‘The People, Year Zero’: Secessionism and Citizenship in Scotland and Catalonia

Abstract

The article compares how secessionist elites in Scotland and Catalonia discursely and legally constituted the people that is the subject of their claim of self-determination in relation to immigrant and emigrant populations during their recent bid for independence (2012-2017). The results point to important similarities between the two cases, which privileged the territorial inclusion of immigrants over the ethnocultural inclusion of emigrants and embraced the principle of multiple nationality. The outcome is interpreted as a sub-set of a broader ‘independence lite’ strategy, serving the aim of reducing the prospective cost of independence in the eye of the population they seek support from, and of the international community of states they seek recognition from.

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Ricard Zapata-Barrero for his extraordinary sense of hospitality during my research stay at Pompeu Fabra University in 2017, and to Adam Holesch for his invaluable assistance with collecting the data and refining the argument. I am also thankful to Gianni D'Amato, Rainer Bauböck, Lorenzo Piccoli and Dejan Stjepanovic for their comments, and to Paule Dupont for often keeping me company.

ORCID

Jean-Thomas Arrighi http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4174-4818

Notes

1. While largely uncontroversial in Scotland, the inclusion of EU citizens offers a striking contrast with their exclusion in the June 2016 BREXIT referendum, even though their status made them particularly vulnerable to the outcome.

2. Alex Salmond, speech at the launch of the second phase of the National Conversation at the University of Edinburgh, 26 March 2008 (our emphasis).

3. Whether those threats would have come true in the event of independence falls well beyond the scope of this paper (see the edited volume by Closa (2017) for a comprehensive legal, political and normative overview of the main arguments).

4. In El País (2 November 2012). ERC asegura que los catalanes seguirían en la UE con nacionalidad española. Available at https://elpais.com/ccaa/2012/11/05/catalunya/1352133935_430268.html [last consulted online 15 February 2018].

5. In La Razón (22 September 2015). Los catalanes perderían la nacionalidad española si se independizan. Available at https://www.larazon.es/espana/margallo-los-catalanes-perderian-la-nacionalidad-espanola-si-se-independizan-AO10786574 [last consulted online 15 February 2018].

6. For a good overview of existing explanatory theories on sub-state nationalist parties' response to immigration and immigrant integration, see Jeram et al. (2016).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR)—on the move funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation; and by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [grant agreement No 716350].