National pluralism and federalism. Four potential scenarios for Spanish plurinational democracy

Abstract

In this article I will consider the challenge to democracy posed by the political accommodation of cultural pluralism in one of its varieties: the national pluralism of a democratic polity. It is well known that the accommodation of Spain's national minorities within the state is still the subject of political and academic debate over twenty years after the constitution (1978) and the Catalan and Basque statutes of political autonomy were ratified (1979). In the first section I will analyse the two general approaches that attempt to deal with national diversity: through its elimination and through its accommodation. I will also mention some elements of the current theoretical revision of liberal democracy which play a role in the political accommodation of national diversity. In the second section, I will present the main types of federal agreements that exist in present‐day comparative politics and four possible scenarios for the future development and political accommodation of national pluralism within the Spanish democracy.