Democratic Legitimacy and 9 November

Ferran Requejo
4 min

In the design of some democracies there are problems, usually with historic roots, which are poorly resolved in their institutional design or practical functioning. The key subject is not, obviously, the legitimacy of states based on justice and integrity in general, which today is unquestionable, but rather which types of legal states are more legitimate and suitable in a given democratic context.

A decisive aspect of the quality of some democracies is the regulation of their multi-national character. When there are permanent minority nations, that is when there are national minorities that will always be demographic minorities within the state, liberal-democratic legitimacy and practical experience suggest that they have to be protected from the decisions of the majorities. It is a derivation of the classic theme of the danger of the ¨tyranny of the majority¨, which in a more general sense, has obsessed theorists like Tocqueville, Otto Bauer, Bertrand Russell, and Isaiah Berlin. The regulatory and institutional discussion of democracies (and federalism) has been much refined in the past few decades. Nowadays you cannot talk about these topics with the old-fashioned logic that some liberal, conservative or socialist parties still apply. As regards these same democratic values, collective rights, and division of power, institutional solutions and procedures cannot be the same if they deal with single-nation or multi-nation democratic states.

The current situation in Catalonia is characterized by the deficiencies exhibited by the Spanish legal state in the regulation of its internal multi-nationality. It is a structural and historical problem, in which the practical development of the state of the autonomous regions has failed spectacularly.

In multi-national democracies, the agreements regarding institutional rules are of a pragmatic nature. The techniques exist. But for the accords to be endowed with legitimacy, they must be accepted by the citizens of the minority nations and not just by the entirety of the citizens of the country. Collective rights must allow for the minority nations to act within their country and the world from the basis of their own characteristics and institutions, and not simply as a diluted subunit of a larger entity. This is the basis of recognition and political accommodation of multi-nationality.

This has been shown to be impossible within the Spanish state of rights. In fact, it is a state that not only does not protect the collective rights of Catalonia, but also allows for the development of laws, policies, and sentences which are hostile towards the minority nation and the majority of its citizens.

As I have said on other occasions, reasons for the independence of Catalonia are not exactly lacking. In fact, they are plentiful. I believe that things are being done reasonably well as much by the institutions and the parties as by the civil society. The majority of citizens are driving the mobilizations and the acts that surround them, and respond in an effective and enthusiastic way. This is the great strength of current-day Catalonia. Today the leadership is in the institutions, in the Government and in the Parliament, but this leadership would not work without the actions of the citizens. It is a movement by the people that has driven the process and which constitutes its current base.

Predictably, after the European elections we will be witness to a variety of dramatized offers from the PSOE and perhaps the PP. We will be in what we could call the Findus strategy: offers of frozen and insipid ¨carrots¨, but which will come with the ¨stick¨ of threats delivered with the usual arrogance. Experience suggests that these will be very insufficient offers in political, economic and cultural terms when it comes to solving the basic issues, both on domestic and international scales. In Catalonia, skepticism is an unavoidable ingredient in political thinking, especially after what history and the monochrome development of the constitutional model have shown.

To be taken seriously, the proposals will have to come jointly from the two principal Spanish parties, after being agreed upon with the territorial leaders of each party. This will be difficult, very difficult. In the case that these proposals come from only one party, we will continue within the interminable story of the photocopied autonomous regions. Eventually, if an offer is agreed upon jointly, it will have to be studied but, knowing the cast of characters, everything suggests that it will be based in logic and language both antiquated and obsolete. For example, it is simply ridiculous to say that the key is the ¨reform of the Senate¨- in symmetric terms of seventeen units-, or to further the devolution of powers without establishing an explicit recognition of multi-nationality, without there being efficient guarantees against invasion of devolved responsibilities by the central power, or without changing the division of power in confederal or asymmetric terms in the areas of economic, fiscal, linguistic, social, educational, communication, cultural, European and international policies.

This is the basis for the importance of achieving the consultation on 9 November as the primary collective objective of the nation. I will repeat it to avoid misunderstandings (which, naturally, is the last thing that I want to provoke): the consultation on 9 November is the current political priority. It is a means of democratic legitimacy, an expression of the desire of 75% of the citizenry, and a show of the unity of the majority of political and social forces of the nation. Even if its practical implementation depends not only on the institutions and people of Catalonia, this is the most civilized democratic path. The way of the United Kingdom. But the political culture of the Spanish nationalist parties is very different, more feral if you will, than that of the British parties. It will be necessary to have strategies prepared in advance for various alternative political scenarios. It would be a mistake not to. We will soon make decisions about many things. The world and future generations are watching.

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