THE CASE OF CATALONIA
A state is the same people living in the same dimension James Joyce (1882-1941)
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1. Introduction
The role of governments is now being put to the discharge as nationalist movements grow stronger in some of the close to developed countries of the world. The cases of Catalonia and the Basque Country in Spain, Québec in Canada, Scotland within the unite Kingdom and the region of Flanders in Belgium are starting to be debated in and outside of the respective countries. Nationalism is without a surmise growing in importance, and there are multiple factors that tote up to these revitalized movements. The fragmentation of the Soviet Union, the proliferation of transnational institutions, such as the European Union, and most importantly, globalization are challenging the handed-down concept of state, and more importantly, the concept of the nation1. This essay will call Guibernaus definition of nation as a ethnic community which shares a common past, attached to a intelligibly demarcated territory, and wishes to decide upon its policy-making future while lacking a state of its own2. This definition, however broad, defines all of the cases of modern nationalism alert today, and is especially useful for the Catalan case.
Catalonia fulfills every aspect of this definition. It is a community of people with a culture of its own, differentiated from the Spanish folklore and even more clearly stressed by a different language, Catalan. There is a clear demarcated territory, both
Montserrat Guibernau. Nations without States: Political Communities in a Global Age (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 1. 2 Ibid.
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historical and legal, and finally there is a wish for more political say within the current central government, which can be easily proven by the recently approved Catalan Statute of Autonomy (2006) which acknowledges Catalonia as being a nation, even so not officially, as it is stated...If you want to get a rich essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com
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