Referendums on independence held in liberal democracies are rare, even more so when held without the consent of the central government. Both the unilateral Catalan referendum of 2017 and its repression, which had and still have a major impact in Catalonia and Spain, were extremely unusual events in a consolidated liberal democracy, and there are no records of similar cases in this context.

Jaume López and Marc-Sanjaume Calvet, professors with the Department of Political and Social Sciences at UPF, through a scientific paper published recently in the journal Representation. Journal of Representative Democracy, stress the importance of two factors that help explain this anomaly: strategic culture and rationality, which are relevant for explaining the behaviour of the political actors involved.

"Rationality and strategic culture are factors that comprise the variability of responses to demands for secession between countries". 

In their article, the authors claim that the responses by states to self-determination demands range from repression to tolerance and political dialogue, with many possible combinations between these two extremes. “Rationality and strategic culture are factors that comprise the variability of responses to demands for secession between countries. These two types of factors shape the likelihood of holding a referendum on independence”, they say.

The rationality of the Catalan referendum, explained by means of a mathematical model

According to the authors, the specific constitutional setting and historical and institutional factors are relevant to explain, for example, the reactions of the UK and Spain to the cases of Scotland and Catalonia, respectively. The political opportunity and the costs or benefits of the relevant actors were the key factors in explaining the behaviour of the state authorities, while the decrease in the degree of political autonomy is key to explaining the emergence of secessionist movements.

Jaume López and Marc Calvet-Sanjaume base themselves on the “competition proximity model”, a rational framework of choice proposed by Qvortrup (2014) to help better explain the call for referendums, which the authors apply to the case of Catalonia. This model suggests that the probability of carrying out a proposal for referendum (Pref) depends on the relationship between the competition (C) faced by the initiator of the referendum (Pi) and the distance squared between the preference of the initiator and the position of the average voter (Im).

According to Qvortrup, referendums are more likely to take place when the initiator faces strong competition (military, electoral or political) and this initiator feels that its policy more or less resembles the preferences of the majority of voters. Thus, the maximum likelihood of holding a referendum on independence would be in a context with strong competition (external and internal) between the possible organizer of the referendum and other political actors, combined with the close proximity between this option and preferences of the average voter.

Applied to the case of Catalonia, in 2017 the Catalan government faced the challenge of promoting its own plan of independence, in competition with the state and Catalan unionist parties (external competition). There was also strong competition between the separatist forces that made up the leading formation (Junts pel Sí) and the pro-independence parliamentary majority (internal competition). Thus, it can be said that competition (C) was great in both its internal and its external dimensions. Furthermore, most of the Catalan public opinion (average voter) supported the so-called “right to decide”, and therefore, the distance between the referendum initiator and the average voter was small.

From the point of view of the central government, the situation was the opposite. On the one hand, there was little competition on this subject, since the main party in opposition (PSOE) supported the anti-secessionist policies of the conservative government, i.e., C was small. Conversely, the average Spanish voter would have been far from accepting an agreement on a referendum on independence and, therefore, the distance between the initiator of the referendum and the average voter referendum in Spain was great (even though the referendum did have some, minority support among the Spanish population).

"Neither actor calculated all of the long-term consequences of their decisions".

According to the authors of the article, “neither actor calculated all of the long-term consequences of their decisions, since the referendum had (and still has) significant costs for the Catalan leaders, while repression has not reduced support for the independence of Catalonia”. They also emphasize that the independence parties won again at the Catalan elections called by the central government after the suspension of Catalan autonomy in October 2017. “Somehow, the referendum strengthened the existing positions of the two sides and produced a stalemate, with clear costs for Catalan leaders, but also for Spanish democracy”, they assert.

Strategic culture, an important element in explaining political behaviour

“Strategic culture”, understood as various political options to respond to the demands of secession that are not based on doctrines formalized on secession but on individualized historical experiences for each country, is another factor that may influence whether or not a referendum on independence is held. Faced with a demand for self-determination, the diversity of “strategic culture” between different countries determines the results of these experiences and processes, not only based on a rational calculation.

“Beyond the rationality approach, strategic culture has played a major role in the decision by the Spanish authorities not to allow a referendum on independence in Catalonia and to suppress the referendum of 2017. The precedent of the Basque conflict and the importance of Spanish unity, both for left-wing and right-wing parties, do not allow much room for manoeuvre”, the researchers argue. Thus, “strategic culture also plays a crucial role among Catalan secessionists, since grassroots demonstrations had always been in favour of the peaceful, democratic implementation of the ‘right to decide’”, they assure.

Other aspects analysed in the article by Jaume  López and Marc Calvet-Sanjaume are how the Catalan referendum was deployed; the demands by the different political actors and the possible implications for the study of independence referendums and their political uses; the search for explanations for the behaviour of the political actors, and some peculiarities and characteristics of the 2017 referendum in Catalonia compared to other unilateral referendums.

Reference article:  Jaume López, Marc Sanjaume-Calvet (febrer 2020). “The Political Use of de facto Referendums of Independence The Case of Catalonia”. Representation. Journal of Representative Democracy.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2020.1720790