Jan Mansvelt Beck

The continuity of Basque political violence: A geographical perspective on the legitimisation of violence

After twenty years of parliamentary democracy in Spain the Basque liberation movement ETA is still using violent methods. Considerable support for ETA has persisted in the Spanish Basque Country. Based on voting patterns in Euskadi the persistent support for ETA is studied. ETA support through voting for its political wing Herri Batasuna is concentrated in specific areas. Through ecological analysis the relative weight of cultural, socio-economic, demographic and locational factors in voting patterns is determined. At a local level particular cultural contexts reproduce support for violent separatism. The continuity of violence legitimisation is a Spanish Basque phenomenon as it is confined to the Basque-speaking parts of Spain. The small-size settlements of the Basque Country offer a context of social control which enables mass legitimisation of political violence.After twenty years of parliamentary democracy in Spain the Basque liberation movement ETA is still using violent methods. Considerable support for ETA has persisted in the Spanish Basque Country. Based on voting patterns in Euskadi the persistent support for ETA is studied. ETA support through voting for its political wing Herri Batasuna is concentrated in specific areas. Through ecological analysis the relative weight of cultural, socio-economic, demographic and locational factors in voting patterns is determined. At a local level particular cultural contexts reproduce support for violent separatism. The continuity of violence legitimisation is a Spanish Basque phenomenon as it is confined to the Basque-speaking parts of Spain. The small-size settlements of the Basque Country offer a context of social control which enables mass legitimisation of political violence.

La apertura de la frontera: ¿Nuevas identidades transfronterizas?

Durante el apogeo de la soberania se estudiaban las fronteras desde una perspectiva estado-centrica. Hoy en dia vivimos en una epoca de post-soberania en que los estados ya no son contenedores de seguridad, economia y cultura y sus fronteras han perdido la funcion de barrera militar, economica y cultural. Por lo tanto nuevos enfoques teoricos se han desarrollado sobre las zonas fronterizas. Estos enfoques se basan en la idea de que la integracion transnacional genera espacios de interaccion economica, politica y cultural, creando nuevas identidades transfronterizas. No obstante, los estudios de la frontera basados en estos nuevos enfoques padecen de una cierta euforia transfronteriza, porque hay indicios de que la apertura de la frontera no la deja como un palimpsesto de un pasado soberanista del estado. Por eso hay que matizar la euforia transfronteriza por las siguientes razones: primera, aunque se puede observar un incremento de la interaccion economica transfronteriza, esta sigue estando situada en su mayor parte dentro del estado; segunda, la cohesion politico-cultural sigue siendo poco intensa en las zonas transfronterizas; y tercera, la frontera sigue dividiendo culturas e identidades.