TURBA Lab Seminar: "The quest for national self-determination and independence"

Program

This seminar forms part of the Cycle of Seminars on Urban Transformation and Global Change.

Abstract

This presentation will focus on national self-determination and independence, categorized in this research as contentious processes of nationalism and democratization. For that,  I will first present how I categorize the main concepts of my research. Second, I will introduce the process-mechanism approach of my thesis. Finally, I will present the first results of my research for the Catalan pro-independence process. Although legitimization for national self-determination and independence have been an important research path in this field, there is a need of operationalizing these concepts as processes, too: state-seeking nationalisms have been central in the political agenda during the beginning of the XXI century, and pro-independence processes such as the Catalan or the Scottish ones have gained presence this last decade. However, even if they may be similar processes that happen in different cases, the particularity of each affects the steps taken by the actors and the resulting outcomes.

I argue that three causal mechanisms participate and interact within the causal relationship between state-seeking nationalisms and national self-determination and independence, forming a contentious process. Those causal mechanisms are framing, opening and closing of political opportunities and institutionalization. Indeed, instead of looking at the direct causality between the independent and dependent variable, I look at its mediated causality. That is why I follow the methodology of theory testing process-tracing, that analyzes the intermediate steps in a process to contrast a previously developed theory. The units of analysis are contentious episodes, rather than specific actors. To end with the presentation, I will present the first results of my research for the Catalan case in the 2012-2021 period, where an unfinished self-determination and pro-independence process has taken shape.

Ion Vazquez

Ion Vazquez is a predoctoral researcher at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), and he has a master’s degree in Political Analysis from the same university. He is currently analyzing national self-determination and independence processes, and how those processes take shape in different cases through causal mechanisms and contentious episodes. He is interested in nationalism, social movements and contentious politics, as well as digitalization of political communication.

To participate in this session, please contact larguellesr@uoc.edu.