Abstract
The historical roots of what is commonly called the Basque problem do not coincide with the year 1959, when the radical nationalist underground organization Euskadi ‘ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Country and Freedom) was founded. Basque nationalism is now more than 100 years old and its radical, violent wing cannot be regarded as the predominant feature of that history, which started in 1895 when Sabino Arana Goiri founded the first cell of the Basque Nationalist Party, the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV). This party is now, together with the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), the oldest active party in the political system of the Spanish state.
Spain (…) is a case of early state-building where the political, social and cultural integration of its territorial components — nation-building — was not fully accomplished.
Juan Linz1
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Notes
J. Linz, ‘Early State–Building and Late Peripheral Nationalisms against the State: the Case of Spain’, in: S.N. Eisenstadt and St Rokkan (eds): Building States and Nations: Analyses by Regions, Vol. II (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1973), pp. 32–116, quotation p. 33.
L. González Antón, Espana y las Españas (Madrid: Alianza 1997), p. 9.
H. Schulze, Staat und Nation in der europäischen Geschichte (München: Beck, 1994), p. 139 (my translation).
B. Jenkins and S. Sofos, ‘Nation and Nationalism in Contemporary Europe: A Theoretical Perspective’, in: B. Jenkins and S. Sofos, (eds): Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe (London: Routledge 1996), pp. 9–32, quotation p. 10.
J. M. Jover Zamora, La civilizatión española a mediados del siglo XIX (Madrid: Espasa–Calpe, 1992), p. 100.
A. Morales Moya, ‘Los orígenes de la administración pública contemporánea’, in: A. Morales Moya and M. Esteban de Vega, (eds): La historia contemporánea en España (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1996), pp. 53–72, quotation p. 57.
For this, and other possible concepts of ‘nation’ see P. Alter, Nationalismus (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1985), especially p. 23.
For the famous definition of the state, see M. Weber, ‘Die rationale Staatsanstalt und die modernen politischen Parteien und Parlamente (Staatssoziologie)’, in: M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 5th edn (Tübingen: Mohr, 1980), pp. 815–68, especially p. 824.
An overview of this debate with an extensive bibliographical ‘state of the art’ can be found in L. Mees, ‘Der spanische “Sonderweg”: Staat und Nation(en) im Spanien des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts’, in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 40, 2000, pp. 29–66.
G.L. Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1977).
For the theoretical background, see Ch. Tilly, ‘Western State–Making and Theories of Political Transformation’, in: Ch. Tilly (ed.): The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp. 601–38.
A.D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).
The fuerismo would be the Basque protonationalist equivalent to the ‘phase A’ in Miroslav Hroch’s model of the evolution of smaller nationalist movements in nineteenth–century Europe. Contrary to Hroch’s typology, however, protona–tionalism was in the Basque Country not only cultural, but from its very beginnings also political. See M. Hroch, Social Preconditions and National Revival in Europe: A Comparative Analysis of the Social Composition of the Smaller European Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
Concerning fuerismo and Carlism, see B. Clavero, Fueros vascos: Historia en tiempo de Constitutión (Barcelona: Ariel, 1985).
J. Extramiana, Historia de las Guerras Carlistas, 2 vols, (San Sebastián: Luis Haramburu, 1979).
V. Garmendia, La ideologia carlista (1868–1876): En los orígenes del nacionalismo vasco (San Sebastián: Diputación Forai de Guipúzcoa, 1984).
J. Fernández Sebastián, La génesis del fuerismo. Prensa e ideas polftícas en la crisis del Antiguo Régimen (País Vasco, 1750–1840), (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1991).
J. Juaristi, El linaje de Aitor: La inventión de la traditión vasca (Madrid: Taurus, 1987).
M.C. Mina, Fueros y revolutión liberal en Navarra (Madrid: Alianza, 1981).
J. Alvarez Junco, ‘La nación en duda’, in: J. Pan–Montojo (ed.), Más se perdió en Cuba: España, 1898 y la crisis de fin de siglo (Madrid: Alianza, 1998), pp. 405–75.
See also S. Balfour, The End of the Spanish Empire (1898–1923) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
M. González Portilla, La formatión de la sociedad capitalista en el País Vasco, 2 vols, (San Sebastian: Luis Haramburu, 1981).
M. Gárate, El proceso de desarrollo económico en Guipúzcoa (San Sebástian: Cámara de Comercio de Guipúzcoa, 1976).
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© 2003 Ludger Mees
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Mees, L. (2003). Why It Began: a Strong Periphery within a Weak State. In: Nationalism, Violence and Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403943897_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403943897_2
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