Máster en Democracia y Gobierno

Departamento de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Working Papers Online Series

http://www.uam.es/ss/Satellite/Derecho/es/1242658791834/listadoCombo /Working_Papers.htm

Estudio/Working Paper 173/2015

“How do the prospects of EU membership influence support for secession? A natural experiment”

Diego Muro

Instituto Barcelona de Estudios Internacionales

[email protected]

Martijn C. Vlaskamp

Instituto Barcelona de Estudios Internacionales y Universidad de Yale

[email protected] Abstract

Why do citizens support secession? Is the desire to create an independent state exclusively grounded in domestic considerations or are international factors also important? The conventional wisdom is that support for the creation of a new sovereign state is a function of ethnic or national identity. This paper is interested in examining whether changes in the international context can affect the relationship between nationalism and secession. More specifically, we are interested in examining whether different scenarios about EU membership (e.g. inclusion or exclusion) can influence citizens’ preferences for separation from the host state. In order to examine the impact of international factors, we carried out a survey experiment (n=1,203) in Catalonia that provided a robust test of the effectiveness of international sanctions and incentives. Our findings show that ‘EU membership’ matters to respondents, especially when it can drastically reduce the transaction costs of secession. The results also show that, overall, the effect of the different scenarios was stronger on less nationalist individuals, and individuals which were primarily motivated by economic considerations.1

Keywords

European Union, nationalism, referendum, independence, survey experiment, Catalonia, Spain.

1 This work was supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation [grant number Az.20.14.0.032]. We are grateful to Guillem Vidal Lorda for valuable research assistance.

1 1. Introduction

In the past couple of years, support for secessionism has grown substantially in Catalonia. The citizen participation process on the political future of Catalonia showed that almost two million Catalans would vote for independence in a hypothetical referendum on this matter. There are several explanations for the domestic strength of secessionism, which range from perceived economic advantages and rational expectations to the political consequences of devolution and the crisis of multi-national states (Buchanan 1991; Collier & Hoeffler 2006; Dion 1996; Guibernau 2006; Kymlicka 1988, Hechter, 1992). However, little research has been conducted on the international dimension of this issue. This is not an isolated case; most scholarly work on secession has focused on domestic demand for a new state, whereas only a handful of authors have focused on the international dimension of secession (Caspersen, 2011; Ker-Lindsay, 2012). In this working paper we want to look at the external dimension of secessionism in Catalonia and study especially how the European Union (EU) influences support for independence.

The paper will argue that the current EU framework creates political and economic incentives for the secession of stateless nations, as long as membership of the Union is assured after independence is secured. At the same time, the current accession procedures discourage the process of becoming sovereign by making re-integration difficult or very unlikely. One of the assumptions driving this paper is that a population’s support for secession, defined as a demand for formal withdrawal from a central political authority by a sub-unit of a host state, will be affected by whether it is likely to gain (or lose) EU membership.

We will test the importance of EU membership in the case of Catalonia, where both proponents and opponents of secession have integrated arguments concerning the international context in their discussions. Secessionist movements have argued that a peaceful separation from Spain could be combined with an almost automatic accession to the EU following independence (Consell Assessor per a la Transició Nacional, 2014). By contrast, the Spanish Government has categorically ruled out EU membership (Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, 2013, p. 109ff) and draws apocalyptic pictures regarding the future of an independent Catalan state. The Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel García Margallo, argued that an independent Catalonia would be ‘damned to wander outer space and

2 would be excluded from the European Union for ever and ever’.2 And the Interior Minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, further claimed that political independence meant being outside ‘all EU treaties as well as NATO’ and that Catalonia would be a fertile soil for ‘international terrorism and organised crime’.3

The ultimate goal of this paper is to examine the extent to which support for secession can be affected by international incentives (threats or payoffs). In terms of original data, the paper is based on a survey experiment conducted among Catalan voters (n=1,203) to assess the extent to which different scenarios regarding EU-inclusion (or –exclusion) would affect the votes of Catalans in a referendum on independence. Our findings suggest that the prospect of EU membership does indeed affect support for independence and that the politicisation of this issue is an effective tool. The results also suggest that EU membership does not trump the preferences of all individuals equally, but that the probability of an altered effect depends on the previous political preferences of an individual and whether his/her vote is primarily driven by identity-based or economic motivations.

Our paper is structured as follows. The next section offers a brief review of the scholarly literature on the main drivers for secession and describes our analytical framework. The third section examines how the Union’s current structure stimulates and/or discourages support for secession in its Member States. A fourth section specifies a series of hypotheses about the relationship between the prospects of EU membership and support for seceding. The fifth section introduces the research design of the survey experiment and explains how the hypotheses were tested. In section six the results of the on-line survey are discussed. Finally, the concluding section summarises the main findings.

2. Analytical framework: Why do nations seek independence?

Why do people want a state of their own? When do citizens feel the need to make a case for secession? What are the motivations or driving forces of secession? It is generally argued that nationalist sentiment drives the desire to secede in stateless nations. In many cases the ultimate goal of nationalists is to gain statehood or, to paraphrase Gellner (1983, p. 55), to realize a nation-state with congruent political and cultural boundaries.

2http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20140310/54402947586/margallo-una-cataluna-independiente-estaria- excluida-de-la-ue-durante-siglos.html 3http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2014/06/24/actualidad/1403626734_915630.html

3 And what is nationalism? According to Anthony D. Smith (1991, p. 73), nationalism is “an ideological movement for attaining and maintaining autonomy, unity and identity on behalf of a population deemed by some of its members to constitute an actual or potential ‘nation’”. The idea of a distinct nation with a regional cultural or particular ethno-history within a different host state does not automatically lead to secessionism, for there are also plenty of nations which are satisfied with the status quo and only seek incremental political change.

A different identity is a necessary but not sufficient factor to explain nationalism and separatism (Smith, 1986). Nationalism is a multifaceted movement and ideology and leaders of stateless nations may therefore resort to a variety of arguments to make a case for secession. The scholarly literature distinguishes between cultural, economic and political arguments (Emizet and Hesli, 1995; Gurr and Moore, 1997).

First, secessionists who are motivated by cultural reasons may mobilise supporters by arguing that the host state does not provide adequate channels to express the cultural distinctiveness of their nation (language, literature, religion, customs, ethnicity, etc.). If a significant portion of the stateless nation’s population shares the elite’s opinion that the national identity cannot be freely expressed, it may come to the conclusion that the only solution is to strive for an independent state that preserves this distinctive identity (Hechter, 1992; Breuilly, 1994). Hence, a commonality of interests would be the most basic mechanism providing group identification for binding people together.

Secondly, some scholars have argued that economic reasons explain the demand for sovereignty (Wimmer, 1997; Sorens, 2008; Sambanis and Milanovic, 2011). The economic argument may be in operation when, for example, citizens of a region develop the perception that they are being treated unfairly and that they would be economically better off if they had a state of their own (in the Catalan case expressed by the slogan: “Madrid ens roba”, Madrid steals from us). The logic behind the calculation is straightforward; income is usually redistributed from affluent to less affluent regions causing the former to believe that independence would suit them better. Thus, the decision to secede is more likely in regions that have a high per capita income relative to other regions, enjoy a presence of natural resources, and have relatively large populations. Regions with these characteristics may favour political independence as a means of addressing fiscal imbalances and improving the provision of public goods for the community of reference. In a nutshell, existing evidence confirms that, besides having a pre-existing identity or a distinct language, relative affluence is a good predictor of secessionism (Sorens, 2005; Sambanis and Milanovic, 2011).

4 Thirdly, a set of authors emphasises institutional arrangements, oppression of racial or ethno- national groups and the need to remedy these situations as justifying a call for secession. In the view of prominent political theorists like Allen Buchanan (1991), one of the reasons that may impel national minorities to reject the state’s conception of its borders is the existence of a political system in which they are under-represented in the state’s administration and government. This under-representation may be found in its most extreme form in an autocratic regime that may threaten minorities, even violently. But the same argument can also be found in a democratic regime where — in the eyes of nationalist supporters — the political system may provide insufficient opportunities or quotas of political representation for ethnic, national or religious minorities. It is in these situations of injustice and deprivation where a group might feel it has a right to secede as the last remedy in order to rectify unequal treatment and end discrimination.

The three different kinds of argument for secession — cultural, economic and political — have to be understood as Weberian ideal types. Nationalist mobilization results from a combination of these abstract concepts; the salience of them varies in accordance with the political context. Having identified these three key arguments, we can design a simple representation that connects the degree of nationalism with support for secessionism.

Figure 1: Secession as a function of nationalism.

Degree of Support for secession nationalism

The expectation of Figure 1 is that popular support for a nationalist ideology will be the political foundation on which movements for secession can be built. However, whereas measuring the degree or intensity of nationalism helps predict popular backing for secession, it does not forecast specific political outcomes. In order to account for the success or failure of pro-independence movements, it is necessary to locate them in specific institutional settings, political opportunity structures and ethno-political configurations (Wimmer, 2002). In other words, the tentative statement about the relationship between our independent (degree of nationalism) and dependent variables (support for secessionism) is influenced by other factors such as the domestic and international configurations of power.

5 On the domestic level, the administrative structure of the host state and its regime type may influence the likelihood of secession (Griffiths, 2015). In the international arena, which is the focus of this paper, the opinion of regional or major powers may open or close windows of opportunity for secession. If a stateless nation seeks independence it usually does so only if it has some major international actors as midwives to avoid complete international isolation (e.g. the American support for Kosovo’s independence, or the Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia). In the case studies of Catalonia, political agents consider the EU as a vital part of their immediate international context. To put it differently, a region may have strong nationalist preferences, but when the international context is not favourable the costs of secession might outweigh the benefits of seceding from the host state. Consequently, nationalist leaders and supporters may shy away from taking the ultimate step of seeking outright independence.

Due to the importance of the supra-national dimension in multi-level governance structures like the EU, the discovery or learning of new information related to the external dimension (moderating variable) may somehow alter the strength of the relationship between nationalism and secession. This new information may change (increase or decrease) preferences for an independent nation-state. For example, statements by renowned politicians, opinion-makers and/or international organisations may shape the population’s view of the future viability of their projected sovereign state. What is essential is that the source of information is recognised as both credible and reliable and that it has the potential to influence citizen’s preferences. As can be seen in Figure 2, we expand the basic model to incorporate the moderating effects of the new variable or ‘information on the changing international scenario’ on the otherwise established effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable.

Figure 2: Impact of new information on secession as a function of nationalism. Information

Degree of nationalism

Degree of Support for secession nationalism

Domestic (host state) and international context

6 This basic model will guide the remainder of this paper. In the next section the international context of EU membership will be explained in more detail and how it influences the relationship between the degree of nationalism and support for secession. We will then develop in section four a series of hypotheses to measure the impact of new information about the prospect of EU membership on the support for secession in Catalonia.

3. How does the EU incentivize or discourage secessionism in its Member States?

At first sight the idea of secessionism seems to run contrary to the idea of blurring boundaries in an “ever closer Union”. It may appear paradoxical to promote the separation from a state and the erection of new borders, while aspiring to be integrated in a supranational entity. And yet most major secessionist movements in the EU embrace a European identity and the political vision of eliminating barriers. Catalonia is no exception to that: both Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) promote an EU Membership of an independent Catalan state4. This section seeks to explain the stimulus of the EU for secessionist movements as well as how the Union discourages secession.

Scholars have argued that the size of nations matter for a variety of outcomes. For instance, Alesina and Spoloare (2003) claim that the ideal size of states depends on security and economic concerns. In an uncertain international environment, large states appear to be a more attractive option, as they are more able to protect their citizens against foreign powers than small states. In economic terms, larger states have bigger markets with advantageous economies of scale. However, the EU has removed the incentives to create large entities and “if there was ever an environment that favored small states, surely it is modern Western Europe” (Griffiths et al., 2015).

On the one hand the political stability and peace in most of Europe, caused to a large extent by European integration, means small states no longer fear being invaded by larger neighbours. On the other hand, the creation of an integrated European economy with a Single Market that guarantees the free movement of goods, capital, services and people (the so-called “four freedoms”) has reduced many of the negative economic externalities of secession. Hypothetically, if a newly independent state joined the EU it would suffer neither the loss of

4 The smallest pro-independence party in the Catalan parliament, the radical left-wing Candidatura d'Unitat Popular (CUP) has however an anti-EU position for the Union’s supposed neo-liberal set-up.

7 the market of its former host state for its products, nor the higher transaction costs of adopting the Euro provided the current host state was part of the monetary union. Moreover, individuals from the new state would retain EU citizenship and would continue to enjoy the same rights and privileges in the entire Union as before. Albeit the EU also has a system for indirect financial distribution between Member States that may create imbalances, the discrepancies are not as big as in most Member States5. So in sum, due to the EU’s structures, prosperous new states do not suffer the political and economic disadvantages of being ‘small’.

Besides these economic motivations, the EU’s current political structure may reinforce an argument for secession. Since the decline of the concept of a “Europe of the regions” some stateless nations complain that they do not feel well represented in the corresponding decision-making mechanisms and that regional interests are not sufficiently taken into account (Hepburn, 2008). Most power is still in the hands of the Member States through institutions such as the European Council and the Council of the EU; the European debt crisis further promoted the creation of new intergovernmental structures that now hold considerable power over the economic and financial policies of the Eurozone-countries. Due to this, secessionist parties in EU Member States argue that only statehood guarantees a defence of their nation’s interests at the EU level.

Due to these economic and political incentives the majority of Europe’s most influential secessionist parties develop arguments that seek to harmonise national sovereignty with transferring powers to Brussels. In many cases this endorsement is a strategic decision as European integration “undermines the traditional identity among sovereignty, territory, nationality, and function that is the essence of the traditional nation-state and opens the way to other conceptions of political authority and of public action” (Keating 2004, p. 368). In Catalonia, embracing a European identity has become a way of contrasting a supposed more modern and progressive character with the Spanish state, which is seen as conservative and isolationist. Being European is thus a synonym for modernity and the Catalan nationalist discourse is sometimes based on the idea that “we are not Spanish and we are better, because more modern, than they are” (Díez Medrano, 2010, p. 18). Europe is thus not perceived as a threat to the nation’s identity but a useful instrument, because the “choice for Europe is a

5 The exact transfer balances are a frequent matter of discussion in cases of secession and the exact numbers depend heavily on the accounting methods applied. For example, according to the Spanish Government the Catalan transfer imbalance with the Spanish state is about 8.5 billion Euros, whereas the Catalan Government talks about 11.1 or 15 billion Euros (according to the method of calculation). (La Vanguardia, 2014)

8 choice against the state identity, another form of assertion of the regional identity that is central to this people” (Idem, p. 17).

Whereas the EU may thus stimulate support for secessionism, its accession procedures are substantial stumbling blocks for the actual act of seceding. All these previously mentioned incentives apply only if the newly independent state is an EU member. However, the legal status quo, as repeatedly stated by the European Commission (Pickard and Dickie, 2014) and similarly supported by many legal scholars (Borgen, 2010, p. 1026; Chamon and Van der Loo, 2014), is that a newly independent region would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the Union and the treaties would, from the day of its independence, not apply anymore on its territory. Consequently, the new state would have to re-apply for membership, and it would need the acceptance of all current Member States (including the former host state). In theory, during this time the new state would be excluded from the Single Market and the Eurozone institutions and would be prone to considerable political and economic instability.

Obviously it is highly speculative how this rule would be applied in a real case, and the enforcement would depend on the political will of agents involved. An alternative would be an “internal accession process” in which EU membership would be negotiated in parallel with the necessary steps for political independence after a successful referendum (Chamon and Van der Loo, 2014, p. 628). But a priori this situation considerably limits the room for manoeuvre on the part of the seceding region, as it rules out almost all options for a declaration of independence without an agreement with the former host state which could otherwise block the accession process. The recognition (or non-recognition) of a new state is a powerful tool in the hands of host states and through this EU element gains strength (Ker- Lindsay, 2012). Expectedly, the Spanish Government has suggested that they would not recognise a unilaterally declared Catalan state. In sum, a new independent state could undergo a rocky accession process to the EU that would result in great political and economic costs.

4. Hypotheses

On the basis of the model presented earlier about the relationship between nationalism and secession, we now specify three hypotheses that theorise the possible ways in which nationalism, secessionism and EU membership may be connected to each other.

9 The first hypothesis focuses on the impact the international dimension may have on support for secessionism. We assume that novel information about the status of a hypothetical new state vis-á-vis the EU could be a significant factor in influencing the support for independence in a European stateless nation. Hence, our first hypothesis is:

 H1: Prospect EU-inclusion/-exclusion will influence the support for secessionism.

We have split this first hypothesis into sub-hypotheses to make it possible to examine two different effects. It is plausible that only the incentive of EU-inclusion, or the threat of EU- exclusion, may affect the support for secessionism. Thus, our two sub-hypotheses are:

 H1a: The incentive of inclusion in the EU will have a positive effect on the support for secessionism.

 H1b: The threat of exclusion from the EU will have a negative effect on the support for secessionism.

Besides the broader analysis of the impact of international factors on European stateless nations, we want to take a closer look at the political dynamics at the micro level. We expect that the impact of the new information will vary according to the intensity of nationalist preferences. Hence, individuals who are more focused on domestic activism and political mobilisation may pay less attention to international affairs. Given that the survey was deployed at a time of great nationalist mobilisation at the domestic level, we assume that individuals with strong nationalist preferences may care less about the political consequences of their convictions at the international level.

Our second hypothesis is therefore:

 H2: The stronger (weaker) the level of nationalism in the individual, the less (more) he/she will be influenced by the information about the prospect of an EU- inclusion/-exclusion.

10 In our third hypothesis we want to explore whether the treatments affect individuals differently depending on the type of nationalist motivation (cultural, economic or political). We assume that the options we offered would primarily influence individuals who are guided by economic considerations because the EU project is often perceived in economic terms. One might argue that an exclusion from the EU could affect the self-image of nationalists, who seek to distinguish themselves from the host state by being “more European”. However, different studies about European identity have shown that a citizen’s identification is usually very “shallow” and “ambiguous” and that some citizens, when they identify themselves as Europeans, would rather like to say that they do not identify with their national state (Díez Medrano, 2010, p. 26). Consequently, the threat of being excluded from the EU is not expected to influence culturally motivated secessionists in a substantial manner. At the same time, voters who feel a cultural bond with the present host state may only be persuaded to vote for independence by economic arguments.

For citizens whose decisions in this context are primarily economically motivated, the financial viability of the project is crucial to their support for independence. This speaks to the work of Muñoz and Tormos (2014) about economic expectations and support for secession in Catalonia. The positive nature of economic effects of the European integration process, described above, apply only in the case of a smooth and rapid accession to the EU as a new Member State. If these citizens can expect the economic benefits of being a citizen of a rich(er) Member State in the Union, they will be more likely to vote in favour; however, faced with a scenario of economic uncertainty, this cohort of voters will be more likely to prefer stability and the status quo. A weak membership prospect would therefore form a powerful argument for current host states to discourage economically motivated secessionists from voting in favour of independence. Thus, the third hypothesis is:

 H3: If an individual is more (less) motivated by the economic arguments regarding secession than by the cultural arguments, he/she will be more (less) influenced by the information about the prospect of an EU-inclusion/-exclusion).

To recapitulate, our aim is to examine whether providing individuals with new information about the prospects of EU membership can affect an individual’s political preferences for secession. The next section explains the design of the survey experiment used to test the influence of international factors on support for secessionism in Catalonia.

11 5. Research design

In order to test the three hypotheses, we gathered data using a web-based survey experiment in Catalonia. We selected this case study as the issue of independence is very salient in this region and at the time when the survey was conducted the Catalan Government had scheduled a referendum on independence (albeit without neither negotiation nor legal recognition by the Spanish executive)6. Furthermore, scholars and pundits contested the desirability and pros and cons of political independence but few argued that Catalonia could not be economically viable on their own, provided that the independence was reached in an orderly and structured way. In short, this historical setting provided us with the opportunity to test our hypotheses about the role of international sanctions in a genuine background, in which the questionnaire on political independence would not appear unrealistic to respondents.

The goal of the survey experiment was to study whether citizens would change their preferences for self-government if they were exposed to one of three hypothetical scenarios or vignettes about the international context. The respondents of the three survey groups were shown vignettes that expressed possible scenarios of EU inclusion/exclusion following political independence. Participants were then asked to reveal their preferences bearing in mind the hypothetical scenario presented to them.7 In order to maximise knowledge of both international and European factors, we decided to administer the survey a week before the European Parliamentary Elections of 22 May 2014 with the intention of making respondents more aware of both European and international issues. All groups were confronted with an identical questionnaire of 38 questions, which they could answer in either Catalan or Spanish. A Spanish survey firm with ample experience in commissioning national and international representative surveys administered the experiment. A more detailed explanation of the technical characteristics of the survey can be found in the annex.

As previously explained in our model, the independent variable was ‘level of nationalism’ and the dependent variable was ‘support for secession’ in a forthcoming referendum. The moderating variable that was expected to somehow affect the established effect of the independent variable upon the dependent variable was ‘EU inclusion/exclusion’. We operationalized the dependent variable by using the responses given to the questions of the citizen participation process on the political future of Catalonia. As seen in Figure 3, the

6 The lack of agreement on the Catalan referendum, also known as ‘citizen participation process on the political future of Catalonia’, led to its suspension by the Spanish Constitutional Court. 7 Needless to say, an obvious disadvantage to this sort of experiment is that a vignette is different from experiencing a real stimulus in everyday life and that the results obtained are estimates, which cannot be validated.

12 voters were first supposed to answer a question “Do you want Catalonia to become a State?” In the affirmative case, the voters also had the opportunity to respond to the question “Do you want this State to be independent?” So, in sum, the Catalan voters had three options: Voting in favour of an independent state (Yes-Yes); voting in favour of a state, which is not independent (Yes-No)8, or voting against the entire idea of a Catalan state (No). We expected that the first question would not be affected by international factors, because a Catalan state within Spain (whatever form it took) would not change its status vis-á-vis the EU. The scenario or treatment would only play a role in the question whether Catalonia aspired to become an independent state or not. For our model we thus split the dependent variable in two: secessionist (Yes-Yes) or unionist (Yes-No and No).

Figure 3: Referendum question in Catalonia.

Referendum question in Catalonia

Do you want Catalonia to become a State?

Yes

Do you want this State to be No independent?

Yes No

The independent variable was the degree of nationalism and we operationalized it by using the respondent’s self-identification in terms of national belonging. The respondents were asked the so-called “Moreno question” which is a popular measure of regionalism in Europe and has been previously used in studies on Catalonia (Moreno, 2006). The respondents could classify themselves as feeling “Only Catalan”, “Only Spanish” (which we classify as exclusive identities), “More Catalan than Spanish”, “More Spanish than Catalan” (dual identities) and “Both Catalan and Spanish” (shared identities). An exclusive identity was classified as the highest degree of nationalism, whereas a shared identity was seen as the

8 The “Yes-No”-option was widely perceived as a vote for a federal/confederal Spanish state.

13 lowest degree. It is important to point out that very few respondents identified exclusively with ‘Spain’ and that it was difficult to draw meaningful conclusions for this small minority. Consequently, we followed the work of Rico and Jennings (2012, p. 729) in lumping together the answers of those who felt more ‘Spanish than Catalan’ with ‘Only Spanish’.

The role of hypothesis 2 (level of nationalism) and hypothesis 3 (economic motivations) was to detect what type of individual was most influenced by the vignettes. In order to identify different profiles, we requested the participants who had been asked the ‘referendum question’ to declare whether they had been affected by the treatment or EU-factor. Needless to say, we were interested in finding out whether the likelihood of EU membership increased the number of supporters of secession and whether the possibility of being denied membership brought a decline in the number of citizens opting for independence. Having a third reference group that had not been subjected to any prior suggestion, made it possible to measure the extent to which respondents had been influenced by the treatments.

For hypothesis 2, we divided individuals by their degree of nationalism and we used the previously specified proxy (self-identification) to scrutinise the hypothesized relationship. For hypothesis 3, where we wanted to see whether economically driven voters had been more influenced by the treatments than culturally driven ones, we allowed respondents to choose up to a maximum of three reasons why they had voted in favour or against independence. The respondents received a list of possible options (as well as the possibility of filling in alternative responses) and could tick a maximum of three items. These possible answers could be classified in the three previously mentioned categories: cultural reasons, economic reasons and political reasons9. By analysing the selected options we could thus measure what arguments were most important to respondents and to what degree they were motivated by economic considerations.

The samples was of approximately 1,200 respondents and we divided it into three representative subgroups of 400 individuals in terms of age, gender, level of education and place of residence. As indicated in table 1, each subgroup received different ‘new information’ about the international future of an independent Catalonia. The first subgroup was confronted with a ‘positive’ scenario where accession to the EU seemed likely. The respondents were asked how they would vote in a referendum if the EU authorities and the

9 Cultural reasons included arguments that related to the identification of the respondents, economic reasons to the expected positive or negative economic consequences of independence and political arguments to representation possibilities for the nation.

14 Member States issued a joint statement saying that if the majority of the people voted in favour in independence, the new Catalan state could be a member of the EU immediately.

Our second subgroup was confronted with a ‘negative’ scenario concerning the membership perspectives of Catalonia. In the provided scenario, the EU authorities and the Member States declared jointly that, regardless of the referendum’s outcome, Catalonia would not have any Membership perspective.

A third control subgroup did not receive any hint of an outcome and was used as a reference point in order to measure whether the positive and negative suggestions had any effect. This allowed us to measure the variation between the neutral subgroup and the positive and negative subgroups as well as measure the impact of the vignettes.

Table 1: Experimental design – Case studies, treatments and sample size

Positive Negative Neutral Total

Respondents 401 399 403 1,203

To avoid distortions in the results we added a number of common control variables to our model (gender, age, place of residence, education, income, and employment situation). Furthermore, we asked the respondents how often they discussed politics with friends and family, where they placed themselves on a left-right scale and what language they spoke predominantly (Spanish, Catalan, both languages to the same degree or another language). Additionally, we included a variable for respondents who had lived for more than six months outside of Spain to account for international experience. We assumed that an experience of living abroad could make them more sensitive to international influences on their opinions.

Moreover, we included a series of variables that were more specifically linked to the opinions of the respondents regarding the political status of Catalonia. Besides the question already mentioned about the respondent’s self-identification in terms of national belonging, the respondents were asked in an early stage of the survey — before confronting them with the options — what political status they would most prefer for Catalonia: (I) a region of Spain (re-centralization); (II) an Autonomous Community (Status Quo), (III) a state as part of a federal Spain, or (IV) an independent state.

15 Furthermore, we also included three variables with respect to the citizens’ attitudes concerning the EU. In times of growing Euro-scepticism it was not self-evident that all citizens perceived exclusion from the EU as a threat or EU membership as an incentive. The variables we included in our model are to what extent the respondents felt themselves to be citizens of the EU, how much trust they had in the EU and their general opinion of the EU.

6. Results and discussion

In order to measure the impact of the vignettes on the respondents’ support for secession we studied the average effects using Augmented Inverse Propensity Weighted (IPW) estimators, extracted from the previously described model (more information can be found in the appendix).

The results of our survey confirm the importance of international factors in explaining support for secession. As indicated in table 2, the citizens of Catalonia considered EU membership as a significant factor in determining whether they opted for secession or whether they preferred the status quo.

Table 2: Average treatment effects (ATE) using augmented-IPW estimators for Catalonia. VARIABLES ATE - Catalonia

Treatment: Negative vs. Neutral 0.00348

(0.0248)

Treatment: Positive vs. Neutral 0.0847***

(0.0268)

Observations 813

Robust standard errors in parentheses

*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 With regards to our expectations, the results of the survey experiment clearly supported the first sub-hypothesis (H1a: The incentive of inclusion in the EU will have a positive effect on the support for secessionism). As can be observed in Table 2, controlling for all the other variables included in the model, the offer of a smooth EU-accession process after secession rendered a positive and significant effect on votes for secessionism in Catalonia. More specifically, the coefficient for the positive treatment is 0.0847 and is significant at p<0.01.

16 On the other hand, our second sub-hypothesis (H1b: The threat of exclusion from the EU has a negative effect on the support for secessionism) could not be confirmed. The threat of an undetermined exclusion from the EU did not produce a decline in the number of supporters for secession and the impact was almost zero (and far from being statistically significant).

Figure 4: Average treatment effects on support for secession in Catalonia with 95% CIs.

Figure 4 provides a visual representation of the plotted results, the coefficients of the average positive and negative effects and the confidence intervals. Our explanation for the results in Catalonia is that many of the respondents were influenced by the dominating public discussions and events at the moment we conducted the survey. The Spanish central executive blocked all steps leading to the organization of a legal referendum on independence and the regional government of Catalonia responded by taking a unilateral decision to hold a public consultation. With regard to the issue of EU membership, the Spanish public debate was dominated by catastrophic scenarios where Madrid and other European capitals vetoed a hypothetical Catalan application and Brussels refused to fast track any membership. Consequently, it could be argued that the ‘negative scenario’ did not affect Catalan voters as much because they had already been exposed to negative treatment in real life and did not consider the scenario as ‘new information’ that could change their preferences for a sovereign state. That might explain why the effects of the negative vignette are so close to 0 or the status quo. However, our positive vignette, which promised a smooth integration in the EU, was a real ‘game-changer’ and caused a significant impact.

17 Our second hypothesis (H2: The stronger (weaker) the level of nationalism of the individual, the less (more) he/she will be influenced by the information about the prospect of an EU- inclusion/-exclusion) wanted to test what sort of individuals would be affected by international factors. Figure 5 provides a visualization of the effects, where the y-axis displays the impact of the option (ranging from 1 to 5), and the x-axis stands for the respondents’ national self-identification. As previously explained, we operationalised the level of nationalism by asking the respondents about their self-identification in terms of ethno-national belonging.

Figure 5: Self-evaluation of impact of treatment by national self-identification in Catalonia.

The data confirmed our hypothesis and suggests that nationalist individuals were less influenced by the treatments. The respondents with the highest degree of sub-state nationalism (feeling exclusively Catalan) indicated that they were only moderately influenced. Similarly, the respondents who identified exclusively with Spain, or felt more Spanish than Catalan, were also moderately affected. The most interesting finding is that the respondents with a somewhat lower level of nationalism (as indicated by their dual identities) were significantly more influenced by the suggested scenarios. Individuals with a shared identity and equal feelings of attachment to both Spain and Catalonia were the individuals who acknowledged they had taken into account the international dimension when making a decision to vote in favour or against independence. In short, the extremes were less affected than the middle ground.

To study the marginal effects of these regressions we then held the attributes “Feeling exclusively Catalan” constant. The differences between respondents with a high degree of sub-state nationalism and all other groups are statistically significant.

18 To sum up, our second hypothesis could be confirmed: an individual’s degree of nationalism was a strong predictor of the expected impact generated by the idea that the potential future state might have to face EU-inclusion or -exclusion. The more nationalist an individual is, the less he/she takes into consideration the international dimension when voting on secession.

Our third hypothesis (H3: If an individual is more (less) motivated by the economic arguments regarding secession than by the cultural arguments, he/she will be more (less) influenced by the information about the prospect of EU-inclusion/-exclusion) aimed to examine more closely the motivations of respondents. As previously explained, we asked our respondents to choose up to a maximum of three reasons why they had voted in favour of or against independence. In the figure below we divided the data on the x-axis into three sub- groups: (1) respondents who justified their decision with more economic arguments than cultural arguments; (2) respondents who used as many economic as cultural arguments; and (3) respondents who used more cultural than economic arguments. As in the figure for hypothesis 2, on the y-axis the reported impact of the choices can be seen.

Figure 6: Self-evaluation of impact of treatment by motives (economic & identitarian) in Catalonia.

This hypothesis could also be confirmed. In figure 6 we see a declining slope from the respondents who used more economic arguments and were most affected extending to the respondents who used more cultural arguments and were less affected.

To study in this case the marginal effects of these regressions we held the attribute “more cultural than economic arguments” constant. The difference from “more economic than

19 cultural arguments” is statistically significant. However, the difference from respondents who used as many economic as cultural arguments is not statistically significant.

To recapitulate, the findings of hypothesis 3 confirmed our expectations about the role of economic motivations. Individuals who were more driven by economic considerations when voting in favour or against independence were more influenced by the vignettes on EU membership.

7. Conclusion

This paper has examined whether international factors affect support for secession. More precisely, the paper explored whether the prospect of EU inclusion/exclusion would affect the political preferences of voters in Catalonia participating in a referendum on political independence. We argued that the EU has created incentives for small stateless nations to seek independence, provided that a smooth integration in the Union could be expected. On the one hand, we assumed therefore that more voters would support secession if they were assured that the process would have low transaction costs and that rapid integration was possible. On the other hand, we expected that voters would refrain from supporting the secessionist agenda if the host state signalled that secession would have high costs and that the political and economic integration of the new state into the EU could be complex. Our survey experiment in Catalonia confirmed the importance of EU membership in shaping secessionist preferences.

The first key finding was that in the studied case, the positive treatment (possible EU membership) had a significant effect, while the negative one (veto of EU membership) did not have a strong moderating effect. We explained these differences by making reference to the political context in which our survey was conducted. Opponents of secession and the Spanish Government had already expressed threats about an undetermined exclusion from the EU and individuals had therefore already incorporated them in their calculations. Hence, the positive scenario turned out to be a ‘game changer’, whereas the negative one only confirmed the assumed status quo for most respondents.

The second key finding was that the sanctions and incentives did not affect populations homogenously. The preferences for secession were determined at the domestic level and often depended on the degree of nationalism of individuals. Citizens with strong nationalist beliefs — either Catalan or Spanish — were influenced by international factors very moderately. The

20 less nationalist an individual was, however, the more he/she was influenced by the notion of EU membership in the decision-making process.

The third key finding was that the options affected individuals differently depending on whether their motivations were of a cultural or economic nature. Individuals who were primarily driven by cultural- or identity-based arguments were significantly less influenced by the scenarios about EU-inclusion or -exclusion than individuals whose decisions were based on economic considerations.

The political implications of these findings resonate with current developments in EU Member States. Politicians in Spain and other host states have sometimes resorted to the ‘threat’ of vetoing EU membership to change the preferences of supporters of secession. Our research has demonstrated that the preferences are predominantly formed at the domestic level and previous stances are difficult to alter by international factors. The margin of support for independence between the most positive and the most negative scenario was statistically significant but still relatively limited. Highly nationalist supporters of independence, who were primarily driven by cultural motivations, were almost indifferent to international threats. International factors, such as future EU membership, can tip the scale in a close race by convincing or discouraging less nationalist and economically driven voters. But proponents and/or opponents of secession should not regard EU membership as a ‘silver bullet’ that can dramatically alter the preferences of the majority of the population.

21 Technical annex:

Geographical scope: Autonomous Community of Catalonia (Spain). Universe: individuals residing in the area of study older than 18.

Size and distribution of sample: 1,203 interviews in Catalonia. The respondents were divided into representative sub-groups of 400 individuals, applying the age, gender and place of residence (Provinces). Sampling error: for a confidence level of 95.5% (which is usually adopted) and assuming the principles of simple random sampling, in the worst case scenario of maximum uncertainty (p = q = 50%), the sampling error corresponds to the data on the total sample is 3.2 points. Method of collecting information: online survey, using structured and pre-coded questions. The task has been carried out by Netquest, using their databank of respondents. The questionnaire was available in Spanish and Catalan (Catalonia). Date of fieldwork: May 2014.

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