Cultural nationalism and political tolerance in advanced industrial societies: The Basque country and Catalonia

Abstract

This study endeavours to elucidate the nature of the cultural form of nationalism flourishing in some advanced industrial countries. We perform this task by estimating a LISREL model aiming at identifying the structure of values and attitudes explaining the nationalist identity in two economically advanced regions of Spain, the Basque Country and Catalonia. We found empirical evidence showing the existence of a form of cultural nationalism whose proponents adhere to a set of liberal values, notably political tolerance. Our findings point strongly to the emergence of a form of liberal nationalist identity, a phenomenon that departs markedly from the politically reactionary forms of rightist nationalism which are nurtured by intolerance. Moreover, these results support the cultural nationalism theory, which differs significantly from the explanations derived from the Modernization theory and from the model assuming a dichotomy between civic and ethnic nationalism. This study is the first demonstration that the reconciliation of liberalism and nationalism is empirically founded in at least two important cases of cultural nationalisms.