Do Catalans have ‘the right to decide’?: secession, legitimacy and democracy in twenty-first century Europe

Secession is normally viewed as legitimate only as a last resort for oppressed peoples, but contemporary independence movements in Europe are working hard to shift perceptions of the legitimacy of secession as a democratic phenomenon. In this context, the recent growth of the independence movement in Catalonia has given rise to a direct confrontation between two opposing conceptions of the legitimacy of secession in democratic nation-states. On one hand, pro-referendum Catalans claim that a vote on the matter would be entirely consistent with the basic principles of democracy. On the other, the Spanish government rests its denial of a referendum on the legal authority of the Spanish Constitution, which states that Spain must remain united. This article traces the two competing discourses of democratic and legal legitimacy (what we might call the ‘right to decide’ versus the ‘duty to abide’) through an examination of the rhetoric of key political actors. It concludes that the Catalan government’s attempt to prove that Catalonia could constitute a politically legitimate independent state, and should therefore be allowed to ask its residents whether they wish it to do so, is particularly significant as a challenge to generally-accepted ‘remedial right’ theories of secession

A Decade of Lost Growth: Economic Policy in Spain through the Great Recession

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in South European Society and Politics, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13608746.2017.1301065. Under embargo. Embargo end date: 27 June 2018. Keith Salmon, 'A decade of lost growth: economic policy in Spain through the Great Recession', South European Society and Politics, first published online 27 March 2017.In 2008 the Spanish economy sank into recession, returning to growth in 2014. This paper explores the policies that were pursued by two successive governments to escape the recession. It comments on one of the most contentious strategies, that of austerity, and underlines the constraints on policy imposed by membership of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and a decentralised state. The Great Recession and accompanying austerity policy were associated with huge social and economic costs. Policy targets on the debt and deficit were not met. This experience, together with the broader sluggish growth in Europe and the political consequences associated with austerity, pointed to the need for a new policy mix.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

From opposition to Government, the Popular Party of Mariano Rajoy

Il saggio esamina l'attività del Partito popolare e del suo leader Mariano Rajoy durante gli anni del governo socialista di Rodríguez Zapatero, sia dal punto di vista della costruzione della leadership, sia nell'opposizione parlamentare

Barcelona: municipalist policy entrepreneurship in a centralist refugee reception system

This article is a case study of Barcelona’s policy entrepreneurship in innovating refugee reception. In a context of a highly centralised and increasingly dysfunctional Spanish refugee reception system, it traces how Barcelona, after declaring itself a city of refuge, aimed to change refugee reception into a more decentralised and bottom-up system with a major role of cities. Following Minstrom and Norman, the article reconstructs the city’s policy entrepreneurship and shows how the city 1) led by example in developing innovative local policies; 2) developed political arguments for change from a municipalist stance in coalition with other cities at national and EU level; and 3) worked its arguments into more technical discussions on the future of integration funding in the EU. On the basis of these developments, the article reaches two main conclusions. First, while the different registers of policy entrepreneurship cannot be directly connected to any concrete change of the multi-level setup of refugee reception, they do represent a significant step forward in cities’ self-organisation beyond ideological lines and a factor contributing to a stronger recognition of cities in refugee reception in Europe. Second, while the literature on multilevel governance has an in-built bias towards more coordinated and harmonious relationships across tiers, the case of Barcelona shows that more attention should be paid to conflict and change.Some of the interviews used in this paper (those conducted by Blanca Garcés) were conducted with the financial support of the H2020 project CEASEVAL. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 770037 and acronym CEASEVAL. This publication reflects only the author’s view and therefore the European Union and its Research and Executive Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains