ABSTRACT
Nationalist movements often include political organizations seeking the separation of a certain territory and its society from the state or states to which these both formally belong. Far from often, however, can independentism or irredentism be associated to the use of violence and terrorism. Actually, contemporary nationalist movements vary greatly not only as to the extent of support enjoyed within their populations of reference but also with respect to the scope and intensity of their separatist aims. Moreover, in only some of the cases where demands for distinctive or unified statehood prevail has terrorism been adopted by nationalist insurgents. Thus, there is no direct causal nor unavoidable connection between separatist nationalism as expression of political discontent, socio-economic grievances or identity claims and terrorist violence. Contrary to what is frequently taken for granted not only outside academic circles but even among scholars, nationalist separatism does not in itself explain nationalist separatism terrorism. There has to be something else in between an ideology and its corresponding mass mobilizations, on the one hand, and violence to achieve certain political objectives, on the other.
