A crosscutting cleavage? Investigating the associations between popular nationalism and political attitudes across sub-state nations

Sub-state nationalism can place existing constitutional arrangements under strain, which may be exacerbated if those on either side of the centre-periphery cleavage are also divided on other attitudinal dimensions. Conventionally, centre-periphery issues are seen to crosscut other ideological cleavages (Lipset & Rokkan 1967). However, nationalist movements are often associated with positions that extend beyond their territorial ambitions (Alonso et al 2015). Currently, popular nationalist sentiment is often linked with exclusionary social attitudes (Satherley et al 2019), but this work focuses predominantly on the state-level. Existing research has suggested that there is no inherent connection between sub-state nationalism and political attitudes at a party-level (Erk 2010), but little research explores whether this holds on an individual-level. To address this, I explore whether there is a link between popular nationalism and political attitudes within sub-state nations. I do this in two steps. First, I use latent profile analysis to separate individuals in Catalonia, Flanders, Wallonia, England, Scotland, and Wales into ‘nationalist’ categories based on their nation-state identification, sub-state identification, and constitutional preference. Second, I use OLS regression to explore the association of these nationalist categories with three attitudinal dimensions: left-right self-positioning, redistribution, and immigration. Overall, I find that not all sub-state nationalist individuals hold weak nation-state identification. Furthermore, the association between nationalist sentiment and political attitudes is contingent on nation-state identification, as sub-state nationalists who report weak nation-state identity are more inclined to report left-wing, pro-redistribution, and moderate immigration positions.