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Political tensions created by Catalonian secessionism within Spain are unsettled one year after the failed proclamation of independence at 27th October 2017. A big segment of citizens (38% - 48% of the region population) supports secession, but there is another portion of citizenry, of similar size, that has resisted secessionist aspirations. Secessionism acquired forceful impetus along the last decade, wining consecutive regional elections and two (illegal) consultations about self-determination. A rise of activism, however, showed by unionists both at street demonstrations and at the last Regional election, consolidated a draw within a deeply polarized and divided society. We present an analysis of survey data that distinguish prevalent mood and emotion profiles among unionist vs. secessionist segments. Despite their protracted and unsuccessful venture, secessionists felt much less tired and confused than unionists, and they referred to be much less fearful and more hopeful about political and economic future. We link those distinctive feelings and disparate beliefs about current difficulties with a cognitive distortion noticeable only among secessionists, about the real magnitude of their force. We discuss these findings connecting such cognitive and affective profiles with features of a compounded ethno-cultural frontier based mainly on habitual language (Catalan vs. Spanish) and family-descent origins that have probably worked as the principal alignment vector. This social cleavage might function as a fracture line for extremist aggravations of a serious political conflict within the European Union.

Different kinds of evidence are put forward to make an argument and justify political action by agents situated in diverse social, cultural, and power positions. The Catalan political conflict is a case in point. The central Spanish government's arguments are mostly of a juridical nature and rest on the anti-constitutionality of the Catalan government and other civil society organizations' actions. Instead, most arguments of Catalan supporters of independence are based on historical interpretations of grievances referring to national institutions and identity. Supporters of independence, under the politically inspired actions of major civil society associations, have mobilized hundreds of thousands of Catalans in massive demonstrations and have used media in a very efficient manner. The judicial responses to the secessionist process have used legality (police, prison) to allow repression, while the repeated anti-constitutional actions of the Catalan government have been justified as legitimated by popular support and by a historical accumulation of grievances.

Màster de Ciutadania i Drets Humans: Ètica i Política, Facultat Filosofia, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2014-2015, Tutor: José A. Estévez Araujo, “I believe every Scotsman should be a Scottish Nationalist.” Unionist MP John Buchan (Cited in Stewart, 2009, pg19) . Throughout the 20th Century one party, more than any other, dominated Scottish Politics. They hammered the first nail into their own coffin in 1965, however, when they changed their name in an effort to appear more contemporary and modern. Up until that point they had been known as the Scottish Unionist party although they weren’t named after the Union of 1707 that bonded the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The Union in their name referred to the Union between Ireland and Great Britain that took place in 1801. The dominant political party in Scotland of the 20th Century was born out of opposition to Irish home rule. It is telling that so entrenched was Scotland in the Union of Great Britain that not only was it not campaigning for its own independence, its most popular party was campaigning against the independence of another of the Union’s nations. It is also telling that when they changed their name, in an effort to modernise, they took the first steps towards their complete alienation from the Scottish electorate. In 1965, realising that the Ir ish Union of 1801 didn’t hold much relevance in contemporary Scottish politics the Unionists decided to change their name so that they’d share the name of the party they were associated with in England. They became the Scottish Conservatives.