This book explores the conflict between the Catalan project to become independent and the Spanish state’s opposition to any attempt of secessionism. The volume addresses some of the key political and academic issues of contemporary European societies: nationalism, separatism and sovereignty. The banned referendum in Catalonia in October 2017 unveiled the existence of multiple crises, from territorial to economic and political. Indeed, the Catalan issue is about the crisis of sovereignty: who holds legitimacy to make decisions, and who is in power legally and politically? The book is structured according to three themes: sovereignty and its people, where the realignment to independence, populism and the definition of the demos are discussed; collective identities and actions, to account for the shaping of ‘us’, the importance of collective memory and the cross-alliances forged during the referendum; and internationalization, focusing on Europeanisation, international media and comparative constitutional perspectives.

This book explores the conflict between the Catalan project to become independent and the Spanish state's opposition to any attempt of secessionism. The volume addresses some of the key political and academic issues of contemporary European societies: nationalism, separatism and sovereignty. The banned referendum in Catalonia in October 2017 unveiled the existence of multiple crises, from territorial to economic and political. Indeed, the Catalan issue is about the crisis of sovereignty: who holds legitimacy to make decisions, and who is in power legally and politically? The book is structured according to three themes: sovereignty and its people, where the realignment to independence, populism and the definition of the demos are discussed; collective identities and actions, to account for the shaping of 'us', the importance of collective memory and the cross-alliances forged during the referendum; and internationalization, focusing on Europeanisation, international media and comparative constitutional perspectives. Óscar García Agustín is Associate Professor in the Department of Culture and Learning at Aalborg University, Denmark. He is Head of the DEMOS research group. He is the author of Left-Wing Populism (2020), Solidarity and the 'Refugee Crisis' in Europe (with Martin Bak Jorgensen, 2018), and Podemos and the New Political Cycle (with Marco Briziarelli, 2018).

Aquest llibre vol ajudar al lector a entendre i interpretar els esdeveniments polítics de la història recent de Catalunya. El llibre també mostra que el procés té una pertinència política que va més enllà del context espanyol català i es refereix a punts clau pel que fa a la interacció de democràcia, sobirania i estatisme al segle XXI.

As recently as the mid-2000s, Catalonia was described and analysed by scholars as exhibiting a non-secessionist nationalism and was seen within Europe and beyond as a role model for successful devolution which had much to teach other parts of the world. The Spanish state seemed to be on a journey towards an authentic federal order and was generally admired. However, the new century has been marked by an ever-growing independence movement, with 47.8 per cent of Catalonia voting in favour of independence in September 2015. Pro-independence mobilization has produced a rupture in political relations with the rest of Spain leading to a sovereignty struggle with Madrid. This book explores how an accumulation of long-, medium- and short-term factors have produced the current situation and why the Spanish territorial model has been unable or possibly, unwilling, to respond. The Catalan question is not purely a Spanish problem: it has direct implications for the traditional nation-state model, in Europe and beyond.

Created by social movement activists and left-wing parties during years of austerity, Barcelona en Comú, or the Comuns (as they are known in Catalan), won control of the city council of Barcelona in May 2015. The ensuing municipal government gave the city its first ever female mayor in the form of former housing rights campaigner Ada Colau. The Comuns' administration proceeded to undertake ambitious initiatives, attempting to regenerate democracy by changing the relationship between municipal authority and citizen, addressing social inequality issues and seeking to curb the hitherto unbridled tourist expansion in the name of improving the environment for those who live in the Catalan capital. This book examines the extent to which the political project of the Comuns has brought radical change in Barcelona, where it has faced opposition from revolutionary anti-capitalists, traditional Catalan nationalists and independentistas, as well as conservative political and economic forces. It also considers the Comuns' relationship to Podemos and their prospects of growing beyond the city, in the metropolitan area of Barcelona and across Catalonia.

This volume offers an overview of the ongoing debate regarding nationalism, globalisation, secessionism and languages in 21st century Catalonia. At the heart of the book is a set of interlocking questions relating to socio-political issues in sub-state nations seeking independence in the 21st century.

Across Western Europe, the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath not only brought economic havoc but also, in turn, intense political upheaval. Many of the political manifestations of the crisis seen in other Western and especially Southern European countries also hit Spain, where challenger parties caused unprecedented parliamentary fragmentation, resulting in four general elections in under four years from 2015 onwards. Yet Spain, a decentralised state where extensive powers are devolved to 17 regions known as ‘autonomous communities’, also stood out from its neighbours due to the importance of the territorial dimension of politics in shaping the political expression of the crisis. This book explains how and why the territorial dimension of politics contributed to shaping party system continuity and change in Spain in the aftermath of the financial crisis, with a particular focus on party behaviour. The territorial dimension encompasses the demands for ever greater autonomy or even sovereignty coming from certain parties within the historic regions of the Basque Country, Catalonia and, to a lesser extent, Galicia. It also encompasses where these historic regions sit within the broader dynamics of intergovernmental relations across Spain’s 17 autonomous communities in total, and how these dynamics contribute to shaping party strategies and behaviour in Spain. Such features became particularly salient in the aftermath of the financial crisis since this coincided with, and indeed accelerated, the rise of the independence movement in Catalonia.