Abstract
Political tensions created by Catalonian secessionism within Spain are unsettled one year after the failed proclamation of independence at 27th October 2017. A big segment of citizens (38% - 48% of the region population) supports secession, but there is another portion of citizenry, of similar size, that has resisted secessionist aspirations. Secessionism acquired forceful impetus along the last decade, wining consecutive regional elections and two (illegal) consultations about self-determination. A rise of activism, however, showed by unionists both at street demonstrations and at the last Regional election, consolidated a draw within a deeply polarized and divided society. We present an analysis of survey data that distinguish prevalent mood and emotion profiles among unionist vs. secessionist segments. Despite their protracted and unsuccessful venture, secessionists felt much less tired and confused than unionists, and they referred to be much less fearful and more hopeful about political and economic future. We link those distinctive feelings and disparate beliefs about current difficulties with a cognitive distortion noticeable only among secessionists, about the real magnitude of their force. We discuss these findings connecting such cognitive and affective profiles with features of a compounded ethno-cultural frontier based mainly on habitual language (Catalan vs. Spanish) and family-descent origins that have probably worked as the principal alignment vector. This social cleavage might function as a fracture line for extremist aggravations of a serious political conflict within the European Union.
Highlights
The surge of an ambitious secessionist movement that gained wide support to the point of repeatedly winning the majority at Catalonian Parliament was contemplated with surprise because it appeared within a rich and advanced European region, without intolerable grievances from Spain or deep internal litigations
Variables associated with secessionist support The global scores of the variable “secession support” in the present survey were: “Yes” (40.8%), “No” (53.4%) and “DK/NA” (5.8%). These values were consistent with the results of many previous surveys and with the support to secessionist parties at the last Regional elections, December 21th, 2017, where JxCat + ERC + CUP7 secessionist formations had a 37.4% over the overall electoral census, and 38.8% if we only consider the electoral census of people with present residence in Catalonia
The abrupt surge, rapid deployment and failed culmination of the recent secessionist attempt at Catalonia were a unique political experiment. It was based on the following ingredients: 1) repeated and gigantic street demonstrations; 2) stubborn and systematic media propaganda; 3) overwhelming social pressure by a continuous presence of secessionist symbols everywhere; 4) strong impulse and direction given by a disobedient Regional Government and a disloyal Autonomous Parliament; 5) absence of a clear social majority; 6) successful silencing of the non-secessionist citizenry throughout most of the upsurge
Summary
The surge of an ambitious secessionist movement that gained wide support to the point of repeatedly winning the majority at Catalonian Parliament was contemplated with surprise because it appeared within a rich and advanced European region, without intolerable grievances from Spain or deep internal litigations. A profusion of interpretations (Amat, 2015, 2017; Barceló-Soler, 2013; Boylan, 2015; Crameri, 2014, 2015; Elliot, 2018; Griffiths et al, 2015; Minder, 2017; Luque, 2018; Morel, 2018), tried to explain the sudden appearance and endurance of a movement that has demonstrated great strength for a decade Those diagnoses focused mainly on economic and socio-political issues from Southern European recent hardships: a long and deep economic recession during the preceding years, irritation with corruption and malfunctioning of Spanish institutions and parties, fragility of the European Union, passivity of Central Government combined with impulsiveness and frenzy ambitions of regional elites. These campaigns had obvious goals: attaining a political majority for secessionists and keeping the non-secessionist segment of Catalan citizenry intimidated
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