Basque Nationalism and the Spanish State: Alternative Routes To Nationalist Mobilisation

Chapter Two. The Centralizing State

If the structures of the early Spanish state favored the construction of a Basque identity through foral autonomy, they were not immediately conducive to Basque nationalism for at least two reasons. First, the fueros maintained the individuality of the Basque provinces, which rendered problematic the mobilization of the Basque population above and beyond provincial borders. Second, political mobilization on the basis of the idea of a Basque nation defined in opposition to Spain was unlikely as long as foral autonomy was a mutually acceptable approach for the Spanish state to conduct its relations with the Basque provinces. In other words, the early Spanish state did not deploy a comprehensive nation-building project in the Iberian Peninsula, which means that the Basque provinces were in a situation of indirect rule unfavorable to the development of substate nationalism.1 Indeed, their fueros, although periodically challenged and gradually weakened, kept them at a distance from the Spanish state. There were therefore few opportunities for a sustained opposition to the state and for the articulation of Basque interests different from the Spanish ones.This was particularly true because the links between the Basque elite and the Spanish state created a situation where there was no leadership for launching a nationalist movement. In the nineteenth century, the Spanish state underwent a transition from confederal structures toward more centralization in its relationship with the Basque provinces. At the same time, the state’s efforts at crafting a Spanish nation were half-hearted and ineffective as a result of institutional weakness, the existence of conflicting national projects, and the lack of political willingness on the part of the political elite running the country in the last half of the century. Therefore, explaining the rise of Basque nationalism requires an emphasis not only on state centralization (which is found in much of the literature on nationalism in the Basque Country), but also on the absence of a corresponding process of Spanish nation-building (which is most often overlooked). Spain’s decentralized structures that had satisfied Basques elites transformed into the basis for opposition precisely because integration into the Spanish state was unmatched by a Spanish national project perceived as legitimate. In the words of Ortega y Gasset: “Castile made Spain and unmade it.”2 Substate nationalism emerged in Spain during the late nineteenth and early Chapter Two The Centralizing State 0 twentieth centuries. Basque and Catalan nationalism, most often discussed in the rest of Spain during this period in terms of separatismo, led to a more negative evaluation of Spain. For example, for Spanish nationalists deploring the lack of nation-building, Spain was said to be “spineless” and to suffer from a “serious illness.”3 The centralizing Spanish state is the second historical critical juncture in the development of the Basque nationalist movements. It is, indeed, the crucial one for prompting the formal articulation of Basque nationalism since there was no political movement seeking the independence, or even the autonomy, of the Basque population as a whole before the nineteenth century. Centralization put the Spanish state and the Basque provinces on a collision course because it challenged the Basque foral tradition. The centralizing Spanish state steered the Basques from foralism toward Basque nationalism. This pathway involved the formal articulation of a Basque nation above and beyond provincial and international borders, the definition of Basque interests as different from Spanish ones, and the presentation of the Basque identity as distinct from, and incompatible with, Spain. The centralizing state triggered a transformation from a crystallization of a Basque identity through the fueros and foralism to its politicization, mobilization, and articulation as a national identity. Contrary to the early Spanish state, the centralizing state did not establish the type of structures that nurtured the development of a Basque identity. It did, however , change the politics of Spain’s traditional elites into a position of challenge and confrontation. In this context, the mechanisms of identity construction and nationalist mobilization were triggered by the reaction of these elites who saw their status and interests threatened by state centralization. In other words, the institutional change brought by centralization led to a transformation in agency patterns that triggered Basque nationalism. Therefore, Basque nationalism validates , at least partially, the modernist view since its emergence is undeniably tied to the modernization, or more exactly, the centralization of the Spanish state. It also vindicates modernists of the instrumentalist variety in regard to the particularly important role of elites in generating symbols and creating a nationalist narrative . Indeed, few...