The rise of separatist nationalismwithin liberal-democratic states: two case studies.

This paper examines the growth of separatist nationalism, defined as a type of nationalism which aspires to transform a non-sovereign political entity into a sovereign nation-state, within two liberal-democratic polities at different periods of time. The cases considered are Ireland prior to 1918 (when Sinn Fein won a majority of Irish seats in a British election) and Quebec prior to 1976 (when the Parti quebecois won a majority of Quebec seats in a provincial election) There are some obvious differences between these two cases: Quebec already enjoyed limited autonomy within a federation, while Ireland did not, Quebec in 1976 was much more urban and industrialized than Ireland in 1918, Ireland actually became independent within a few years of the election while Quebec did not. Nonetheless there are numerous similarities: in both cases the separatist party replaced a moderate, non-separatist nationalist party which had previously been dominant, both had dominant and historically privileged minorities that resisted nationalism, but in both cases the majority group was narrowing the gap in terms of material wealth, education, and access to opportunity, in both cases there was increasing preoccupation with linguistic and cultural issues on the part of the rising middle class, and in both cases demands for greater autonomy without separation from the existing state had been frustrated. In both cases anxieties about cultural survival coexisted with a growing confidence in the possibility of forming and maintaining a viable state, as well as a sense of rejection by the larger entity to which they were attached. The paper uses these two cases to test a number of theories from the literature on nationalism that seek to explain the emergence of separatist nationalism, as well as more specific explanations that have been suggested for the emergence of the sovereignty movement in Quebec [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]