Challenging the State from Below: New Perspectives on Regionalist and Nationalist Mobilisation

In recent years, sub-state regionalist and nationalist parties and movements have (re-)emerged as important political and electoral actors in many pluri-national states. As a result, the structures and integrity of some states have come under new (and often unprecedented) pressure, precipitating a territorial crisis in some places. This workshop aims to explore and analyse these shifting territorial dynamics, with a view to better understanding the nature, drivers and consequences of centre-periphery tensions in pluri-national states. A territorial dimension to politics has long been present in many states. By now, there is a substantial scholarly literature that documents the way in which political actors claiming to represent historically, culturally, linguistically and/or economically distinct groups within the state's territory have mobilised against the state, and in defence of the interests of ‘their’ region or nation. A key feature of such mobilisation is the pursuit of some form of 'sub-state territorial empowerment' (ranging from limited de-centralisation to full independence), in the name of a specific territorial group within the state's boundaries - be it referred to as a region, nation or people - which has a distinctive territorial identity (e.g. based on ethnicity, language, culture, traditions) and interests (economic, cultural, political, social and/or symbolic in nature) (De Winter, 1998; Hepburn, 2009). As these territorial actors have made the shift from ‘protest to power’ (Elias and Tronconi, 2011b), and become enduring and influential players in regional (and in some cases) state-level political arenas (Elias and Tronconi, 2011a; Hepburn, 2009; Mazzoleni and Mueller, 2017), they have also been increasingly successful in achieving many of their demands for greater self-government. Indeed, the clear shift of political authority downwards to regional democratic institutions over recent years was often undertaken in response to such demands for territorial re-structuring (ref). In this context, the re-emergence of territorial tensions in many places has taken many scholars and commentators by surprise. In particular, the drivers, nature and consequences of the most recent wave of territorial mobilisation against the state are poorly understood. There are several aspects here that require exploration and explanation. Firstly, whilst scholars of territorial politics have sought to understand the drivers of sub-state nationalist and regionalist mobilisation, it is unclear what and how changes in the socio-economic and cultural conditions of sub-state regionalist and nationalist actors have underpinned the re-configuration and re-emergence of territorial conflict. Scholars broadly agree that notions of inequity and injustice are central to explanations of territorial conflict, since territorial grievances are usually based on perceptions that the region or nation is somehow losing out from the existing political union (Sorens, 2008: 310). In their seminal study of the origins and evolution of territorial politics in Western Europe, Rokkan and Urwin (1983) attributed these territorial grievances to cultural, economics and political differences between the centres and peripheries of states. Subsequent work has focused on the link between territorial contestation and structural characteristics of the periphery, and a particular emphasis has been given to uneven economic development and cultural markers of identity (although studies have also disagreed on the relative importance of these different factors - e.g. De Winter and Türsan, 1998; Gordin, 2001; Fearon and Van Houten, 2002; Tronconi, 2005; Sorens, 2008; Massetti and Schakel, 2015; Dalle Mulle, 2017). But it is as yet unclear whether, and to what extent, changes in the economic, political and cultural contexts of sub-state territorial actors have underpinned the more recent wave of centre-periphery mobilisation. It is well documented, for example, that the 2008 financial crisis has had profound and far-reaching effects on politics in general. But the crisis has also changed the economic context within which territorial actors operate, and scholars have only very recently begun to explore how this has led to a reconfiguration of territorial interests and relations vis-à-vis the state (Elias and Mees, 2017; Santamburlo, 2018). Secondly, there has been a well-established strand of literature interested in understanding the role of sub-state regionalist and nationalist actors as key "entrepreneurs" in mobilising territorial differences in political debate (Türsan, 1998: 6). In practice, however, the focus has been almost exclusively on political parties. And yet in many places, social movements and civil society actors have played a key role in shaping the nature and direction of territorial conflict. And yet this manifestation of territorial mobilisation has been given very little attention, and limited to individual case studies where this has been a particularly strong feature of territorial conflict (Keating, 2017; Crameri, 2015; Della Porta et al., 2017). But new/existing movements and organisations have also mobilised elsewhere, often impacting significantly on territorial discourses, political and electoral dynamics. There is thus a need to broaden the scope of analysis to reflect the broader scope of actors engaged in territorial contestation, and consider questions arising from this, such as why and how these different actors mobilise, and how they interact to shape the evolution and outcomes of territorial contestation. In doing so there is an opportunity to draw on different bodies of literature (e.g. on social movements and civil society mobilisation) to provide new theoretical and empirical insights into centre-periphery dynamics. Thirdly, whilst it is necessary to interrogate what and why regionalist and nationalist actors have mobilised, it is also imperative to consider (and re-conceptualise) what kind of territorial demands they make. As indicated above, scholars of territorial politics have mainly been concerned with these actors’ demands for some kind of self-government (De Winter, 1998; De Winter et al., 2006; Massetti and Schakel, 2013; Mazzolenni and Mueller, 2017). In this regard, a particular feature of the most recent wave of territorial conflict in many plurinational states is the predominance of secessionist demands, either as the result of the creation of new pro-independence parties and movements, or because actors with previously moderate demands have shifted to more radical positions. There have been a few analyses that have explored the drivers of such positional shifts (Elias and Mees, 2017), but more systematic comparative analyses of this trend is also in order. But this specific conceptualisation of territorial demands is also arguably too narrow to capture the full range of territorial goals pursued by these actors. For example, demands for greater influence in state-level institutions and processes (shared-rule) may feature alongside or instead of demands for self-government (self-rule). The assumption that territorial demands necessarily require a formal re-allocation of political authority can also be challenged (Hepburn, 2009: 484). Moreover, regionalist and nationalist movements' territorial interests may not always be best served by pushing for formal constitutional change. To date, there has been little theorising or empirical exploration of these broader forms of territorial demands, whether and how they sit alongside demands for self-government, and what this tells us about what the political projects regionalist and nationalist actors pursue. Finally, and departing from the (now generally accepted) assumption that sub-state regionalist and nationalist parties behave strategically in an attempt to mobilise support for their territorial demands (Alonso, 2012; Elias et al., 2015), scholars have begun to explore what kind of arguments are used to justify territorial demands. Many have viewed the possession of a distinctive cultural identity (e.g. based on ethnicity, language, culture, traditions) to be a key element underpinning the emergence of regionalist movements (Parks and Elcock, 2000; Müller-Rommel, 1998). The literature on secession in particular often assumes identity arguments to be the predominant mode of framing pro-secessionist claims. Such arguments certainly feature as one kind of justification of territorial empowerment (e.g. Mees, 2003; Wyn Jones, 2007). Yet arguments that touch on considerations relating to democratic accountability, economic performance, greater social justice or improved environmental stewardship are also deployed (Keating and McEwan, 2014; Elias, 2018; Franco-Guillén, 2016). Moreover, in many places, territorial grievances have aligned, and sometimes overlapped with, a broader sense of discontent with the economic and political status quo (Scattamburlo et al., 2017). A territorial crisis may therefore intersect with economic and political crises widely regarded to underpin the emergence of new populist challenges to the state’s political authority and legitimacy. Indeed, some populist parties were born as regionalist/nationalist parties, whilst others have been created as splits from, or have merged with, existing nationalist and regionalist actors and combine pro-periphery and new politics arguments. To date however, this trend has been poorly conceptualised and under-studied. 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