Catalonia

Since the publication of Catalonia: nation-building without a state in 2001, Catalonia’s political life has undergone a remarkable transformation. The idea of an independent and sovereign Catalonia, which for decades had been relegated to the margins of Catalan politics, has become: the formal objective of Catalonia’s nationalist parties; the raison d’être of a strongly mobilized social movement; and the primary option of as much as half of Catalonia’s residents. In 2017, this drive to independence even led to a failed unilateral declaration of independence. How can this transformation be best explained and what does it portend for the future of Catalonia and Spain? In the new edition of the book, these questions are the central focus of four entirely new chapters and a rewritten concluding chapter. As well, the edition contains a new chapter on Spain’s transition to democracy that establishes the edition’s fundamental argument: the roots of Catalan secessionism lie in the failure of Spain’s political institutions to accommodate Spain’s plurinationality and in the continued influence of a Spanish state nationalism that denies plurinationality outright.