Regionalist Party Mobilisation on Immigration

To see ourselves as others see us: identity and attitudes towards immigration amongst civic nationalists

“…Hussain and Miller (2006) argue that the term 'multinational nationalist' is an oxymoron and that a 'multicultural nationalist' movement comes very close to being one. Such a position seems, however, undercut by the fact that SNRPs, such as the SNP and the FNP, portray themselves as multiculturalist and pro-immigration parties (Hepburn 2009b), often more so than state-wide parties. The civic versus ethnic distinction goes some way to explain the tension in that it may be the case that multicultural ethnic nationalist is a contradiction, but multicultural civic nationalist is not.…”

“…Hepburn (2009b) asserts that the SNP conceptualises 'national belonging as voluntary participation in a multicultural society'. Immigration has been a policy area in which the party has attempted to claim that Scotland's needs are different from those of other parts of the UK and that the main state-wide parties (Labour and Conservatives) do not take into account Scotland's immigration requirements.…”

“…Parti Québécois, Scottish National Party (the SNP), Frisian National Party (FNP)). A variety of economic, political and ideological reasons can explain SNRP attitudes to cultural pluralism (Hepburn 2009b).…”

“…Second, the article specifically focuses on immigration issues in these two SNRPs. This is an area of research that has received relatively little attention (Hepburn 2009b) and is not specifically addressed by Mitchell et al (2012). Finally, another key contribution is that the article makes broader theoretical implications concerning the compatibility of national identity and cultural pluralism.…”

Introduction: Immigration Policies in Multilevel States

“…This territorial/linguistic cleavage interacts with the issue of immigration in peculiar ways. While some parties may perceive immigration as threatening the identity or language of their own territory, others may view immigration as a way to boost the membership vis-à-vis the state in their claims for self-determination (Erk, 2003;Bauböck, 2001;Kymlicka and Patten, 2003;Hepburn, 2009a). In any case, immigration has become an important focus of political parties at the sub-state level -including stateless nationalist and regionalist parties (SNRPs) and regional branches of statewide parties -whose responses have been informed by strong 'territorial interests', as described above.…”