Rethinking Stateless Nations and National Identity in Wales and the Basque Country

Sophie Williams

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319914084
• eBook ISBN: 9783319914091
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book looks at the fundamental components of national identity as understood by ordinary nation members, and the way in which it is mobilised by political elites. Drawing on an original case comparison between Wales and the Basque Country, the author suggests there are many commonalities between these two nations, particularly around the fundamentals of their national identities. However, differences occur in terms of degree of intensity of feeling and around the politicisation of identity, with more entrenched and hostile political positioning in the Basque Country than Wales. Through a multi-level comparison, the book generates insights into national identity as a theoretical concept and in a 'stateless nation' context. It argues for national identity's intangible, yet polemical, nature, looking at the primordialist way it is understood, its permanence and importance, coupled with its lack of everyday salience and consequent obligations.

© The Author(s) 2019

Sophie WilliamsRethinking Stateless Nations and National Identity in Wales and the Basque Countryhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91409-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Sophie Williams¹

(1)

Office for National Statistics, Newport, Wales

Sophie Williams

End Abstract

Connections between people and their nations are at the forefront of the global political agenda. The dichotomy between who we are and how other people see us continues to dominate news headlines, more often than not engendering negative consequences. How we view ourselves and how others view us often do not match, and when our sense of self is challenged, there is great potential for conflict. Further, as with all things personal, our attachments to our homelands are blurry and subjective, meaning that finding logical, straightforward solutions to conflict is not generally readily available.

These phenomena have been at the forefront across Europe in recent months, particularly in Catalonia. As forces became further entrenched and competing dialogues became ever more strained, the constitutional implications took centre stage, as Spanish forces sought to combat an allegedly illegal referendum on independence for the Catalan nation. Reports of physical violence and intimidation were rife, as political leaders fled or were imprisoned by the Spanish courts. Catalan cries for assistance went largely unheard; Spain’s European partners, save notable exceptions in Finland and Slovenia, supported the actions taken to suppress the referendum and its consequences. This conflict stems from a single cause: polarised, opposing views of Catalonia and its place in the world.

These news headlines are common, yet despite this growing sociopolitical awareness, national identities remain relatively under-studied. Nations and nationalism have fascinated scholars from the mid-twentieth century onwards, to the detriment of national identity. Even when directly addressed, discussions emphasise the ‘national’ component, at the expense of ‘identity’, generating a disconnection between the two aspects. The late 1980s’ turn to social constructivism, wherein national identity first emerged as an intellectual issue, has partly ameliorated this. Yet, challenges remain; not only does social constructivism reject historical contextualisation, it continues to neglect multidisciplinary interest. This lack of interdisciplinary awareness deprives political science of identity scholars’ complementary observations and analyses, preventing a more rounded appreciation of national identities.

This research seeks to address this academic deficit. With a central focus on the dual elements of national identity, it presents an original and innovative analysis of modern understandings and political manipulation of national identity in two European nations—Wales and the Basque Country—using a neo-constructivist and qualitative approach to develop a multi-theoretic, interdisciplinary framework for understanding.

This framework develops an approach to the study of national identity that avoides a pure constructivist analysis by incorporating historical contextualisation and interdisciplinary awareness, and is divided into two sections. The first explores the theoretical basis of ordinary conceptualisations of national identity, combining key insights from social anthropology and sociology. It draws on Barth’s ¹ social interactionist approach, amalgamating analysis of boundary creation and maintenance with the dialectic sociological approach of Jenkins,² McCrone ³ and Parekh,⁴ whereby the focus is modified to highlight the dual processes of self-identification and external categorisation, the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ and similarity and difference. This understanding of identity as processual and subjective is supported by Fenton’s⁵ work on changing salience, Billig’s ⁶ ‘banal nationalism’ and Fearon and Laitin’s ⁷ ‘everyday primordialism’. The second considers political framing and mobilisation of national identity, drawing on Brass ⁸ and incorporating framing as a method of conceptualising the way in which parties project and politically mobilise visions of identities.

The qualitative research generated by this project was developed using focus groups and semi-structured interviews. Focus groups are one popular method of qualitative exploration and offer numerous advantages; they are fast and efficient,⁹ produce enriched and nuanced understandings of social issues¹⁰ and permit analysis of both what is said and participant interaction.¹¹ Focus groups mitigate the dominance of researchers over research subjects,¹² encouraging participants to discuss what is important to them, using their own vocabulary,¹³ and allow participants to develop ideas collectively¹⁴ and reveal shared experiences,¹⁵ creating a sense of group solidarity. Further, although generally employed qualitatively, focus group data can complement quantitative analyses as part of wider triangulation projects.¹⁶ Structured interviews are also a popular qualitative research tool, given their ability to generate in-depth analysis of one person’s experiences.¹⁷ Interviews generate richly detailed answers, reflecting the researcher’s interest in delving deeply into interviewee experiences on a level unpermitted by quantitative analysis.¹⁸

Focus groups were organised according to primarily geographical criteria. For Wales, Balsom’s ‘Three Wales Model’,¹⁹ which divides Wales into three areas—Y Fro Gymraeg, Welsh Wales and British Wales—was used, while in the Basque Country, the officially recognised boundaries of the Basque Autonomous Community (Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa) were included, alongside the historical Basque territory of Navarra and three areas that are now French departments (Basse-Navarre, Labourd and Soule). The seven ancestral Basque communities are collectively known as Euskal Herria, while Euskadi refers to the three areas within the officially recognised Basque Autonomous Community. The Basque Autonomous Community and Navarra each have their own devolved parliament; however, the ancestral Basque territories within France have little political representation and no regional parliament. Further complicating the situation is the complex relationship between the Basque Country and Navarra. Five focus groups, one each in Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Navarra and the French Basque Country, were conducted across the Basque Country, with between five and eight participants per group, between February and June 2014. In Wales, eight focus groups were conducted in Newport and Mold (British Wales), Swansea and Caerphilly (Welsh Wales), Tumble, Llanystumdwy, Caernarfon and Aberystwyth (Y Fro Gymraeg/Welsh Wales), with between five and ten participants per group, between November 2013 and January 2015. Groups were conducted in English, Spanish, French and Welsh, with some Basque.

In Wales, interviews were held with Assembly members from the four political parties contemporaneously represented in the National Assembly for Wales (Welsh Labour, the Welsh Conservatives, the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru), alongside Members of Parliament where appropriate. These four parties contemporaneously commanded the largest percentage of the vote and were most likely to project frames of Welsh identity to the electorate. Choice of specific Assembly Member was conditioned by seniority. In the Basque Country, the five political parties contemporaneously represented in the Basque Parliament (PP, PSE-EE, PNV, UPyD and EH Bildu) were interviewed, alongside two parties represented in the Navarrese Parliament (UPN and Aralar). Again, choice of specific interviewee was based on seniority. Appendix Four provides historical and ideological detail for use when considering later analyses.

To ensure verifiability, all interviews and focus groups were digitally recorded and transcribed word-for-word. A data analysi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Stateless Nations Reconceptualised: Theoretical Framework and Choosing Wales and the Basque Country
• 3. Ordinary Conceptualisations of Welshness and Basqueness
• 4. Political Conceptualisations of Welshness and Basqueness
• 5. Comparing Stateless Nations: Insights from Wales and the Basque Country
• 6. Conclusion
• Back Matter