Stateless Nation‐Building: Quebec, Catalonia and Scotland in the Changing State System

Abstract

The reconfiguration of political space is bringing about new forms of territorial politics. The meanings of nationalism and the state are being transformed and new types of autonomist movement are emerging. These are often seen as a resurgence of ethnicity, or as attempts to recreate mini nation-states fragmented from the existing ones. Mainstream political science tends to regard them negatively. It is argued that the resurgence of minority nationalism is also a response to the needs for collective action in a world of weakened nation-states. New forms of collective identity and action are emerging which recognise the limitations of traditional sovereignty and the necessary interdependence of the contemporary world. There is much that is new here, but also much that has always been present but has been lost in the state-centred perspective of political science. The argument is illustrated by an examination of three of the most electorally successful nationalist movements in the Western world, in Quebec, Catalonia and Scotland. These are seen not as classic nationalist movements but as nation-building projects which recognise the limitations of the nation-state formula and are engaged in 'stateless nation-building'. This project is difficult to translate into constitutional terms or to reconcile with the model of the state prevailing in the respective majority communities. The nation-state debateSince the 1980s, there has been a vigorous debate on the future of the nation-state. On the one hand are those who argue that economic change, technology and the rise of international regimes are rendering the nationstate redundant. On the other are those who point to the explosion of nationalist movements in the contemporary world and the proliferation of new 'nation-states'. The problem, as so often in social science, is that terms are being used very loosely and stretched too far. Scholars are too often

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