ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that how activists made sense of the referendum shaped how they organized protests afterwards. It reconstructs how a frame dispute about the meaning of the referendum emerged after the event. While some activists claimed that the referendum represented a legitimate mandate for secession, others saw it as a successful mobilization but not a final vote on independence. Those who saw the referendum as legitimate demanded unilateral action in the form of civil disobedience, whereas the other camp opted for enlarging the social basis of the independence movement. The chapter looks at organizational processes of the 3‐O and 8‐N general strikes to show that these strategic debates led to more deliberation within organizations and to declining interorganizational collaboration.
