Prefigurative left nationalism and movement party politics: A comparison of Catalonia and Quebec

• In-person event
• A602, Loeb Building, Carleton University
• 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6
• Cost: Free

Political Science Speaker Series presents:

Prefigurative left nationalism and movement party politics: A comparison of Catalonia and Quebec

Assistant Professor, School of Conflict Studies, Saint Paul University
Visiting Scholar, Department of Political Science, Carleton University

Is there a radical-democratic nationalism? Taking as a starting point the visible phenomenon of left-libertarian pro-independence parties with roots in social movement coalitions that have become established parliamentary parties in polity contexts such as the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, Greenland, Northern Ireland, and Quebec, this paper proposes a conceptualization of prefigurative (left) nationalism for capturing the distinct synthesis of nationalist and radical-democratic ideology that characterizes these formations, especially within the organizational framework of movement parties. Drawing on radical democratic theory and Freeden’s understanding of nationalism as a thin-centred ideology, it is proposed that prefigurative left nationalism interpellates “the people” both as a culturally rooted (underdog) nation and as a democratic subject of constituent power linked to participatory processes of national independence that are, in turn, mirrored in internal mechanisms of grassroots activist participation within these movement parties themselves. Based on this theorization, an illustrative empirical exploration of the phenomenon is undertaken with a discourse analysis of programmatic statements on the independence question by the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) in Catalonia and Québec solidaire (QS) in Quebec, both of which place special emphasis on the instrument of a participatory constituent assembly as the centrepiece of their vision of the independence process.

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