Abstract
Bhaswati Sarkar focuses on the current Catalan crisis confronting Spain. She argues that notwithstanding the post-national identity that some scholars discern, the nation-state and national identity itself is far from a settled question in Europe, both in the east and the west. Tracing Catalonia’s historical incorporation in Spain’s empire to its existence in post-Franco Spain, the author shows how the question of Catalan identity has persisted. Moves to recalibrate the economic aspect alone without addressing the question of the Catalan ‘nation’ cannot end the stand-off. The author also focuses on the European Union’s studied silence on the crisis, in contrast to earlier instances of unilateral declarations of independence. Drawing on the Indian experience, she argues that both Spain and India look for solutions within their constitutional frameworks.
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Sarkar, B. (2019). Nation-State Unsettled: Spain’s Catalan Challenge. In: Sachdeva, G. (eds) Challenges in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1636-4_5
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