ABSTRACT
Poorer countries are not alone in their inability to respond effectively to the intense and often populist group demands that fragment their governing institutions. Ironically, a growing number of wealthy country governments are unable to anticipate and manage conflicts or to respond to regional, sectarian, and ethnic demands: Scotland, England, Hungary, and the European Union. The driving forces for the other wealthy countries beset by populist nationalism are often fringe parties and populist movements. These are able to effectively mobilize opinion against ethnic and sectarian minority immigrants and domestic urban cosmopolitan values that favor more liberal immigration rules. Catalonia is a part of the Spanish political culture of values and practices and a province of Spain. The Spanish Empire in Latin America was a Castilian venture but included Catalan viceroys and forebears of presidents. Hungary is a strong-state, unitary government, relatively higher income country with solid macroeconomic performance.
