(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
role of violence as a movement strategy. He has also
drawn attention to the manner in which the Spanish
state sought to placate ethnic demands for separatism
by offering a form of regional autonomy to Euskadi,
Catalonia, Gallicia, and Andalucia. The gesture origi-
nally generated much euphoria but was followed by a
decade of disappointment that was manifest in what
he calls the “rejectionist option”-—-whereby the major-
ity of the electorate in the Basque provinces consis-
tently voted in an anti-Madrid fashion. The trend is
obvious in each-of the seven elections held since the
Basque Autonomy Statute entered force. The situation
was compounded by the post- 1987 trend in which
regionalist parties gained electoral strength in Valen-
cia, Aragon, Navarra, Majorca, Cantabria, and Canar-
ias—areas that had little, if any, sense of historical
regionalism. ' '
The nature of Basque nationalism is likely to change
as postindustrial Spain continues to evolve and adjust.
The trend toward a loosening of the central grip_on the
constituent regions is gathering pace here as in many
other European states. Clark forecasts that:
as advanced industrial societies become more com-
plex, diverse, and pluralistic, they require regimes
that are more decentralized, disaggregated, and
autonomous. In Spain, where the existing local and
provincial units may be too small or too restricted in
other ways to assume a vigorous role in the manage-
ment of society, the solution lies in the creation of
middle-range political entities called ‘meso-govem-
ments,’ smaller than the nation-state, but larger and
more encompassing than cities and provinces”
(p. 41).
This conclusion is valid for Italy, France, Belgium,
and the United Kingdom but unlikely to be adopted
willingly, especially in the latter.
If the drift toward separatism in Spain is contained,
however, a significant ethnic issue will remain in
Euskadi and Catalonia. There is increasing evidence
that the post-Franco reforms designed to introduce
Eusquerra and Catalan to new public domains, such as
education, commerce, the media, and the law, have
been less effective than anticipated in assimilating
nonindigenous Spaniards and North Africans into the
new nationalist social order.
The nation-state structure, though fiercely criticized,
is also a near-permanent political feature, and it will
structure the degree of regional autonomy available to
substate nationalities. A “Europe of the Nations” ideal
is still a long way removed from the regional eco-
nomic reality that most groups must face but, despite
the apparent impracticability of the desire for regional
autarky, remains one of the most strident voices heard
in Europe.
The Nation-State in Transition?
The nation-state is being challenged and reevaluated
by a number of contemporary forces, both from above
and from below. Within the new European order, two
trends have a particular bearing on the capacity of eth-
nolinguistic minorities to renegotiate their role in the
European division of labor. The first is the weakening
of national economic sovereignty and the transfer of
key economic powers from state legislatures to the
European Commission, and the second is the sharing
of political authority among units in the state system.
Despite the current difficulties with the European
Monetary Regime (ERM) and the post—Maastricht
negotiations, the European Union has gone a long way
toward an integrated management of the constituent
economies. It has established policies on competition,
trade, monetary exchange rates, science and techno-
logical research, and—to some extent—-foreign
affairs. At the regional level the growth of agreements
such as the -Four Motors program, which linked
Baden-Wurttemberg, Rhones Alpes, Lombardy, Cata-
lonia, and Wales, help sustain an element of relative
autonomy from the central state apparatus; this is par-
ticularly important for job creation and for construct-
ing a more diverse economic profile than has hitherto
been the case. In places like Catalonia and Wales,
where inhabitants continue to speak indigenous lan-
guages, this decentralization is an obvious way to
slow down outmigration and language shift, thereby
easing one of the key detenninants of ethnic antago-
nism. Such moves represent a broader pattern of
attempts that seek to bypass some central state author-
ity and nurture regional-level power.
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268