Missing the overlap between theory and practice: Patten’s ‘equal recognition’ in the face of the Catalan case

Abstract

Drawing on the particularities of Catalonia (and related cases), the general point of this contribution is to argue that Patten’s equal recognition theory is modeled upon a too-restricted set of empirical assumptions, a circumstance that might harm its value as a tool for the orientation, evaluation, and reform of public policy. What is absent in Patten’s account – or at least not properly inserted into it – are four built-in modules that we have named ‘history’, ‘democracy’, ‘international relations’, and ‘migration’. When it comes to recognition of minorities, the past matters more often than Patten is willing to accept; democracy can lead to permanent departures from equal recognition on the part of self-governing national minorities; in the recognition game, there are other relevant players than simply states and their minorities; and one of these players, namely immigrant groups, can (albeit involuntarily) distort equal recognition schemes.

Keywords:

• Catalonia
• equal recognition
• minority culture
• political theory
• secession

Notes

1. According to Whitt, Carens inverted the political theorists’ tendency to prioritize ‘general normative commitments’ in front of existing immigration control practices. Needless to say, this context-sensitive approach has other conspicuous representatives. Buchanan (1991) was praised by Kymlicka (1992, p. 530) for this: ‘the historical and contemporary examples of secessionist movements illuminate the theoretical principles and vice versa’.

2. As pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, the same goes for Quebec. Witness Mendelsohn (2002) and Jedwab (2010).

3. Patten is well aware of dual national identities: ‘Of course in all these cases [Quebec, Scotland and Catalonia] it is common for people to have dual identities: they identify with both the national minority and the larger statewide community’ (ER, p. 240). It is a pity, though, that Patten does not dig further into this phenomenon and its associated normative issues.

4. Weinstock (2003) provides an example of defense of the past injustice argument specifically referred to languages. Commenting on Kymlicka’s (1995) suggestion that internal restrictions can be legitimate on a temporary basis, Branchadell (2005, p. 246) also raised the question of the durability of legitimacy: ‘a restriction that was legitimate at moment t_i will still be legitimate at moment t_i+1?’.

5. Weinstock (2003, p. 259) makes the same point when defending the past injustice argument in linguistic matters:

nation-building has historically been accompanied by a disparagement of ‘local’ languages and dialects as backward and uncivilized. The internalization over time of such attitudes by the groups against which they were initially directed might contribute to a situation in which no purely material distribution will succeed in redressing the harms caused by cultural and linguistic oppression.

6. Buchanan (1991, 2004) is an eminent representative of so-called remedial theories of secession. According to these theories, secession is not morally justifiable unless certain forms of injustice are inflicted upon the secessionist group.

7. In this context ‘monolingual’ has to be understood in the sense that Catalan is the single medium of instruction in all public schools. This said, it is true that Spanish is always a mandatory subject and that all pupils are supposed to achieve full Catalan–Spanish bilingualism. In very recent times, schools have been granted the possibility of using Spanish as a medium of instruction within strict limits.

8. In Spain a ‘statute’ of autonomy is a kind of internal constitution for autonomous regions.

9. Education is not the only field where Catalan and Spanish are not strictly equalized. To name just a few: public signs (e.g. street signs) are only in Catalan; other than speaking in debates, parliamentary work is done almost exclusively in Catalan; in certain cases of tender, documents can be submitted only in Catalan; most towns and cities do not have Spanish forms for their citizens, and some of them are even bound by internal regulations to provide answers in Catalan to oral requests made in Spanish.

10. The notion of a Spanish national minority is controversial indeed, given that Spanish speakers are a majority in Catalonia. But if we leave language aside and focus on national attachment, there is some plausibility to it. An emerging national minority in Catalonia could be formed by those who consider themselves ‘only Spaniard’ and ‘more Spaniard than Catalan’, a group that comprises 11% of the population of Catalonia.

11. The Sweden case might be a difficult one for the ‘voluntary acceptance’ theory, since it shows that the applicants never waived away their right to maintain contact with the culture and languages of their country of origin.