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5. Chapter Five: Conclusion
The goal of the thesis as mentioned at the outset was to contribute to our understanding of why and how certain nationalist movements persist in modern-day Europe despite the fact that fundamental nationalist concerns have already been assuaged. For this the thesis has employed discourse analysis based on the assumption that there must be an aspect of the region’s national identity that is still perceived as being compromised. Based on David Miller’s theory of the nation as an ethical community we have chosen the aspect of national life most associated with ethical understandings – social policy – as a point of reference for ethical representations of the nations in question. We have gauged the presence of ethical representations in this form by manner of three statements on nationalism and social policy as found in Béland and Lecours’ Nationalism and Social Policy:
1. Social policy may become a major component of the effort of nationalist movements to build and consolidate national identity, and an important target for nationalist mobilisation176: reference to social policy, redistributive programmes, public health care, education, criminal justice, social services, and issues of proportional representation in the central government.
2. “The focus of nationalist movements on social policy is not simply the product of economic self-interest, yet references to the fairness of financial transfers between territorial entities become effective mobilisation strategies”177: the fairness of financial transfers between territorial entities, and relative economic prosperity of the region.
176 Béland and Lecours, Nationalism and Social Policy, 23.
177 Ibid, 25.
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3. “It is intrinsic to the nature of contemporary (sub-state) nationalism that it puts forward claims about the existence of a national unit of solidarity where co-nationals have a special obligation to each other’s welfare, a situation viewed as being best fulfilled by having control over social policy”178: definitions of solidarity, region specific socio-economic ideology, social policy preferences, socio-economic values specific to the region, and regional economic interest in autonomy.
The thesis has taken the occurrence of the themes formulated behind the statements to indicate the espousal of these statements. This, in turn, has been taken to point at nationalists’ attempts at representing the nation as an ethical community, in which certain interpretations of obligations to fellow members are said to be prevalent in the form of a certain conception of social citizenship.
At the end of our research we can draw a number of conclusions with regard to the persistence of nationalist movements in modern-day Europe and the possible role played therein by ethical representations of the nation.
Firstly, we have found overwhelming evidence in support of the first of our theoretical statements. Social policy may become a major component of nationalist movements in their campaign for national autonomy or independence. The frequent references to social policies ranging from the more obvious redistributive measures such as unemployment benefits and pensions, to less obviously ethical areas such as public health care and education; bear witness to the focus some nationalist political parties draw on social policy when engaging in nationalist discourse. Political colour, in this regard, seems to be irrelevant. After all, the Scottish nationalists use a clearly left-of-centre discourse implying autonomy is a requirement for a fair and egalitarian
178 Béland and Lecours, Nationalism and Social Policy, 26.
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society; whereas the Flemish nationalists are arguing from the opposite side of the political spectrum claiming that autonomy will facilitate stricter and slimmer social policy as desired by the Flemish electorate.
Secondly, it could be said that regardless of whether or not autonomy is perceived as being economically beneficial to the region in question, references to the fairness or unfairness of financial transfers and existing social policy schemes are widely present in most of the nationalist discourse analysed. Although the topic of inter-regional transfers was less present in the Scottish case, references to financial transfers in the Flemish case were mostly concerned with justice and fairness. More specifically, the discourse seemed to imply that solidarity was not served in the current system, because the wrong definition of solidarity that the federal government or Francophones subscribed to. Instead, new definitions of solidarity were offered.
Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, we find a large number of unambiguous references to the existence of a national unit of solidarity where co-nationals have a special obligation to each other’s welfare. These specific obligations are used in the nationalist discourse as markers of national identity and thus distinctiveness. In the Scottish case we find that nationalists attempt to mobilise the electorate by affirming and reifying the idea that Scotland is a traditionally egalitarian and socially progressive nation in which far-reaching solidarity between members is a central element of being Scottish and Scottish society. This left-of-centre characterisation of social citizenship is then contrasted with the allegedly right-of-centre interpretations of obligations towards co-nationals prevalent in England.
The same type of discourse is clearly present in the Flemish case albeit in a different political colour. The Flemish nationalist discourse analysed seems to imply that Flemings are entrepreneurial, independent citizens which are invested in each other’s wellbeing as long as all members play by the social rules of the game. The emphasis
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in frugality, moderation, efficiency and hard work are quite different from the values stressed by the Scottish National Party, but they are of the same general type: they are ethical guidelines concerned with what social policy and the welfare state should look like. Should it be more extensive and interventionist such as in the case of Scotland, or strong but strongly conditional and focused on efficiency like in Flanders?
All in all, the clear presence of our themes and thus the use of the three arguments captured by the theoretical statements seem to indicate that nationalists in Scotland and Flanders are to some extent attempting to represent the nation as an ethical community.
Meaningful deductions with regard to the relevance of these representations, however difficult to assess, can be informed by looking at the general salience accorded to the nationalist parties in question. For this, we referred to their election results. In the Scottish case we found that, although there are surely many factors at play, the Scottish National Party has enjoyed a growing amount of electoral support; by 2011 they even attained an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament.
For the Flemish case we found that the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), too, has seen a more or less consistent increase of its public following as measured by election results.
Most recently, in May 2014 they received no less than 32% of the Flemish vote.
Although this thesis cannot be said to account for the nature of the election results in these two cases, it is reasonable to conclude that the nationalist parties’
representations of the nation as an ethical community through the articulation of specific ideas on social citizenship, find some degree of resonance with the electorate.
After all, the two parties in question clearly espouse the increased autonomy and eventual independence of the regions in which they are active, without having the possibility of making much mention of those traditional nationalist demands
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concerning representation, and the legal safeguarding of national culture and language.
Implications
One of the important elements the thesis’ findings draw attention to, concerns the distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism. In most of the literature sub-state nationalism is characterised as being more ethnic, whereas state nationalism tends to be viewed as more civic.179 This study’s findings, however, seem to indicate that there are sub-state nationalist movements out there that are essentially civic in nature.
After all, the thesis has demonstrated that in the cases at hand national identity and membership to the nation are defined for the most part by virtue of inclusion in the social solidarity community180, not on cultural or linguistic characteristics; let alone ethnic descent.
As far as the classic debate between primordialism and modernism goes, the findings of this study seem to point in the modernist direction as structural political and socio-economic realities together with possible existing perceptions seem to contribute to nationalist discourse and its relevance. Very little of the discourse examined in the thesis seems to make reference to the natural and historic conception of the nation. On the contrary, the emphasis seems to be on a common project stretching into the future and how more autonomy for the region – understood as a nation in the form of territory and public – can contribute to the successfulness of this national project with regard to the values claimed to be dominant among the public and elite alike.
179 Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992).
180 Béland and Lecours, Nationalism and Social Policy, 219.
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