Karlo Basta & Astrid Barrio, “Mechanisms of Mobilization: Catalonia’s ‘Procés’ and the Lost Autonomy Theories of Secession,” Territory, Politics, Governance online first (2023). Click here to access.

Recent work on secession foregrounds the loss of autonomy in explaining support for independence. These theories imply that objective institutional shifts possess inherent meaning for the relevant political actors. In this article we propose that the meaning of institutional change must be actively constructed and cannot be read off the ‘objective’ characteristics of institutional change. Our analysis of secessionist mobilisation in Catalonia (Spain) between 2003 and 2017 specifies two mechanisms which we argue are necessary in order for institutional change to increase support for secession. First, an institutional shift must be framed as a loss. Second, this loss must be perceived as meriting secession. Thus, institutional change ought to be viewed not as an experience-distant objective phenomenon, but an experience-near social fact.

Karlo Basta & Ailsa Henderson, “An Uneasy State of Affairs: The United Kingdom and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics Vol. 27, No. 3 (2021): 293-310.

This article explores how the asymmetric institutionalization of the United Kingdom’s multinationality interacted with the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK’s political elite has traditionally accepted the country’s multinational character, but democratic institutionalization of it occurred relatively recently and in a remarkably asymmetric manner. Only the UK’s minority nations possess devolved governments, while the largest nation, England, is governed directly from the center. This framework has consequences for the pandemic response. It has clarified the relevance of devolved legislatures, but also highlights continued resistance of the UK’s governing elite to acknowledge the multi-level character of the state.

Karlo Basta, “Performing Canadian State Nationalism through Federal Symmetry,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2020): 66-84. Click here to access

In the growing literature on the management of differences in multinational states, institutions (such as territorial autonomy or power-sharing) are typically understood as means through which various stakeholders achieve their goals. This scholarship is largely silent on the expressive and symbolic dimensions of those institutions. This is a major oversight, limiting our understanding of the politics of multinational states. I demonstrate the importance of institutional meaning by exploring the politics of federal a/symmetry in Canada, particularly in response to Quebec’s demands for greater recognition. The article’s central argument is that formal federal symmetry expresses and symbolically reproduces Canadian state nationalism. Attention to the symbolic dimension of state institutions—including federal ones—has the potential to open up new avenues of understanding of both the politics of institutional change in multinational states and the impact such change might have on the stability and inclusiveness of those states.

Karlo Basta, “The State between Minority and Majority Nationalism: Decentralization, Symbolic Recognition, and Secessionist Crises in Spain and Canada”, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Vol. 48, No. 1 (2017); pp. 51-75 (*John Kincaid Best Article Award, Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations section of the American Political Science Association). Click here to access

This article addresses the debate about the relative utility of accommodative federalism as a method of conflict management in multinational states. Comparative scholarship on this issue assumes that territorial reform translates into political stability or instability through policy substance. This article tests that assumption against processes of institutional accommodation of Catalan and Quebecois demands for autonomy and recognition. The comparison demonstrates the absence of a linear relationship between institutional change and political instability. When autonomy for minority regions is extended without symbolic recognition, subsequent majority response unfolds in the policy arena, mostly through attempts to symmetrize autonomy arrangements (self-amplifying sequence). However, when the extension of territorial autonomy is combined with formal symbolic recognition, it paves the way for majority political backlash (reactive sequence). Open political opposition by a segment of majority political community, in turn, stimulates secessionist sentiment among members of minority community.

Karlo Basta, “Imagined Institutions: The Symbolic Power of Formal Rules in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, Slavic Review, Vol. 75, No. 4 (2016); pp. 944-969. Click here to access

Through a detailed examination of institutional discourses in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article demonstrates that formal political institutions may play a more layered role than is allowed by existing theories of nationalist and ethnic conflict. Competing institutional preferences of Bosniak, Serb, and Croat elites are not simply instruments for the achievement of collective or individual goals. They are symbolically salient expressions of collective identity as well. For Bosniak elites, the stated preference for a non-ethnicized territorial framework and majoritarian central government suggest the vision of a multiethnic, but not institutionally multinational, Bosnian political community. Their Serb and Croat counterparts, by contrast, insist on the continued “ethnicization” of the territorial architecture and the central government apparatus. These preferences express an understanding of Bosnia as a state of three discrete political communities. Any attempts at comprehensive institutional reform must thus reckon with the opposing and deeply embedded visions of institutions-as-symbols. The theoretical implications of this work go well beyond the Bosnian case.

Karlo Basta. “The State as a Symbol or a Means to an End: Internal Border Changes in Multinational Federations.” Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 20, No. 3 (2014), pp. 459-480. Click here to access

Federalism is an important institutional option for the management of difference in multinational states. A number of scholars have argued that the internal boundaries of such states should divide each constituent group into several federal units. In theory, boundary engineering of this type should activate cross-cutting cleavages, subvert secessionist movements and, ultimately, foster political integration and stability. This article, by contrast, demonstrates the conditions under which the subdivision of territorial units can destabilise polities. Where statehood is a central symbol in nationalist narratives of constituent groups, the fragmentation of the sub-state unit will be perceived as a threat to national identity of the group in question. The article compares former Yugoslavia and Nigeria, two cases in which such processes led to divergent outcomes.

Karlo Basta. “Non-ethnic Origins of Ethnofederal Institutions: The Case of Yugoslavia.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics Vol. 16, No. 1 (2010), pp. 92-110. Click here to access

Many scholars argue that the territorial accommodation of nationalist demands usually results from “ethnic” factors, such as the threat of ethnonationalism to the integrity of the state. Using the case of the former Yugoslavia, this article shows that explanations of ethnofederal outcomes must also consider non-ethnic political factors. In the Yugoslav case, the anti-statist ideology of the central leadership provided the autonomy-seeking actors with the discursive means to neutralize their centralist opponents and, in the process, to turn the state into a confederation.