Although it is often presented as a movement led by political elites, the process towards self-determination reflects a fundamental change in Catalan public opinion. There is an interpretation of the process towards self-determination for Catalonia that is widespread in Spain, and which attributes it to a personal whim of President Artur Mas, or, at best, a conspiracy of elite groups alien to the popular will of the majority of Catalan society. The reality, however, is that all the evidence points to a fundamental and powerful change in public opinion.
For over two decades, Catalonia's status as an Autonomous Community was supported by a majority of Catalan society. In 2007 this support reached a record high of 60% of voters surveyed. But since then support has plummeted, reaching 25% in 2013. And what is rising is not centralism or the federalist alternative, but the movement in favour of independence, and at a rate that has accelerated dramatically since 2010, coinciding with the ruling of the Spanish Constitutional Court on the Statute of Catalonia.
This growth in the support for independence comes primarily from a shift in opinion of two segments of the electorate. Firstly there is the traditional nationalist sector grouped mainly around CiU, and secondly the more federalist sector of the Catalan left. Both shared the expectation of a deepening of self-government within the framework of Spain, but it seems that the hope of this happening has largely disappeared.
There is another explanation that is widespread in Spanish nationalist circles, which places Catalan schools as a key element in this shift. However, if this were true we would find a significant difference between those who have been educated in modern Catalan schools and those who studied in the pre-autonomy education system. But this is not the case. Support for independence is cross-generational and there are very few differences between age groups.
How can we explain a change of this magnitude in the political preferences of the Catalan people? In Catalonia the phenomenon is often associated to the way in which ?Spanish institutions handled the proposed new statute submitted to them by the Catalan Parliament in 2005 and, in particular, to the ruling of the Constitutional Court in 2010. Spanish perspectives tend to play down this issue, but the acceleration of the growth in support for independence from 2010 on seems to point in that direction. But since 2008 there is the also the effect of the economic crisis. In the current context of deep spending cuts, the real effects of the Catalan fiscal deficit with Spain have been revealed in all their crudity. This may have had a role in the growth of pro-sovereignty, though it is probably subsidiary to the crisis in political relations that began with the end of the statutory process.
These events have not happened in a vacuum. Catalonia's political parties and, above all, its civil society have played an active role in the events of the last few years. The traditional pro-independence movement has been successful in updating its message and making it more multifaceted and inclusive, and in recent years, it has demonstrated an impressive ability to mobilize people, with landmark events such as the local consultations on independence (2009-2011), the demonstration on September 11th 2012 and the Via Catalana in 2013.
