Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology Nationalisms in the European Arena Trajectories of Transnational Party Coordination Margarita Gómez-Reino Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology Series Editors Carlo Ruzza Department of Sociology and Social Research University of Trento Trento, Italy Hans-Jörg Trenz Department of Media, Cognition & Communication University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology addresses contemporary themes in the field of Political Sociology. Over recent years, attention has turned increasingly to processes of Europeanization and globalization and the social and political spaces that are opened by them. These pro- cesses comprise both institutional-constitutional change and new dynam- ics of social transnationalism. Europeanization and globalization are also about changing power relations as they affect people’s lives, social net- works and forms of mobility. The Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series addresses linkages between regulation, institution building and the full range of societal repercussions at local, regional, national, European and global level, and will sharpen understanding of changing patterns of attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups, the political use of new rights and opportunities by citizens, new conflict lines and coalitions, societal interactions and networking, and shifting loyalties and solidarity within and across the European space. We welcome proposals from across the spectrum of Political Sociology and Political Science, on dimensions of citizenship; political attitudes and values; political communication and public spheres; states, commu- nities, governance structure and political institutions; forms of political participation; populism and the radical right; and democracy and democratization. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/series/14630 Margarita Gómez-Reino Nationalisms in the European Arena Trajectories of Transnational Party Coordination Margarita Gómez-Reino Universidad Nacional de Educación a Dist Madrid, Spain Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology ISBN 978-3-319-65950-3 ISBN 978-3-319-65951-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65951-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954729 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans- mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Cover illustration: FrankRamspott/Getty Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To my parents, Manuel and Isabel Preface European integration was intended to become the graveyard of national- ism. Instead European integration has allegedly triggered the resurface and renewal of nationalisms of all sorts. As the process of European inte- gration unfolds, with the approval of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991 and the removal of national barriers in 1992, a variety of nationalist par- ties have increasing gained visibility and transcended in the domestic level. The political appeal of old and new nationalist parties was revital- ized with third waves of mobilization of both peripheral nationalist and national populist parties (Müller-Rommel 1998; Alonso 2012; Mudde 2012). The success of different nationalist parties in Europe, from the rise and strengthening of minority nationalist parties in Italy, the United Kingdom or Spain, and the rise of the populist radical right party family, considered by some experts as the ‘most successful party family in the postwar period’, are recent testimonies of the contemporary political potential of identity politics (Mudde 2012: 2). Identity is increasingly shaping contestation on the boundaries of political communities in Europe (Hooghe and Marks 2009, 2017). At stake is a political mobiliza- tion that shows the double-edge sword of inclusive and exclusive identity politics at different territorial levels. While some political parties advance the demands of independence of national minorities from nation-states, others battle to defend the very boundaries of the nation-state in Europe and reclaim national sovereignty. vii viii Preface Nationalist political parties are firmly entrenched within old and new cleavages in party systems, whether in the form of old and renewed antag- onisms of territorial identities, vis-à-vis central nation-states, or in their assertion of national identity facing new cultural and economic trends such as globalization (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Kriesi et al. 2006, 2008). A new additional European cleavage defines alternative partisan stances for and against European integration across party systems (De Wilde and Trenz 2012; Ruzza 2009Taggart and Szczerbiack 2008; Leconte 2010; Topaloff 2012; Mudde and Kopecky 2002; Wassenberg et al. 2010).1 The European cleavage encroaches on the main dimension of political contes- tation of minority and populist nationalist party families: political sover- eignty at different territorial levels (De Winter and Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro 2002; Hooghe and Marks 2017; Kriesi et al. 2006; Bartolini 2005). The interaction between nationalist claims and European integra- tion shapes the redefinition of the structure of political conflicts over the jurisdictional architecture of the EU. The opposing types of minority and populist nationalist parties examined in this book allegedly represent the two sides of the new European cleavage between supporters of European integration and Eurosceptics. Nationalist political parties would be pull- ing in contrasted directions the territorial restructuring of the EU align- ing with pro-European positions, minority nationalism, vis-à-vis the Euroscepticism of the populist nationalist party family. The clear-cut divide of the European cleavage overlaps with the ideological differentia- tion between minority and populist nationalist party families. The recent experience of the 2016 British referendum on European membership illustrates this book. Pro-European positions are firmly entrenched in minority nationalist parties such as the Scottish SNP and the Welsh PC (Lynch 1996; Elias 2009; Jolly 2007, 2014). European integration is envisioned as an opportunity to surpass and circumvent state boundaries, and independence within the E U represents the occasion to overcome this obstacle (Lynch 1996; Jolly 2007, 2014). In contrast, the UKIP embodies the utmost relevance of Euroscepticism for populist nationalist parties, the firmest defender of independence of the United Kingdom from the EU and the clearest example of a ‘hard’ Eurosceptic party in the EU. However, the opposition of minority and populist nationalist parties on the position and salience of European integration and its evolution Prefac e ix over the past three decades is less parsimonious across time and space in the E U than the British case might indicate. This book builds on the impact of these structural cleavage transforma- tions at the macro level in the EU to examine the political crafting of nation- alisms in the European arena. The book traces the evolution of the perspectives on European integration of nationalist party families and their process of Europeanization. Nationalisms have progressively transcended their natural ‘domestic’ boundaries and integrated into the European multilevel political system. The book narrows its scope from large-scale processes of political change to describe and explain the coordination of nationalisms in the European arena. It focuses on the determinants of transnational party coor- dination of the different types of nationalist parties in the European party system. The book investigates the ideological, institutional and strategic fac- tors that influence the efforts of party elites for transnational party coordina- tion. This study starts with the investigation of the evolution of the position of the heterogeneous minority and populist nationalist party families on European integration. To what extent has European integration become an ideological baseline for heterogeneous minority and populist nationalist par- ties? To what extent have transnational nationalisms developed and what form has Europeanization taken? In the past three decades, both minority and populist party families, despite being still small party families, have achieved sufficient numbers of MEPs in the European parliament to form political groups and Europarties. However, the political translation of domestic nationalisms into Europeanized party families has remained lim- ited. As minor party families, both nationalist party families have been hunted by political invisibility within the European party system. The book analyzes the trajectories of transnational party coordination of minority and populist nationalist parties and their characteristic frag- mentation describing the tensions between unifying and diversifying their membership across political groups and Europarties. The fragmentation of nationalisms has significant implications for the translation of political preferences on a renewed territorial dimension of political conflict on political sovereignty into the European party system. Nationalist party families occupy a minor and nebulous space in the European party system formed by national parties, European political parties and political groups in the European parliament. In outstanding contrast to the transnational- x Preface ism that characterizes most party families and their symmetry in homog- enous party groups at the EU parliament, minority and populist nationalist party families have faced the challenge of how to achieve common trans- national collective action. These party families have historically exhibited an asymmetric and temporarily truncated political configuration in differ- ent political groups and parties at the EU level.2 The historical fragmenta- tion of nationalist party families displayed in the early 1980s, when their presence was marginal in the European arena and mainstream party fed- erations already existed, remained visible during the next decades and it is still a permanent feature of their organization in the European arena. Multiple factors allegedly contributed to the limits of the Europeanization. Beyond the minor size and fringe character of national- ist party families, often used as explanation for their difficult trajectories of Europeanization, they add the particularistic nature of their demands and their uneven territorial presence across the EU. Moreover, country and region idiosyncrasies made the emergence of transnational coordina- tion and political organization in Europe a difficult political endeavor. Ultimately, as Gould and Messina argue, traditional and new varieties of nationalism cannot be automatically transposed into the EU political space (Gould and Messina 2014: 4). The contrasting nature of functional and territorial-identity conflicts provides a different underlying logic for political action (Caramani 2015: 286). If there is not automatic transpo- sition of nationalist party families into the EU arena, then what forms or modes of transnational party coordination can emerge? Nationalisms in Europe Nationalism in its muliple forms is at the heart of contemporary academic and political debates in Europe. Concept stretching represents a real chal- lenge in its study. Nationalism is analyzed as a political movement, a cul- ture, a political religion, and ultimately, a feeling (Smith 2010). One of the leading experts in the field even avoids providing a unifying definition of nationalism (Brubaker 1996). In its most common usage, nationalism is defined as a political ideology. Nationalism is a principle of political legitimacy, which holds that the political and the cultural unit should be