Review, 90, no.5 (December 2000): 1276-1896.
4
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995).
5
Allen E. Buchanan, “Federalism, Secession and the Morality of Inclusion” Arizona Law Review, 37, no.1 (April
1995): 53-63; Allen E. Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2004).
6
Peter Alexis Gourevitch, “The Reemergence of «Peripheral Nationalisms»: Some Comparative Speculations on
the Spatial Distribution of Political Leadership and Economic Growth”, Comparative Studies in Society and
History, 21, no.3, (July 1979): 303-322.
7
8
Your Scotland, your referendum, available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/01/1006/0
Jean Quatremer: “An agreement that will accelerate the breakup of Belgium” avalaible at:
http://www.eurointelligence.com/eurointelligence-news/home/singleview/article/an-agreement-that-willaccelerate-the-breakup-of-belgium.html
9
See
La
Vanguardia,
07-18-2010;
available
at:
http://www.lavanguardia.es/politica/noticias/20100718/53967434806/el-fallo-del-tc-catapulta-el-respaldo-a-laindependencia-que-roza-el-50.html; see also the poll conducted by Carulla Foundation and Esade Business
school published in Avui 23th February 2011 and the poll published by El Periódico 23th January 2012
available
at:
http://elperiodico.cat/ca/noticias/politica/els-partidaris-independencia-arriben-per-primer-cop-
1358982
10
El
Periódico
de
Catalunya,
23-07-2010;
available
from:
http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/politica/20100723/mas-autogobierno-independencia/400791.shtml. See
also,
“El
independentismo
alcanza
en
Cataluña
su
máximo
histórico”,
El
País,
07-30-2010;
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/independentismo/alcanza/Cataluna/maximo/historico/elpepuesp/2010073
0elpepunac_7/Tes.
11
From Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya), the Basque Country (Eusko Alkartasuna), Galicia
(Bloque Nacionalista Galego), Scotland (Scottish National Party), Wales (Plaid Cymru), and Flanders (SPIRIT).
12
This idea, related to the notion of “metric heterogeneity”, is suggested by Klaus Desmet, Michel Le Breton,
Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín and Shlomo Weber in Klaus Desmet, Michel Le Breton, Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín and Shlomo
Weber, “The Stability and Breakup of Nations: A Quantitative Analysis” Journal of Economic Growth, 16, no.
3 (2011): 183-213. However, we do not share the model described by the above mentioned authors to predict the
stability or the breakup of states in the European map. We desagree that genetic distances among population
(used by the authors to mesure the cultural heterogeneity) are relevant to explain the raise of secessionist
demands in some parts of Western Europe during the last decade.
13
Doug McAdam, “Political Opportunities: Conceptual Origins, Current Problems, Future Directions,” in
Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, ed. Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1996): 23-40.
14
15
Ian Shapiro, Moral Foundations of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).
The “silence conspiracy”, as Kymlicka has called it. Will Kymlicka, “Territorial Boundaries. A liberal
egalitarian perspective.” in Boundaries and Justice. Diverse Ethical Perspectives, ed. David Miller and Sohail H.
Hashmi Princeton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001): 249-275.
16
Susanna Mancini, “Rethinking the boundaries of democratic secession: Liberalism, nationalism, and the right
of minorities to self-determination”, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 6, no.3-4 (July-October 2008):
553-584; Wayne Norman,
Negotiating Nationalism: Nation-building, Federalism, and Secession in the
Multinational State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
17
18
Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States. AD 990 – 1992. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy. Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2005); Andreas Wimmer, Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict: Shadows of Modernity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Paul W. Kahn, “The question of sovereignty” Stanford Journal
of International Law, 40, no.2, (August 2004): 259-282.
19
Harris Mylonas, Assimilation and its Alternatives: The Making of Co-Nationals, Refugees and Minorities.
Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 2008.
20
For example, the French Education Minister of the III Republic, Anatole de Monzie, approved one statute in
1925 forbidding education in regional languages by arguing the following: “The Laic school cannot host
languages competing with French, whose conscientious worship will never have enough altars”.
21
Thomas Hylland Eriksen,“Linguistic Hegemony and Minority Resistance”, Journal of Peace Research, 29,
no.3 (August 1992): 313-332; Eugen Weber, La Fins des Terroirs. La Modernisation de la France Rurale (1870-
1914) (Paris: Fayard/Editions Recherches, 1983).
22
Indeed, national uniformity was one of the main objectives that justified Franco’s putsch in July 18th 1936, and
the subsequent dictatorial regime. Carme Molinero i Pere Ysàs, El règim franquista. Feixisme, modernització i
consens. (Vic: Eumo, 1997).
23
Ferran Requejo, “Revealing the dark side of traditional democracies in plurinational societies: The case of
Catalonia and the Spanish ‘Estado de las Autonomias’” in Nations and Nationalism 16 (1), 2010, pp. 148-168
24
Ferran Requejo, Federalisme plurinacional i estat de les autonomies. Aspectes teòrics i aplicats (Barcelona:
Proa, 2003); Xabier Arzoz, “Spanien-die geschichtlichen Autonomen der Basqueen, Galizier und Katalanen als
Beispiel eines multinationalen “Quasi-Föderalismus” im Einheitsstaat”, in Zur Entstehung des modernen
Minderheitenschutzes in Europa. Handbuch der europäischen Volksgruppen. ed. Ch. Pan and B.S. Pfeil, Vol.3,
(New York/Wien: Springer, 2006): 363-387.
25
In these countries, the unity of the State is something considered beyond democratic discussion. For example,
section 2 of the Spanish Constitution states that: “The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the
Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards”; from this principle, which is almost
impossible to amend, one can infer a total identification between the Spanish Nation (that is, the Spanish
majority national group) and the state. In fact, it has been based on this principle that the Spanish Constitutional
Court has ruled against the Statute of Catalonia in July 2010, as it has been argued that this cannot say that
Catalonia is a Nation. Something similar can be said about the 1958 French Constitution, which explicitly
detaches secession from the constitutional amendment procedure: “No amendment procedure where the integrity
of the territory is jeopardized shall be started or continued”.
26
Tom Nairn, “Union on the rocks?” New Left Review, 42 (November-December 2006): 117-132; Michael
Keating, Nations against the State: The New Politics of Nationalism in Quebec, Catalonia and Scotland
(London: Palgrave, 2001).
27
Indeed, the Treaty of Union was conceived as an agreement between two parties that recognized themselves as
different political identities; it did not imply assimilation by force of one into another.
28
Indeed, the British public has not depicted the SNP’s search for independence as a threat against “the Nation”
or the “territorial integrity”, as a supreme value to be defended. This contrasts with what happened in Spain
when Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) acceded to the Catalan autonomous government in 2003 when
a feeling of “threat” towards Spanish national unity was generated by some Spanish elites.
29
Craenen, Godelieve. "Kingdom of Belgium", in a Prakke, L., Kortmann, C. A. J. M. i van den Brandhof, J. C.
E. (editors) Constitutional Law of 15 EU Member States (Kluwer, Deventer, 2004): 72-131.
30
In the case of the UK, it is also true that a history of exposure to secession (through the decolonization
process), as well as the “Irish question”, might have made it more open to secessionist demands, compared to
other western European countries. Stephen Tierney, “Giving with one hand: Scottish devolution within a unitary
state” International Journal of Constitutional Law, 5, no.4 (September 2007): 730-753.
31
Hèctor López Bofill, Nous Estats i principi democratic (Barcelona: CETC/Angle Editorial, 2009); Susanna
Mancini, “Rethinking the boundaries of democratic secession: Liberalism, nationalism, and the right of
minorities to self-determination”, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 6, no.3-4 (July-October 2008):
553-584; Ted Robert Gurr, “People Against States” International Studies Quarterly, 38, no. 3, (September
1994): 347-377.
32
Mancini however argues that “with very few exceptions, notably that of Serbia and Montenegro, secessions
have not been undertaken in accordance with any specific legal provision: they have come about either through
the use of force or through political agreements, which means that they have not occurred according to any
democratic logic”, Susanna Mancini, “Rethinking the boundaries of democratic secession: Liberalism,
nationalism, and the right of minorities to self-determination”, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 6,
no.3-4 (July-October 2008): 553-584 (583). She also normatively makes an argument in favor of
constitutionalizing a reasonable secession clause in order to promote the peaceful cohabitation of ethnic
minorities within existing states. Also Wayne Norman, Negotiating Nationalism: Nation-building, Federalism,
and Secession in the Multinational State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
33
The Italian experience of the 19th century was supported by the military action of Garibaldi’s troops in the
south. Eduardo García de Enterría, “Estudio preliminar” in Manuel Azaña, Sobre la autonomía política de
Cataluña. (Madrid: Tecnos, 2005): 9-81. This has made the independence of Norway from Sweden in 1905 the
first European case in which a fundamental decision came about as the result of a purely democratic plebiscite.
34
Although the civil war that accompanied the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia (especially in Croatia,
Bosnia and Kosovo) complicates the democratic allusion to these processes.
35
36
See Your Scotland, your referendum, http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/01/1006/0
page 10.
Peter Lynch, “Scottish independence, the Quebec model of secession and the political future of the Scottish
National Party”, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 11, no. 4, (January 2005): 503-531.
37
Lawrence Anderson, “Federalism and secessionism: institutional influences on nationalist politics in Québec”
Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 13, no.2 (April 2007): 187-211.
38
David Gauthier, “Breaking Up: An essay on Secession”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 24, no. 3
(September 1994): 357-372; Daniel Philpott, “In Defence of Self-Determination”, Ethics, 105, no.2, (January
1995): 352-85; Christopher H. Wellman, “A Defence of Secession and Political Self-Determination” Philosophy
and Public Affairs, 24, no.2, (April 1995): 142-171; Harri Beran, “A Democratic Theory of Political SelfDetermination for a New World Order” in Theories of Secession. ed. Percy Lehning (London: Routledge, 1998):
33-60; Wayne Norman,
Negotiating Nationalism: Nation-building, Federalism, and Secession in the
Multinational State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Ted Robert Gurr, “People Against States”
International Studies Quarterly, 38, no. 3, (September 1994): 347-377.
39
Svante E. Cornell, “Autonomy as a Source of Conflict: Caucasian Conflict in Theoretical Perspective”, World
Politics, 54, no. 2 (January 2002): 245-276; Lawrence M. Anderson, “Exploring the Paradox of Autonomy:
Federalism and Secession in North America” Regional and Federal Studies, 14, no.1 (April 2004): 89-112;
Dawn Brancati, “Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of Ethnic Conflict and
Secessionism?”, International Organization, 60, no. 3, (July 2006): 651-685; Mikhail Filippov, Peter Ordeshook
and Olga Shvetsova, Designing Federalism. A Theory of Self-Sustainable Federal Institutions. (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004); Enric Martínez Herrera, “From National-Building to Building Identification
with Political Communities: Consequences of Political Descentralisation in Spain, the Basque Country,
Catalonia and Galicia, 1978-2001". European Journal of Political Research, 41, no.4, (June 2002): 421-53;
Robert H. Dorf, “Federalism in Eastern Europe: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem? Publics, 24, no.2,
(April 1994): 99-114.
40
Peter Ordeshook and Olga Shvetsova, 1997. “Federalism and Constitutional Design”, Journal of Democracy, 8
, n.1 (January 1997):27-42.
41
Benedict Anderson provides classic text on the relationship between media and the “creation” of national
communities. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. (New York: Verso, 1983).
42
Nicholas Sambanis and Branco Milanovic “Explaining the Demand for Sovereignty” Unpublished Manuscript
(Yale University, 2004).
43
David Friedman, “A Theory of the Size and Shape of Nations”. The Journal of Political Economy, 85, no. 1
(February 1997): 59-77; Patrick Bolton and Gerard Roland, “The Breakup of Nations. A Political Economy
Analysis”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112, no. 4 (November 1997): 1057-1090; Alberto Alesina and
Enrico Spolaore, “On the Number and Size of Nations”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112, no.4
(November 1997): 1027-1056.
44
Patrick Bolton and Gerard Roland, “The Breakup of Nations. A Political Economy Analysis”. The Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 112, no. 4 (November 1997): 1058.
45
Michael Keating “European Integration and the Nationalities Question” Politics & Society, 32, no. 3
(September 2004): 367-388.
46
Tony Judt, Postwar: a History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin, 2005) : 670.
47
Viva Ona Bartkus, The Dynamic of Secession. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Stéphane
Dion, “Why is Secession Difficult in Well-Established Democracies? Lessons from Quebec”, British Journal of
Political Science, 26, no.2 (April 1996): 269-283.
48
Germa Bel, Carles Boix, Elisabeth Castro and Elisenda Paluzie “Spain and the blame game” in Hufftingon
Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carles-boix/spain-economy-catalonia_b_1297516.html
49
Josep Maria Colomer, Great Empires, Small Nations. The Uncertain Future of the Sovereign State (London:
Routledge, 2007).
50
John
Jappy,
“Would
an
independent
Scotland
be
financially
sound?”
available
at:
http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-economy/4235-would-an-independent-scotland-be-financiallysound
51 James Crawford, 2005. The Creation of States in International Law. New York: Oxford University Press.
52 Hans Kelsen, “Recognition in International Law: Theoretical Observations”, The American Journal of
International Law, 35, no.4 (1941): 605-617.
53
Jaume López and Ferran Requejo Análisis de experiencias de democracia directa en el ámbito internacional
(1995-2007) (Oñati: Instituto Vasco de Administración Pública, 2009): 98-104.
54
Among Western states, Spain was an exception in its refusal to recognize Kosovo’s independence. Probably
because of the strength of secessionist claims within Spain’s borders, especially in Catalonia and the Basque
Country, the Spanish government was fearful that the “democratic argument” could eventually be applied within
its own borders. In fact, prevalence of the Constitution -above the outcome of a referendum- was precisely one
of the arguments hold by the Spanish Constitutional Court in rejecting and declaring void a 2008 decision
regarding a referendum on the status of the Basque Country. In its statement, the Spanish Constitutional Court
argued that the Spanish Constitution recognizes a unique sovereign subject: the Spanish Nation, which is
founded on the state and composed of the Spanish people as a whole. This forecloses the right of any part of the
country to hold a referendum on sovereignty without first amending the Spanish Constitution. This position was
reaffirmed in the decision of 9 July 2010 regarding Catalonia’s Basic Law.
55
International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion of 22 July 2010, Accordance with international law of the
unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo (paragraph 84). On the consequences of the ICJ
Advisory Opinion of 22 July 2010 related to unilateral declaration of independence and the territorial integrity
principle see Iñigo Urrutia Libarona, “Territorial integrity and self-determination: the approach of the
International Court of Justice in the Advisory Opinion on Kosovo”, Revista d’Estudis Autonòmics i Federals, 16
(October 2012): 107-137.
56
International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion of 22 July 2010, Accordance with international law of the
unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo (paragraph 81).
57
Michael Keating “European Integration and the Nationalities Question” Politics & Society, 32, no. 3
(September 2004): 367-388; Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in
the New Europe. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). It is not difficult to find examples of
disadvantages or discrimination suffered by non-state national communities in the context of the European
Union; that is especially true if we compare them with the bargaining capacity exercised by member states
before the European Union institutions. These disadvantages go from the very narrow political capacity of the
so-called “regions” in decisions adopted on a range of communitarian competences, to the impossibility of
accession to communitarian institutions (such as the European Court of Justice), or to the discriminatory
treatment in cultural and linguistic areas (i.e. the non-official status of their languages). For example, Maltese,
which is spoken by 400,000 people, has an official status in the EU. On the other hand, Catalan, which is spoken
by more than 10 million people, has not an official status.
58
This has been clear with the aforementioned 2008 Edinburgh Declaration.
59
Torbjörn Larsson,“The Internal Enlargement of the European Union and the Surplus of the Intermediate Level
of Government”. EIPAScope 2 (2000): 18-26. Matthew Happold,“«Independence» in or out Europe? An
independent Scotland and the European Union” International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 49, no. 1
(January 2000): 15-34; Photini Pazartzis, “Secession and international law: the European dimension” in
Secession. International Law Perspectives, ed. Marcelo G. Kohen (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2006): 355-373.
60
Furthermore, it would hardly be justifiable that the emergence of a new state is incompatible with the purpose
of the EU-treaties considering the fact that the EU-treaties have already been applied to newly independent
territories (e.g. Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia).
61
Case Converning the Gabciokovo-Nagymaros-Project (Hungary/Slovakia, ICJ Reports 1997, p.7 and para. 123
in which the International Court of Justice declares that Article 12 of the 1978 Vienna Convention reflects a rule
of customary international law). Andreas Zimmermann, “Law of State Succession” in Secession. International
Law Perspectives, ed. Marcelo G. Kohen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006): 208-230.
62
James Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes” American Political
Science Review, 88, no. 3 (September 1994): 577-592; James Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War”
International Organization, 49, no. 3 (June 1995): 379-414.
63
Sometimes violence against the state is motivated by intraethnic divisions (i.e. between moderates and
radicals).Violence can be used as an instrument for polarization, to force moderates to take sides, or to generate a
new constituency for radicals. Luis De la Calle, Accounting for Nationalist Violence in Affluent Countries
(Madrid; Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales, 2009).
64
Lee J.M. Seymour, “Research note: the surprising success of ‘separatist’ groups: the empirical and juridical in
self-determination.” Presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, San Diego, CA,
March 21-26.
65
Nicholas Sambanis and Annalisa Zinn, “From protest to violence. Conflict escalation in self-determination
movements”. Unpublished Manuscript. (Yale University, 2005).
66
Nicholas Sambanis and Branco Milanovic “Explaining the Demand for Sovereignty” Unpublished Manuscript,
(Yale University, 2004). Sambanis and Milanovic argue that “The expectation of a violent reaction by the
government in response to demands for greater autonomy would be a negative function of the region’s relative
strength as measured by relative size in income and population” (2004: 19).
67
Also, during the transitional period the memory of the Civil War of the thirties was very salient. It is less so
nowadays. Paloma Aguilar, Memoria y olvido de la Guerra Civil Española (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1996).
68
As Fearon and Laitin explain, civil war is unlikely in high-income countries. James Fearon and David Laitin,
“Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War”, American Political Science Review, 97, no.1, (February 2003):75-90.
69
James Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes” American Political
Science Review, 88, no. 3 (September 1994): 577-592.
70
As Alesina and Spolaore argue, “a reduction in the need to use force internationally, by making defense less
important, leads to political separatism” Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore, “War, Peace, and the Size of
Countries” Journal of Public Economics, 89, no.7 (July 2005): 1333-1354 (1335).
71
Avoiding internal conflict within the European territory was at the core of the creation of the European Union,
as it was implied in the Schuman declaration (9 May 1950) and the creation of the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC). Beyond the UE, other international organizations such as the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also aim at preserving peace and avoiding conflict between and within
European states.