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ID:
137430
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| Summary/Abstract |
The recent emphasis placed by several mainstream nationalist parties in Europe on sovereignty objectives invites analysis of the drivers behind this phenomenon. Their evolution is characterized by a complex set of dynamics that influences their options when faced with strategic decisions over participation in an existing state and/or challenging it by pressing for statehood. Spain constitutes a major laboratory for studying such dynamics owing to a diverse range of nationally- oriented parties. The experiences of the Basque Country and Catalonia show the continued relevance of center-periphery cleavages, especially when aggravated by European and global pressures and constraints, but party positioning between accommodation and sovereignty politics is influenced too by changing relationships between Basque and Catalan nationalist elites and civil societies and between mainstream nationalist parties and their direct competitors within party systems.
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| 2 |
ID:
121440
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The European Union's recent experimentation with forms of partnership and co-ownership has found its most ambitious expression in its southern neighbourhood in the form of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). Initially pioneered by Nicolas Sarkozy in an attempt to reaffirm a leading role for France within Europe, the experiment has foundered on the difficulty of creating effective governance structures in a Euro-Mediterranean space noted for geopolitical complexity, uncertain and shifting boundaries and cultural hybridity. The UfM experience illustrates how region-building can regress when its focus area becomes too extended and overambitious or inappropriate forms of institutionalisation are attempted. Yet, once offered to partners, co-ownership may be difficult to retreat from. The EU has side-stepped the UfM in its initial response to the Arab Spring, but the latter itself may bring southern demands for more effective co-ownership in future regional cooperation frameworks.
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| 3 |
ID:
070970
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2006.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In July 2002 Spain and Morocco almost came to blows over a small island in the Strait of Gibraltar. Successive occupations of Parsley Island occurred during a protracted period of tension between the two countries. The sustained expansion of cooperation between the two countries in the 1980s and 1990s ultimately seemed to have failed to produce the regional stability that had been the prime objective of Spanish diplomacy. Increased interdependence between these Mediterranean neighbours had failed to deter them from resorting to pressure and military action. Theories of interdependence, though generally developed in relation to other contexts, suggest that Spanish-Moroccan relations were built upon too narrow an agenda, primarily economic, which failed to address 'difficult' aspects of the relationship, such as regime differences and historically based cultural tensions. Changes in the external relations priorities of the two states, both before and after 9/11, also contributed to the crisis, which was thus a product of changed circumstances as well as deficient strategy. Crisis resolution came through mediation by the United States following another CFSP failure for the EU, notwithstanding common Spanish-Moroccan commitment to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.
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