Feuding Nationalism: A Review of Jaime Lluch's Visions of Sovereignty

Nationhood is complicated. A major threat to large democracies is the presence of multiple nations within their borders that rupture the sanctity of the unified nation-state. Though the nationalism of yesterday is often looked at in terms of majority-nation nationalists and the patriotic picture that they painted for the rest of the world to see; the nationalism of today is minority-nation nationalism, which presents internal challenges for multinational democracies. Today, nationalism manifests itself in referenda of secession rather than rallies for unity. Jaime Lluch confronts these contemporary forms of nationalism and the problems that they present for democracies in his book, Visions of Sovereignty: Nationalism and Accomodation in Multinational Democracies, which examines Catalonia in Spain and Quebec in Canada, both deemed nations, with a refined theoretical approach. The primary objective of Visions of Sovereignty is to present what Lluch calls the thesis, which explains why and in what ways stateless nations seek forms of self-determination. Lluch continues to pursue a novel argument by shattering the standard dualism that presents nationalist visions of sovereignty as either secessionist or non-secessionist. There are two theories formed before Lluch's that he claims are insufficient: the national consciousness thesis and the materialist thesis. The national consciousness thesis asserts that variation within national movements and their inclination to seek self-determination depends upon cultural agreements on national identity and values. The research presented in Visions of Sovereignty, though limited to Catalonia and Quebec, persuasively demonstrates that most nationalists, despite disagreement over policy, maintain a national consciousness: all agree on the status of their stateless nation. The theory depends on a homogeneous national consciousness, based on central cultural values, that supposedly guides nationalists. In showing that several national parties in a given country share central cultural values, yet are heterogeneous in political orientation, this theory is insufficient for explaining such variance in national movements. The materialist thesis asserts that economic considerations are the primary motivator for the actions of nationalist movements. Yet Lluch's research shows overwhelmingly that economic considerations are rarely the primary or even secondary focus for nationalist militants, at least in Catalonia and Quebec. Lluch does, however, include several brief examples of similar cases in national movements across the globe, widening his lens to make a crucial point: the economy is rarely the priority for nationalists. His moral thesis could be briefly summarized as the political alternative to the above theories, focused on cultural and economic considerations respectively. Lluch's unique and original theory outlines how, in multinational democracies, nationalists consider themselves as part of polity wherein stateless nations have expectations of reciprocity, accommodation, and recognition by the central state to which they belong. As a result, nationalism arises by the perceived dominating, homogenizing, and incompetent rulership of the central state. Nationalists express their discontent in the political pursuit of sovereignty. However, Lluch continues to argue against the standard dualism that presents nationalist visions of sovereignty as either secessionist or non-secessionist. He argues that nationalism in multinational democracies has three major political orientations: independentism, autonomism, and federalism, each with different visions of sovereignty embodied by their own political parties. Independentists favor secession from the central state, federalists support decentralization, and autonomists stand somewhere between the two, often non-secessionist but seeking special status and privileges. …

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