ABSTRACT
The growth of minority nationalism - confounding the predictions of integration theory-has been one of the striking features of post-war western European politics. Perhaps equally striking from the perspective of the 1980s is the resilience of the state in the face of this challenge. Much of the work on the growth of minority nationalism has suffered from a number of defects. Often, it has been merely taxonomic, categorising 'types' of minority nationalism with too little consideration of the specific political, social and economic circumstances in which each had its birth. Other work has erred in the other direction, confining itself to individual case studies. In many cases work has been undertheorised and in others explanations have been over-determined. There has, in consequence, been little success in explaining why minority nationalism and political regionalism should advance at some times in some places and, in other circumstances, fall back. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the future, it seemed, was with the 'nation state'. In the 1970s, the trend to disintegration seemed inexorable. Where do we stand in the 1980s? These are large issues which force us to examine the phenomenon of minority nationalism in all its complexity, adopting a comparative approach yet recognising that each case must be located in its peculiar historical, cultural, economic and political circumstances. One view sometimes expressed in the literature is that nationalism and, perhaps, other territorial issues, are not negotiable as are run-of-the-mill matters of social and economic policy where compromise and splitting the difference are possible. My view is very different. Minority nationalism and regionalism are complex phenomena combining a diversity of elements most of which are quite amenable to negotiation and it is this very fact which largely accounts for the failure of minority nationalist movements in contemporary western Europe. It is for this reason, too, that my analysis does not start off with a rigorous definition of the terms 'nationalism' or indeed 'minority'. Such a predetermined framework would defeat the purposes of the analysis which are to explore the content and meaning of the political demands posed by
territorial political movements and the extent to which they can in practice be accommodated within the existing state structures (including the political parties). The ultimate explicandum is the creation of territorial autonomist movements able to sustain a credible challenge to the contemporary nation state; but this process is complex, nowhere complete, and subject to territorial management techniques on the part of existing political and bureaucratic elites aimed at ensuring that the process is not completed. So while in some regions, movements have developed which have moved from the politics of territorial defence to pushing for autonomy and even separation, in others territorial politics are limited to lobbying activity.
