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Why Secession?

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Why Secession? Örebro University School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences Political Science Why secession? The will of the people or a threat to democracy Political Science, Second cycle Independent project, 30 credits, 2020 Author: Jonathan Lehmann Molander Supervisor: Björn Hammar Abstract Europe is not as calm as one might think. There are currently several secessionist struggles that are ongoing in the region and in this thesis three of them will be researched. This thesis has investigated the biggest democratically elected actor that wants secession in Flanders, Catalonia and Scotland. This has been done by questioning how they argue for their secession and how these arguments relate to different approaches to legitimize secession. These approaches being the remedial approach, the free choice approach, the functional approach, the exit approach and the anti-theory approach. This was performed by using a qualitative content analysis. With this method I created an analytical scheme which was applied to the arguments in order to sort them into the scheme. The arguments used by the actors were pluralistic, relating to democracy, nationalism, administration, governance, economy, grievance and history. This proved that the actors are much more pluralistic than what theory could handle hence, none of the actors fit to either one of the approaches as they argued in a multitude of different ways. In addition to this, I was also able to show that against theoretical assumptions these secessionist actors didn’t favour external legitimacy. Even though this is argued by some to be most important for secessionist groups to gain independence. In the end the implications of this thesis are that secessionist actors are incredibly pluralistic, and it is quite hard for theory to fully capture this plurality. Hence, secessionist theory gives a very incomplete picture of how secessionist actors try to legitimize their secession. Keywords: Secession. Catalonia. Flanders. Scotland. Legitimacy. Populism. Democracy. Europe. Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Introduction to the cases ........................................................................................................ 6 2. Purpose and research question ........................................................................................................... 9 3. Systematic research review ............................................................................................................... 10 3.1 Method for systematic research review ..................................................................................... 10 3.2 Research protocol........................................................................................................................ 14 3.3 Ethical considerations ................................................................................................................. 16 3.4 Results ......................................................................................................................................... 16 3.4.1 The methods and cases ........................................................................................................ 16 3.4.2 How is secession legitimized? .............................................................................................. 17 3.5 Critical evaluation ........................................................................................................................ 19 4. Theory ................................................................................................................................................ 22 4.1 Internal and external legitimacy in secession ............................................................................. 22 4.2 Democracy and legitimacy in secession ...................................................................................... 23 4.3 Sub-state nationalism and populism ........................................................................................... 25 5. Method .............................................................................................................................................. 27 5.1 Qualitative content analysis ........................................................................................................ 27 5.2 Methodological discussion. ......................................................................................................... 29 5.3 Analytical Categories ................................................................................................................... 30 5.4 Cases and material. ..................................................................................................................... 32 5.5 Ethical considerations ................................................................................................................. 34 6. Results ............................................................................................................................................... 36 6.1 Junts per Catalunya/Together for Catalonia ............................................................................... 36 6.2 Vlaams Belang/Flemish Interests ................................................................................................ 38 6.3 Scottish Nationalist Party ............................................................................................................ 40 7. Analysis .............................................................................................................................................. 42 7.1 Junts per Catalunya/Togheter for Catalonia ............................................................................... 42 7.2 Vlaams Belang/Flemish Interest .................................................................................................. 44 7.3 Scottish Nationalist Party ............................................................................................................ 46 8. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................ 48 9. Discussion .......................................................................................................................................... 50 1. Introduction Europe. A region of the world which by many probably is described as a quiet and calm region where internal squabbles are long forgotten, the borders drawn are eternal and the only thing to be done is to defend it against external threats. But in fact, this is a region that is a little more interesting than what it is believed to be. Perhaps is it that Europe has been cast with the old Chinese curse saying may you live in interesting times or perhaps is it that under the European facade things are not as stable as one would be led to believe. There are currently a considerable amount of active separatist and secessionist movements in Europe. The European Free Alliance (EFA) is an umbrella organisation for parties that either wish to secede or to gain more autonomy within the European Union. Currently this organization amasses a total of 46 members (EFA. 2020). So perhaps it isn’t as calm in Europe after all, perhaps has history not ended and perhaps are borders just waiting to be redrawn. Secession is a word that is defined as “The act of becoming independent and no longer part of a country, area or organization…” (Cambridge Dictionary. 2020). Secessionist conflict, conflicts about a group’s sovereignty or independence, are a lot more common both through history and in today’s world than we might think. In the 26 years between 1980 - 2006 almost every other armed conflict was fought between ethnic minorities and the governments of the nations that the ethnic minorities reside in. These have been fights for the right to self- determination and secession (Walter. 2006). To have the right to self-determination is described as having the ability as a people to freely pursue economic, social and cultural development, in other words the people are entitled to develop their own nation without any foreign involvement (Tesón. 2016). This makes questions arise, is it always legitimate for a group to conduct these conflicts in the name of self-determination? how do these groups argument for their actions? I ask these questions as I believe it is important to know what drives these secessionists, I ask myself if answering these questions could help ease tensions or solve conflicts between the state and the secessionists. Below I will present three secessionist cases where there has been recent activity and even a secessionist attempt. 5 1.1 Introduction to the cases The following cases that I will be presenting have been chosen there has been recent secessionist activity. The Catalans had their referendum, the Scots reignited after Brexit and the Flemish secessionists have gotten strong results in their regional elections. They’ve also been chosen as they are all in situated in European democracies and are therefore comparable than if they were spread out over the world and in completely foreign political situations compared to each other. In the Catalan secession attempt of 2017, the separatists declared themselves victorious in what according to Spanish law was an illegal referendum. Alexander and Halpin (2017) make the claim that this attempt rejuvenated
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