ABSTRACT

This chapter is intended to serve a dual purpose. First, to explain the main causes of success and failure of two nationalist political forces (MLNV, BNG) questioning the same nation-state (Spain); second, to elaborate such an explanation by taking into account the analytical tools of social movement research. So, on the one hand we want to use an analytical framework which has given excellent results in studies of social movements, but which has rarely been applied in studies of nationalism. This analytical model is expressed through the dynamic confluence of three instruments for measuring social movements from a qualitative and quantitative perspective: political opportunity structure (POS) (Tilly 1978 and Kitschelt 1986; Kriesi 1992; Della Porta and Rucht 1995; Rootess 1997); discursive frames and strategies (Goffman 1974; Snow and Benford 1992; Gerhards 1995; Gamson and Meyer 1996); and resource mobilization (McCarthy and Zald 1987; McAdam et al. 1996). These are the three analytical tools most commonly deployed (individually or in combination) at an academic level for the conceptualization, empirical research and comparative analysis of social movements of all types: old (workers’) movements; new movements (ecologism, pacifism, feminism, etc.) and very new movements (antiracism, Third World solidarity, etc.). The nationalist movement, however, has rarely been studied using these parameters. It is true that in the strictest sense of the term, nationalist movements are not social movements. The desire to occupy and thus exercise the political power of the state – which can in one form or another be seen in a section of many nationalist movements – is perceived as depriving them of the “purity”, in terms of objectives and organizational and strategic innovation, that social movements can boast. However, this exclusive approach is inadequate; nationalist movements are also social movements and in practice, they act like social movements; especially where their presence in the political institutions has little relevance in forming public policies, or this presence proves subsidiary to and dependent on processes of mobilization carried out outside the institutional political space by that same nationalist movement. But as McAdam et al. (2001), point out we must also seek to go beyond an exclusive and static analysis of social movements. On the one hand, social move-

ments are just another expression of the processes of political confrontation; and these processes of political confrontation include social mobilization, national struggles, emerging conflicts in democratic transitions, etc. At the same time all these processes of confrontation have common rules and similar mechanisms and relationships in the confluence and impetus of different processes of confrontation. And they act dynamically: these processes of confrontation have similar interrelations between players, resources and cultural and political opportunities. Certain mechanisms of connection of opportunities, identity changes, competition, polarization, intermediation, etc., connect the different dimensions (mobilizing structures, political contexts, discourses) of the life of the movements and make their action operative. Consequently, we believe that the application of this dynamic analytical model to nationalist political movements is more than mere “loan-usage” of an external model (borrowed from social movements). On the contrary, we believe that it is a particularly appropriate model, because the national conflict is one of the most classic forms of political confrontation and national conflicts are characterized by the fact that they establish dynamic and complex relations between an extensive set of variables related to the players and to the structures. For this reason, we think that the model is applicable to the two nationalist movements of which we wish to make a comparative study: the Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG) in Galicia (Spain) and the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Vasco (MLNV)1 in the Basque Country (Spain). The use of this triple framework and its interrelations may help us understand these nationalist social movements better. It may help us understand because, while both movements have emerged in the same state and have been affected by the same process of democratic transition and consolidation, the two have evolved very differently. The Galician movement has succeeded in advancing its demands, its relative position and its electoral support in Galician society. The MLNV, on the other hand, has not only failed to achieve these goals, but has actually lost electoral ground, becoming more and more isolated and encapsulated from the other Basque political forces, including the nationalist ones (PNV, EA). The second point we want to address is directly connected to this previous statement. It is only possible for a social movement to achieve results, to make a self-favouring impact in the political system, if it can adequately tackle the dimensions referred to by these three analytical tools. In effect, political opportunity structure, discursive frames and resource mobilization explain why the movements do what they do; they are analytical tools. But at the same time, for a social movement to achieve its ends, it must use these referents properly; and they are thus also regulatory tools. Thus, a social movement (nationalist in this case) achieves its goals insofar as it knows how to adapt to (or create in its favour) a certain political opportunity structure; insofar as the framing of its discourse resonates and is in tune with the predominant social discourses; and insofar as it knows how to augment and utilize different resources (including organizational ones) which will increase its capacity for pressure and influence – and, in addition, insofar as it manages to articulate these three dimensions.2