Unveiling pathways for the fissure among secessionists and unionists in Catalonia: identities, family language, and media influence

Abstract

Catalonian secessionism acquired prominence from 2010 onwards. During the last decade secessionist parties won three regional elections and sustained Governments by tiny majorities at the Autonomous Parliament. Two illegal consultations about selfdetermination were called and around 2 million (38% of population census) supported secession from Spain. An "Independence Declaration" was proclaimed on 27th Oct. 2017, followed by suspension of Home Rule sanctioned by Spanish Parliament that endured till mid-2018. The main consequence of the secessionist push was the build-up of a confrontation between two large segments of Catalan citizenry, unionists and secessionists, which was absent before. This study aims to shed light on the rise of secessionism and the appearance of a deep fissure between these communities. By building upon the complete series of data from iterated official polls (88.538 respondents, 45 surveys), the paper displays the evolving changes along the period 2006-2019 of national identity feelings ("sense of belonging"). Along that period, there were increases exceeding 15 percentage points of "only Catalan" national identity and analogous decreases of "equally Catalan and Spanish" dual national identity. The findings disclosed highly significant covariations between changing trends on national identity feelings with: (1) family/mother language, Catalan vs. Spanish; (2) following regional media versus other media. Since language/ascendancy origins and media consumption trends are closely interrelated, within Catalonia, our discussion focuses on the role played by such ethno-cultural cleavage. Further, statistical analysis for longitudinal data identified several turning points linked to singular political events that likely accentuated polarization around the issue of secession. The findings unveil evolving tracks that could help in the understanding of a process that, in a very short time, produced a severe social division within a fully open and democratic society at the heart of Europe.

Privileged Rebels: A Longitudinal Analysis of Distinctive Economic Traits of Catalonian Secessionism

“…The present study adds important findings to the recent longitudinal description of crucial vectors characterizing the division of Catalonian society into two confronted communities, unionists and secessionists, through the eruption of an unexpected and mostly not yet fully explained secession crisis within a rich and advanced region of Southern Europe (Oller et al 2019a(Oller et al , 2019b.…”

“…We will try to explore, afterwards, potential interactions between economic segmentations with variations of national identity feelings in the main two segments of Catalonian citizenry; those whose family language is Catalan vs. those whose family language is Spanish. This is mandatory since previous findings had established the priority of this ethnolinguistic cleavage rooted on ascendancy origins (Oller et al 2019a(Oller et al , 2019b.…”

“…In a systematic longitudinal analysis, (Oller et al 2019a(Oller et al , 2019b showed that family language/ascendancy origins and the biased influence of regional media were crucial and unavoidable factors of the ongoing division between secessionists and unionists. Those two factors influenced important realignments on both national identity feelings and support for secession.…”

“…It had six options: "only Catalan", "more Catalan than Spanish", "as Catalan as Spanish", "more Spanish than Catalan", "only Spanish", and DK/NA. Previous work had established substantial covariation between national identity feelings and preferences in favour of or against secession, despite addressing different features (Oller et al 2019a(Oller et al , 2019b. We considered the variable family/mother language and the dichotomous variable net income plus.…”

Conflict in Catalonia: A Sociological Approximation

“…A systematic overview of the evolution of this indicator lies beyond the scope of the present analysis; however, suffice it to say, alongside and in part propelling the recent surge in support for secession in Catalonia, there is considerable evidence of a parallel surge in the proportion of those who identify as predominantly or exclusively Catalan (Oller et al 2019b).…”