Federalism as a Tool of Conflict Resolution

Soeren Keil, Elisabeth Alber, Soeren Keil, Elisabeth Alber

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000356304
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Conflict Resolution

Looking at the growing use of federalism and decentralization as tools of conflict resolution, this book provides evidence from several case studies on the opportunities and challenges that territorial solutions offer when addressing internal conflicts within a variety of countries.

Federalism has been used as a tool of conflict resolution in a number of conflict situations around the world. The results of this have been mixed at best, with some countries moving slowly to the paths of peace and recovery, while others have returned to violence. This volume looks at a number of case studies in which federalism and decentralization have been promoted in order to bring opposing groups together and protect the territorial integrity of different countries. Yet, it is demonstrated that this has been incredibly difficult, and often overshadowed by wider concerns on secession, de and re-centralization and geopolitics and geoeconomics. While federalism and decentralization might hold the key to keeping war-torn countries together and bringing hostile groups to the negotiation table, we nevertheless need to rethink under which conditions territorial autonomy can help to transform conflict and when it might contribute to an increase in conflict and violence. Federalism alone, so the key message from all contributions, cannot be enough to bring peace – yet, without territorial solutions to ongoing violence, it is also unlikely that peace will be achieved.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Ethnopolitics.

Decentralisation at a Crossroads: Spain, Catalonia and the Territorial Crisis

PAUL ANDERSON

ABSTRACT The constitutional quagmire between the Catalan government and the Spanish state has dominated debate in academic, political and public spheres for several years. This article examines the evolution of this territorial crisis, drawing on interview data with parliamentarians in the Catalan Parliament. The analysis illuminates a number of limitations with the extant territorial model, including the lack of recognition of Spain’s plurinational status, the centralising tendency of the central state, the absence of shared rule and the prominent role of the Constitutional Court in arbitrating territorial disputes. Further, the article sketches some potential scenarios for the future development of relations between the Catalan and Spanish governments, ranging from recentralisation to reformulation, state disintegration to continued stalemate. While talk of using autonomy as a conflict resolution mechanism was largely absent from the initial debates during Spain’s transition, the article concludes that the time has come for Spanish political elites to rethink this approach, not least if they seek to keep the state together.

Introduction

Spain’s evolving territorial crisis has been at the forefront of debate across Europe and further afield for several years (Cuadras-Morató, 2016; Dowling, 2018; Gillespie & Gray, 2015; Nagel & Rixen, 2015). Heightened interest ensued in October 2017 after Catalonia’s controversial independence referendum, the harsh response by Spanish state forces, the Catalan government’s unilateral declaration of independence and ultimately the suspension of Catalan autonomy (Cetrà et al., 2018). Further, a number of pro-independence government ministers and civil society activists were arrested, charged and ultimately imprisoned for their role in the organisation of the independence referendum while others, including the then President Carles Puigdemont, evaded arrest by escaping to other European countries. In line with the suspension of self-government, new elections were organised for the Catalan Parliament in December 2017, but very little changed in terms of the Parliament’s composition. The anti-independence Ciutadans was the clearest victor of the election, winning most seats, but electoral arithmetic thwarted the party’s chances of forming government; with 47.5% of the vote, pro-independence parties won 70 of the 135 seats.¹

To add a further layer of complexity to the already intractable territorial crisis, in June 2018 Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), assumed office after an orchestrated vote of no confidence in Mariano Rajoy and his Partido Popular (PP) government. For some, including the new Prime Minister himself, a socialist government was to herald a new era of centre-periphery relations between the Spanish state and Catalonia, but this gesture of goodwill was rather short-lived. Political stalemate in Madrid resulted in elections in April and November 2019, but neither trip to the polls returned a majority government and instead delivered an increasingly polarised parliament. Increasing competition on the right of the ideological spectrum brought the Catalan issue to the fore in both campaigns, used by anti-independence parties as an opportunity to bolster their image as the protectors of the Constitution and national unity. In April 2019, this radicalisation saw support increase for the anti-independence Ciudadanos as well as facilitate the election of representatives of the radical right-wing, Vox, both of which forcefully campaigned on an anti-independence ticket. In the November 2019 election, Ciudadanos haemorrhaged support, but both the PP and Vox increased their proportion of seats; the latter became the third biggest party in the Congress. The PSOE remained the largest party, albeit significantly short of a majority, while in Catalonia the largest number (23) of pro-independence parliamentarians was elected. Notwithstanding repeated trips to the polls, the territorial impasse continues.

Drawing upon interview data with representatives from all politics parties in the Catalan Parliament, this article examines the evolution of territorial politics in Spain and Catalonia in recent years, identifies some of the limitations of extant territorial arrangements and ultimately offers some provisional observations about the future terrain of Spain–Catalonia relations. In line with existing literature on research methods (Peabody et al., 1990), the use of semi-structured in-depth interviews was adopted to further explore party policy platforms on constitutional issues as well as gather data related to the most recent events in what remains a fast-changing political context. In total, 16 interviews are drawn upon. Interviews took place over a period of 6 weeks in April and May 2018 with parliamentarians with responsibility for policy briefs related to independence and Catalonia–Spain relations. On average, interviews were around 60 minutes long, were conducted face to face in either Catalan, Spanish or English and were recorded and later transcribed. In accordance with institutional ethical consent procedures, interviewees were granted anonymity.

This article is organised as follows. Section one outlines the main features of the Spanish experience with decentralisation, with particular focus on the rationale for territorial restructuring. Section two discusses the evolution of the territorial model and examines some of the principal limitations of extant autonomy arrangements. Section three sketches some potential scenarios for the future terrain of the Spanish decentralisation project, ranging from recentralisation, reformulation, disintegration and continued stalemate. Section four concludes.

Decentralisation in Spain

Spain is typically described as an ‘autonomic state’, but debate remains as to whether the state constitutes a federation (Requejo, 2017). Such debate is not merely limited to academia. Among politicians, definitions of the decentralisation project range from ‘pre-federal’ (Interview with ERC MP), ‘quasi-federal’ (Interview with Ciutadans MP) to ‘flawed federalism’ (Interview with PSC MP). Arzoz (2012, p. 179) succinctly encapsulates this lack of consensus, defining Spain as a ‘multinational quasi federal unitary state’.

The Spanish Constitution implemented in 1978 signalled a complete rejection of the overweening policies of the preceding dictatorial Franco regime, providing institutional architecture which transformed Spain from a centralised dictatorship to a modern liberal democracy (Guibernau, 2004). The Constitution was the result of an intense period of political negotiations and bargaining between Spanish elites, including pro-democratic and pro-decentralisation forces, as well as other more hesitant actors like the military which had supported the Franco regime. In the end, the Constitution entrenched an open-ended territorial model and set out two processes to achieve autonomy: a fast and slow track. The former was specifically designed for those regions which had approved statutes during the Second Republic (the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia); enabling them to gain more extensive autonomy than the other (some newly created) regions which pursued the slow track approach.² In the event, an asymmetrical territorial model composed of 17 Autonomous Communities (ACs) emerged.

The Constitution has come under intense scrutiny in the academic literature, considered ‘a model of ambiguity’ (Keating, 1996, p. 149) and ‘a feat of semantic engineering’ (Balfour & Quiroga, 2007, p. 46). Article Two of the Constitution, described by Guibernau (2003, p. 124) as ‘the most controversial [article] in the whole text’, epitomises the challenge of drafting a constitution to reflect and balance the concerns of pro-autonomy and autonomy-cautious forces. It recognised the existence of nationalities and regions and sought to meet (some of) the demands from territories like the Basque Country and Catalonia for a differentiated status. The Constitution, for instance, makes reference to ‘nationalities and regions’, but it does not enumerate them nor is there any explicit acknowledgement of the state’s plur-inationality. Article Two largely enshrines a mononational vision of the Spanish state.

Unlike some of the other cases examined in this special issue, decentralisation in Spain was not necessarily viewed through the prism of conflict resolution. Rather, it was sold as a tool of reconciliation, state-building, economic efficiency and democratisation. This, however, is not to deny that decentralisation has served as a mechanism to better manage territorial disputes, particularly given the ethnoterritorial diversity of the state. Much like the short-lived Second Republic (1931–1939) whereby territories like the Basque Country and Catalonia were granted a right to territorial autonomy, the right to self-government in the 1978 Constitution also ‘made a significant contribution to the resolution of ethnoterritorial conflicts’ (Moreno, 2001, p. 54). More recently, however, the territorial model has come under increased pressure and scrutiny.

From Consensus to Crisis: The Evolution of Spain’s Decentralised Model

Spain’s pacted transition is often exemplified as a successful model of transition that not only facilitated moves towards democracy, but further entrenched this through the hollowing out of powers to regionally elected tiers of government (Beramendi & Máiz, 2004, p. 123). Decentralisation was purported as a flexible model that granted rather extensive self-governing powers to the ACs. The granting of further powers in Spain has been a consistent characteristic of the system, but further devolution has not been part of a holistic programme of decentralisation.

In the case of those ACs which pursued the slow track process of autonomy, further autonomy has been rolled out in an attempt to symmetrise the system and dilute claims of ethnoterritorial distinctiveness from the historic nationalities (Máiz et al., 2010). This doctrine, dubbed café para todos (coffee for everyone), sought to harmonise, or more concretely symmetrise, the autonomy model while simultaneously reinforcing the primacy of the central government. This was most evident in the passing of the Organic Law on the Harmonisation of the Autonomy Process (LOAPA) in 1982 which not only extended powers to the other ACs to catch up with the historic nationalities, but signalled a rolling back of already devolved powers, including a requirement that legislative acts passed by autonomous parliaments be approved by the central government (Agranoff & Ramos Gallarín, 1997, p. 12). The LOAPA bill was fiercely opposed by the Basque and Catalan governments, but while some of its most controversial clauses were struck down by the Constitutional Court, this did not dilute the main political elites’ penchant for state centralism.

The powers of the historic nationalities, namely Catalonia and the Basque Country, have increased over the years, but this has been a result of deals struck in periods of minority government. The main nationalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque Country—Convergència i Unió,³ Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and Partido Nacionalista Vasco—among others, have all supported PSOE and PP minority governments in Madrid in return for concessions vis-à-vis legislative and fiscal powers for their respective ACs (Field, 2016). In periods of majority government (PSOE 1982–1993; PP 2000–2004; 2011–2015), however, the leverage of the aforementioned parties to extract concessions from the central government has been drastically reduced. Further, majority governments under the PP also witnessed a rein-vigorated confidence in promoting Spanish nationalism as well as a ‘discourse designed to promote uniformity’ (Requejo, 2010, p. 158). This is most widely associated with the majority governments of José María Aznar (2000–2004) and Mariano Rajoy (2011–2015). Under the guise of economic efficiency, for instance, the Rajoy administration pursued a recentralist agenda which further complicated centre-periphery relations and emboldened Catalan support for a referendum on independence (Muro, 2015).

Despite initial optimism regarding the Spanish transition and the success of the decentralisation model in managing territorial disputes, in recent years this optimism has waned, evidenced in Catalonia by increasingly vociferous pro-independence organisations and growing support for independence (Anderson, 2019). The intransigence of the Spanish government to engage in debate about an independence referendum has emboldened rather than dampened demands in Catalonia for a vote. Yet, while for some the ongoing territorial crisis is a symptom that the decentralised system ‘requires reform not abandonment’ (Interview with Catalunya en Comú-Podem MP), for others it signals a complete breakdown and thus ‘failure of the decentralised model’ (Interview with ERC MP).

Given increased tension between the Catalan and Spanish governments, further examination of some of the limitations of existing arrangements is required to fully understand some of the current tensions straining centre–periphery relations. The analysis draws upon four of the principal themes that emerged from the interview data with Catalan and Spanish politicians: the lack of recognition of Spain’s plurinational status, the centralising tendency of the central state, the need for reform of the Senate and intergovernmental relations and the role of the Constitutional Court as a neutral arbiter in resolving disputes.

Convoluted Recognition

There is little doubt that the 1978 Constitution represented a significant critical juncture in the development of democracy in Spain. The Constitution predominantly endorsed a mononational vision of the state, but there was some recognition of the ‘differential facts’ of those territories that gained autonomy under the short-lived Second Republic. The ‘national question’ was a salient and sensitive issue and embodied the challenge facing the framers of the constitution: to find a sustaining equilibrium between those territories demanding self-government and recognition, and the autonomy-cautious Armed Forces and Francoist elites. As noted earlier, Article Two of the Constitution mentions ‘nationalities’ and ‘regions’ and guarantees both ‘the right to self-government’. The terms ‘nationalities’ or ‘regions’, however, were not elaborated or enumerated in the Constitution, but the former was widely acknowledged to be limited to the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia.

The recognition of Spain’s internal diversity, while it indisputably signified a clear break with the previous authoritarian regime, endorsed only a timid acceptance of Spain’s plurinationality and largely sidelined this in favour of a mononational nation-state interpretation. As Arzoz (2018, p. 247) notes, ‘the Spanish Constitution of 1978 attempted to combine the traditional ideology of the nation-state with a limited recognition of territorial and cultural autonomy’. The result, however, was nothing short of ‘a rather ambiguous formula’ (Martínez-Herrera & Miley, 2010, p. 8) which continues ‘to contaminate all of the debates’ related to Catalonia’s status and relationship with the Spanish state (Interview with PSC MP). Spain, for instance, stands in contrast to other plurinational states such as the UK whereby the conferral of nationhood upon Scotland, as well as England, Northern Ireland and Wales, has courted little controversy in the twenty-first century (Brown Swan & Cetrà, 2020).

The lack of...