This thesis is a comparative analysis of nationalism in Quebec, Scotland, and Catalunya and the perspectives of nationalist parties towards questions of constitutional change within the broader Canadian, United Kingdom, and Spanish states. It is the goal of this thesis to analyse how minority national groups view themselves within the constitutional framework of multinational states and what arguments they make for greater recognition for their national communities. All of the nationalist parties under discussion argue that the distinct position of the minority national group is not sufficiently recognised within the state. How this recognition can be achieved is of primary concern to nationalists and shapes their approach towards constitutional dialogue. Nationalist parties adopt various approaches towards constitutional reform in an effort to achieve either a reform of the existing state or the secession of the minority national group's territory from the state. This thesis analyses these approaches as advocated by the parties themselves and by other political and academic participant-observers. In examining the Catalan, Quebecois, and Scottish cases this thesis compares the unique asymmetrical arrangements that each state has adopted as a means to accommodate the minority national groups. Many nationalists argue that this evolving asymmetry is insufficient to meet the goal of greater recognition, leading to their advocating various federal, con federal, and secessionist options. After considering the various constitutional options that are presented this thesis argues that promoting a higher degree of constitutional and administrative asymmetry is an effective means of bringing greater recognition to Scotland, Quebec, and Catalunya within the state. The qualitative analysis in this thesis is based upon original research and a review of available secondary source material. The original research consists largely of data obtained from personal interviews and from an analysis of party documents. The personal interviews were conducted in Scotland, Quebec, and Catalunya with political participant-observers, including members of nationalist parties and individuals involved in developing constitutional policy and with academic participant-observers who specialise in constitutional politics. The thesis is divided into four sections. The first section includes the introduction that outlines the research method and Chapter 1 that examines various theoretical approaches to nationalism. The second section lays the groundwork for the following two sections. It consists of chapters two to four, which examine the historical evolution of nationalism in Quebec, Catalunya, and Scotland from its antecedents to the late twentieth century, paying particular attention to the evolution of nationalist political thought. The third section consisting of chapters five to seven is the main analytical section. In each of these chapters the constitutional framework of each state and the nationalist response are analysed through an examination of constitutional documents and party manifestos, leaders' speeches, and other policy material. Data obtained from interviews is analysed here. The fourth and final section is made up of the conclusion and a comparative analytical chapter that draws the three cases together through an analysis of various constitutional options in the three multinational states.

All western states today define themselves as nation-states, and all of these states have a political and economic structure in which an individual’s right to own private property is an underlying and pervasive feature. Drawing on examples from the historical trajectories of the US and Norway between ca 1760 and 1880, this dissertation explores the development of nation-states and the role of private property rights in this development. I demonstrate the fundamental role both of the idea of private property for the ideology of nationalism, and of the significance of a particular kind of property regime (widespread landowning) for the emergence and development of nationalism as historical phenomena. The evidence on which this dissertation relies has been extracted from historical documents consisting primarily of political pamphlets and speeches. The documents are chosen from what we can call “the national movement” e.g. dominant public debaters, policymakers and agitators. To compliment and contextualize my documentary analysis I have drawn on a range of secondary literature on social, historical and economic developments. The analysis has sought to unravel nationalism as an emerging historical phenomena in each of the cases investigated by focusing on authorial meaning in specific historical contexts. The core concept of nationalism has been arrived at by continuously comparing the developments in the US and Norway. The main points that this dissertation make are that it was the emergence of more widespread smallholding of land that was one of the most decisive preconditions for the emergence of nationalism in the US and Norway. Furthermore, this dissertation suggest that widespread ownership of land resulted in the emergence of a form of nationalism in which ownership of landed property was crucial because it became tied up with the idea of national popular sovereignty. Put in a simplified way: sovereignty was popular because property was popular (widespread). This connection was made mainly on the one hand from the real historical tie between ownership of land, juridical sovereignty and political powers, and on the other hand from the more conceptual similarity between property rights or ownership and sovereignty. I have identified two forms of nationalism based on the way that property was understood in the national ideology. The first form of the nation describes the agrarian phase of nationalism where it was real landed property that was seen to be crucial for the creation of national sovereignty. The second form of the nation describes a form of industrial nationalism. With the coming of industrial property and the expansion of wage labour, landed property lost its significance, and instead the right to the fruits of one’s labour was understood as the most important part of the property right. I have called this a shift from land to labour, or a transvaluation of property. This property rights perspective on nationalism in the US and Norway contributes to a new understanding of nationalism not only in these places but perhaps also in the western world in general. The development in the US and Norway can be seen in the wider context of the decline of feudalism and absolutism and the emergence of democratic, industrial societies in the western world. The landed, agrarian form of nationalism might in effect be a ‘missing link’ between pre- or proto-national forms of society (feudal, religious, absolutist, mercantilist, etc.), and the fully modern industrial form identified for example by Ernest Gellner. It is the connection between property (from land to labour) and sovereignty that unites them.

Debates on nationalism highlight loyalty and solidarity as the main benefits of a shared national identity, at the same time contrasting nationhood with universalist models of political action. This interdisciplinary thesis attempts to show nationalism as part of a broader project of modernity. In doing so, I defend a comprehensive view of nationhood, which, I argue, accounts for the recent transformation of nationhood, and explains the potential of national identity to open to universal values and norms. First, I put forward my view of nationhood, which defines nations as forms of political experience. I argue that nations have an ability to create a common public world. Second, by investigating the idea of the modern self and its relationship with individual autonomy, this thesis shows that modernity is characterised by a tension between rational autonomy and subjectivisation. This political self, I argue, develops in a bounded political community. Third, I argue that nations provide access to a common world in which everyone is recognised as moral and political agents. The paradoxical nature of the modern self takes advantage of the capacity of nations to be a source of solidarity that transcends national borders.

This thesis proposes a legal and organizational approach to better understand processes of modernisation and the emergence of nationalist conflict. Theories of nationalism tend to be significantly influenced by state-centred and rather abstract positivist interpretations of law. Legal perspectives that have proposed understating law in relation to findings developed through the empirical study of law, such as legal realism or legal pluralism, have questioned positivist conceptions of law, emphasising the historical processes that created such conceptions of law, and the relationship between legal praxis and conceptions of society. Presumptions about personhood and society such as those influencing nationalist conflict may not be unrelated to legal existence and legal practice. Social actors’ interpretations of law, and the capacity of social authorities to mobilize human and material resources in defence of certain conceptions of law, may have been able to influence legal and political histories of European states, as well as the national or regional identities that would develop in relation to legal recognition and legitimate exercise of types and degrees of social powers. The historical study of Spanish and Basque nationalisms, although generally involving constant references to law – especially to constitutional law and to the fueros – tends to overlook the influence that social actors’ perceptions of legal order may have had in shaping the emergence of nationalist conflicts. Often, the focus is directed towards factors related to ethno-linguistic features or political ideologies. This thesis studies a historical puzzle, one that appears to have been influenced by legally defined entities, that have influenced the legal and political history of the state, and that may have influenced the development of a Basque-Spanish nationalist conflict: the different jurisdictional and ideological paths followed by key social majorities in Navarre and Euskadi between 1876 and 1936 after at least a century of displaying a rather similar position in regards to the state.

The central question of this thesis is: “How can people be mobilised to feel strongly attached to or invest into their nations?” Following a review of literature on the psychology of nationhood, a social identity approach towards national attachment is suggested. The possibility of the family metaphor (e.g. fatherland) as a rhetorical device anchoring the nation in filial qualities (e.g. belonging) is discussed. In the first study, establishing the general prevalence of family metaphors and aiming to test their use as a means of mobilisation, the content of language corpora, speeches, parliamentary debates and national anthems is analysed. The results demonstrate frequent use, especially in connection to mobilisation (e.g. in speeches). Study II tests whether merely linking a stimulus to a family metaphor will elicit a positive response and increase national identification. It does so by presenting a student sample (n = 149) with a neutral picture stimulus with different titles including family terms and family metaphors; no effects of any particular picture title on national identity emerged, but a considerable share of participants provided negative Nazi-related associations when primed with ‘fatherland'. Given the apparent relevance of meaning, the third study employed a word association task to provide a more in-depth account of German (n = 119) and British students' (n =138) common associations for family metaphors, confirming that some participants associate them with a negative past (e.g. WW II) or negative politics (e.g. nationalism). In an attempt to avoid the impact of said negative associations, Study IV draws on brotherhood – the metaphor seen as most positive – adding a call for ‘working in unity as volunteers', i.e. a context matching the metaphoric use in anthems, contrasting it with a) a call to work ‘as citizens' or b) a non-matching context (‘being devoted'). While it was assumed that such a fitting mobilisation context (i.e. ‘working together') would be buttressed by a family metaphor, similar results emerged. In a sample (n = 102) matched to the overall population, the brother metaphor did not have an effect on national identification and participants reported lower agreement with a statement presented together with a family metaphor, often providing associations of nationalism or Nazism. The fifth study responded to the frequent associations of the Second World War by providing British (n = 109) and German (n = 113) students with a distant past (1830s) or WW II context prior to presenting a text that was either using family metaphors or not. It aimed to test whether avoiding a link to the Second World War would alleviate the negative associations. However, the results pointed in the opposite direction, i.e. German participants were more likely to invest in their nations if family metaphors and the 1930s occurred together, albeit the negative understanding of family metaphors provided in the previous studies remained, which can be interpreted as an expression of collective guilt. In the last study, a fictitious nation was presented to a general student sample at the University of St Andrews (n = 198) as either trying to achieve independence through militant struggle or building cultural institutions. As in the previous studies, the majority of participants saw family metaphors as negative, and only a small minority from countries with a higher acceptance of power-distance described them in a positive light. This thesis argues that, in the light of the results, the family metaphor has to be understood as evoking historically situated meanings and is seen as essentialising nationhood, a notion predominantly not matching the understanding participants had of their nation and consequently being rejected. It suggests that a) (national) identity research needs to be aware of context and b) other frameworks for exalted attachment should be investigated.

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The concept of ideology's theory-building potential has been under-exploited in studies of contemporary nationalism. This study offers a novel approach to 'neo-nationalism' by defining it as an ideology, embedding it in a theory of discourse, and extending this framework to a methodology based on text analysis. Qualitative deconstruction of texts using the tools of literary theory is one of the research methods used, complemented by evidence from elite interviews and a survey of primary sources. In order to illustrate how neo-nationalism is discursively constructed, the core of the ideology is distinguished from its periphery. Furthermore, parties are characterised as ideologues in contemporary society and placed within the postmodern framework of discourse theory. Case studies of the Scottish National Party and the Christlich-Soziale Union in Bavaria examine their interpretations of nationalist ideology through analysis of the rhetoric used in recent election campaigns. The parties are of particular interest because they attempt to reconcile core nationalist goals with contemporary political issues, such as that of integration within the European Union. The SNP is an example of a neo-nationalist party in that it pursues its core, immutable goal of prioritising the nation by promoting Scottish autonomy within a larger European framework. The CSU, on the other hand, is neo-nationalist in that its policies and rhetorical appeals revolve around a national nodal point articulated in terms of the Heimat. It has sought to defend Bavarian autonomy by profiling itself as the archetypal Bavarian party with an important role to play in both the German and European political arenas. The case studies demonstrate that a nationalist party's support for European integration may reinforce rather than undermine its core commitment to self-determination. Moreover, the ideological constructs developed by neo-nationalist parties can usefully be characterised in terms of discourse theory. Both the CSU and the SNP seek to 'de-contest' their interpretations of the nation and achieve conceptual hegemony by establishing their ideology as 'common sense'. Post-modem theory thus not only provides the epistemological grounding of the study, but also paves the way for a methodological approach designed to analyse neo-nationalism in its specificity.

This thesis examines the EU's influence on regional cooperation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Mercosur in South America and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) by drawing on concepts from diffusion studies. It argues that conventional perspectives have tended to view different cases of regionalism as independent phenomena reflecting particular structural, institutional or ideational conditions, mainly internal to the respective region itself. I propose instead to conceive of regional organisations as asymmetrically interdependent, in that the EU as the most successful regional grouping in the international system influences other regional organisations in important respects; yet in ways that are ill-captured by the conventional depiction of external influence as a form of coercion. The central question addressed in this thesis is thus: Under what conditions and in what ways does the EU affect the trajectory of formal rules in regional cooperation elsewhere? I advance three main arguments. First, I suggest that given the EU's ideational and material power in global regionalism, it is likely to act as a focal point in debates about regional rule change around which actors' expectations converge when being confronted with an exogenous cooperation problem. This renders EU influence difficult to escape. Second, I argue that there are two dynamics by which EU influence affects outcomes in global regionalism - the EU as switchman and as driver. While the former leads policy-makers to choose EU-type rules instead of similarly viable alternatives given a particular cooperation problem, the latter affects the very incentives for regional rule change and thereby acts as an independent driver of regional cooperation. Third, I argue that, in terms of outcomes, EU influence has been highest in SADC, lower in Mercosur and lowest in ASEAN, mainly reflecting different degrees of material and ideational interdependence between the EU and other regions. Yet, policy-makers' widespread reluctance to share national sovereignty has sharply delineated the boundaries of EU influence in all three regions. I test these arguments across three central areas of regional cooperation: market building, institution building and community building.

En explorant les relations complexes entre nationalisme, race et ethnicité en Guadeloupe, ce travail analyse les différentes manières dont les Guadeloupéens s'identifient collectivement. L'enquête ethnographique sur laquelle cette recherche se fonde consiste en une immersion au sein de trois types d'organisations : les partis politiques et syndicats anticapitalistes et anticolonialistes, les organisations promouvant le patrimoine culturel et religieux indien et un syndicat d'employeur majoritairement blanc créole, représentant les plus grandes entreprises de l'archipel. Si cette étude retrace la généalogie des discours formalisés portant sur l'identité élaborés dans ces espaces par les classes moyennes et élites « noire », « indienne » et « blanche » elle examine également les interactions du quotidien afin d'en évaluer la véritable influence. / By exploring the intricate relations between nationalism, race and ethnicity, this dissertation analyzes the various ways in which Guadeloupians identify collectively. The ethnographic research on which this inquiry is based consists of an immersion in three different kinds of organizations: anti-colonial and anti-capitalist/nationalist political parties and trade unions, organizations promoting Indian Guadeloupian cultural and religious heritage and a mostly White Creole employee union representing the archipelago's top companies. While this research traces back the genealogy of the formalized discourses on identity that are elaborated in these contexts by the Black, Indian and White middle classes and elites it also examines everyday-life interactions in order to gauge their actual influence.

For much of its recent history, the Kachin State of northern Myanmar has been wrought with civil warfare that has come to define its image from the outside, as well as being a key signifier in the conceptual life worlds of many of its ethnic nationalities. While Myanmar is currently witnessing significant – if still uncertain – political and economic transitions, the Kachin State remains largely marginalized from these processes. Rather than an absence of state power, however, this marginalization had led to competing projects of statecraft vying over resources, military control and popular legitimacy in the highly fragmented territorialities. In this thesis I engage this complex landscape through the nexus of formal schooling, organized religion, and ethno nationalist politics. My primary ethnographic focus is on the emergence ‐ of several private schools led by a younger generation of Kachin educators. I am asking why these schools arose at this point in time and what has motivated their leaders to strive for institutional autonomy in settings long characterised by a scarcity of human and material resources. I argue that, in addition to their explicitly stated pedagogical aims, these initiatives are serving particular visions of social and political development, defined by Christian moralities and ethno‐nationalist ideologies. As such, their practice can be read as a form of critique towards the established systems of schooling and governance led by the central state of Myanmar, as well as that of the Kachin Independence Organization, the main contender for political self‐determination in the area. Decades of perceived marginalization of the Kachin populace of northern Myanmar are the principal motivator for the leaders of these educational projects. However, important points of tension also exist within the Kachin society itself, both in the fields of schooling and religion. A focus on the institutions of private education thus enables me to ask questions about the nature of local political authority, ethnic identification, and the influence of organized religion more generally. By employing a historical perspective to complement my ethnographic material, I am tracing the emergence of ideas, practices, and institutions of schooling that were born from the missionary encounter and decades of military conflicts. These, together with the more recent cosmopolitan ideas of modernity, lie at the heart of contemporary efforts to provide alternative paths to schooling, and to attain the dreams of social development for the Kachin society that the educators seek.