TITLE:
Catalonia: Federalism or Secession?
AUTHORS:
Ramón Máiz, Nieves Lagares, María Pereira
KEYWORDS:
Secession, Federalism, Political-Territorial Solution, Catalonia, Independence, Process
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.8 No.4,
October
30,
2018
ABSTRACT: Is
there a political space for a possible federal accommodation of the demands of
self-government in Catalonia and how is it configured? In order to answer these
questions, we address first the conceptualization of federalism, and then, from
an evolutionary perspective, we focus on the “Catalan issue” and its
institutional outputs. The general assumption, in political and media
discourse, namely, that “being in favour of the independence process”, “wanting
to separate from Spain” and “being nationalist” constitute a single argument
and mean exactly the same, has served to conceal a debate that is very complex,
plural and full of nuances. We pose an analysis that pivots on the identity
question and the type of political-territorial solution, the importance of the
different leaderships in the process and the party identification with respect
to the constructive nature of the political preferences of the electors and
their positioning on the issues.