Greening self-government? Incorporation of environmental justifications into sub-state nationalist claim making in Spain

Abstract

Regional nationalism in Spain – particularly those movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country – have been characterized at the parliamentary level by political parties from both the traditional left and right of the political spectrum. While calls for greater autonomy and even secession are made from both ends of that spectrum, the framings of their calls for self-government vary in content and scope. Since the turn into the 21st century, sub-state nationalist parties of the left - those more typically associated with a prioritization of environmental concerns - in both regions have taken an increased share of the seats in their respective parliaments. Over the same period, climate change has increasingly moved to the front of the list of the concerns of European citizens. This paper investigates the degree to which key regional nationalists of the left have moved to incorporate environmental and climate change concerns into their claim making, narrative, and framings, highlighting both regional, and governance level comparative dynamics.

Conceptualising energy nationalism in the context of climate change: framework and review

“…This is what happened in China, where the ruling Chinese Communist Party adopted the rhetoric of ecological civilisation to legitimise its global political aspirations (Arantes, 2023). Thirdly, "green nationalism" is also a manifestation of the creation of local and regional identity, and can also be an element of the struggle for political autonomy (for example, the Scottish Green Party (Kernalegenn, 2023), Catalonia and the Basque Country (Kerr, 2023)).…”

Çatişma İle Uzlaşi Arasinda: Mi̇lli̇yetçi̇li̇k İkli̇m Poli̇ti̇kalari İle Uyumlu Olabi̇li̇r Mi̇?

“…Parti, iç tüzüğünde yer verilen insan hakları ve çevrecilik ile ilgili tanımlardan ve yukarıdan belirtilen eylemlerden yola çıkan yazarlara göre, ERC gibi azınlık milliyetçisi partilerin, insan hakları gibi ulusüstü değerlerle (ulusal) çevre değerlerini birleştirebilme kapasiteleri bulunmaktadır (Conversi & Hau, 2021: 1098. Katalan ve Bask sol milliyetçi partilerini yerel ve İspanya ulusal parlamentosundaki söylemleri bağlamında inceleyen Kerr (2023) de bunların gerek bölgesel gerek devlet düzeyinde çevresel kaygıları, milliyetçi talepleri için çerçevelemek suretiyle araçsallaştırarak siyasallaştırdıklarını ve dile getirdiklerini ileri sürmüştür.…”

State making or state breaking?’ Crisis, COVID‐19 and the constitution in Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom

“…Hitherto, economic crisis, notably the 2008 global financial crash, has been a principal area of research, with empirical analysis highlighting the secessionist-triggering capacity of economic crisis in cases such as Catalonia, Flanders and Scotland Dowling, 2018;Duerr, 2016). In addition, more recent scholarship has identified the increasing prominence of 'green nationalism' among sub-state nationalist movements whereby nationalist actors link the omnipresent crisis of climate change with their wider policy agendas and territorial strategies (Conversi & Hau, 2021;Kerr, 2023). Existing analyses of how sub-state nationalists frame their territorial aspirations have thus identified an instrumental case for independence, whereby non-territorial issues are framed in territorial terms (Dalle Mulle & Serrano, 2019;Elias, 2019).…”