Baring in mind the only way to unite different peoples under one flag (principally in the case of the UK) is to give them a common enemy to rally against... this research shows that is no longer working...are the globalists losing tha battle at grass roots community level..?
looks like they are.
This article is very detailed and filled with political speak, but its interesting if anyone wants to skim it.
by: Alistair Cole and Jocelyn Evans
The Moreno identity scale has imposed itself as an effective and parsimonious means of testing compound identities in territories where there are overlapping loyalties. It was initially developed as a means of mapping the revival of ethno-territorial identities in the union states of Spain and the United Kingdom. The Moreno ‘question’ measures dual identities through asking respondents how they combine their ‘ethno-territorial’ (regional) and their ‘civic state’ (national) identities. Logically, this measure only makes sense where there are overlapping identities. From a purist perspective, Moreno can be criticised for building a model on the dependent variable, though in practice there is much variation in territories where overlapping identities exist.
As well as a precise survey-based method, the Moreno scale rests upon a precise thesis about the evolution of contemporary European societies. Rather than withering away, as predicted by modernistic social science, minority nationalism has emerged as a powerful force across Europe. There has been a revival of ethno-territorial identities and a challenge to the centralist model of the unitary state (McEwen and Moreno, 2005, de Winter et Tursan, 1998, Keating, 1998, Loughlin, 2001, Moreno, 2006). Moreno (2006) and McEwen and Moreno (2005) contrast majority (civic) and minority (ethnic) nationalism. In the prevalent model of civic nationalism, a predominant ethnic group forged a state and unified a ‘nation’. Moreno (2003) insists that nations were built by core hegemonic groups, such as the Piedmontese in Italy, the English in Britain, the Castilians in Spain, the Franks in France, the Prussians in Germany and the Walloons in Belgium. None of these states could completely eradicate forms of minority nationalism, however, which periodically reasserted itself to express pre-state identities. Minority, or ethnic nationalism, has been revived across Europe. It challenges the belief citizens should have only one - civic - identity and should interact in a neutral public sphere. Minority nationalists challenge the claim of the state to govern in the name of ‘one people’ and seek to shift loyalties from the civil state to the sub-state level.
Though civic and ethnic nationalism are often in conflict, the core of Moreno’s argument is that modern states have witnessed the emergence of multiple identities. There is evidence that ‘citizens in advanced liberal democracies seem to reconcile supranational, state and local identities, which both majority and minority nationalisms often tend to polarise in a conflicting manner’ (McEwen and Moreno, 2005: 22). Rather than setting civic and cultural nationalism against each other, Moreno claims to be chiefly interested in investigating empirically how individuals have combined their ethno-territorial and their civic identities. Moreno also seeks to demonstrate that contemporary territorial identities are proactive and inclusive and that ‘project identities’ and offer new perspectives for more inclusive ethno-territorial movements. Though they can draw upon important symbolic referents of the past such as culture and language, territorial ‘project identities’ are likely to reject narrow ethnicity as a basis for political loyalty and organization.
Moreno emphasizes the constructivist dimension of identity building: ultimately, individuals choose between varying identity markers. He develops an ideal-type against which to calibrate ethno-territorial identities. Ethno-territorial identities reflect themselves in sub-state political institutions, distinctive party systems, language rights movements and cultural traditions and specific forms of elite accommodation. He is much less explicit about state identities, save to reject republican and communitarian orthodoxies that either deny territory as a category, or subsume everything to it. In this article we will use Moreno’s ideal-type of ethno-territorial identities to organise our comparison of two contrasting ‘strong identity’ regions, Wales and Brittany, in the two neighbouring EU states of the United Kingdom and France.
Brittany and Wales: Strong Identity Regions
Mapping compound identities is potentially a very valuable exercise in France, a country that does not allow the collection of statistical data on the basis of ‘ethnic’ or linguistic criteria, only those of nationality (Reverchon, 2005). This lack of provision has deprived social scientists of robust information to explore causal relationships. It also creates public policy dilemmas. Research into compound identities of any sort is rare in France. In the mainstream French Republican tradition, territorial (especially regional) or ethnic identities are considered a threat to a neutral public sphere that can alone guarantee political and civil rights (Raymond, 2006).
In many respects, France appears as the archetype of the modern nation-state. The aim of the modernistic project is that nations will be built ‘where citizens would become peers with equal access to a set of universal rights and obligations’ (McEwen and Moreno, 2005). The French republican model emphasises formal equality and individual rights, rather than territorial equity, group identities or ethnic origins (Levy, Cole and Le Galès, 2005). Republicanism refers not primarily to a set of institutions, so much as a set of diffuse beliefs: that all parts of the French territory must be treated the same. These beliefs explain the opposition of self-identified republicans to adapting institutions to different territorial realities, whether in New Caledonia, Corsica or on the French mainland. When they were finally created in 1972, French regions were imagined as standardised institutions without a link to territory (Balme, 1999, Nay, 1997, Pasquier, 2004). With the partial exception of Brittany and Corsica, France’s historic regions and communities do not enjoy institutional expression. The Basque movement has so far failed in its minimal demand for a Basque department. There is a small electoral clientele for regionalism in Alsace, Savoy, Brittany, the Basque country and French Catalonia. Regionalist or autonomist parties have occasionally elected representatives to local and regional councils, but they have found it difficult to operate independently of the main French parties (Ruane, Todd and Mandeville, 2003). On the other hand, strong cultural, language and territorial defense movements have emerged since the 1970s. Cultural regionalism has emerged as a powerful force in Brittany, the Basque country and Alsace, and to a lesser extent in Savoy, Normandy, Occitania, Flanders and French Catalonia (Chartier and Larvor, 2003).
The official resistance to recognising compound identities makes the French case in particular an interesting one. France provides a counter-example, an obvious case where the unitary state tradition has repressed particularistic identities and where there is a lack of correspondence between territorial units and ‘natural’ identity communities. If compound identities feed into institution-building anywhere on the French mainland, they are likely to do so in Brittany, which we identify from the existing literature as the region in mainland France with the most distinctive sense of its own identity (Ford, 1993, Le Coadic, 1998, MacDonald, 1989, Nicolas, 1986, Pasquier, 2004). The idea of region has a strong moral authority in the case of Brittany, the birthplace of regional consciousness and identity in France (Pasquier, 2004, Cole, 2006). Modern Brittany is a French region with a difference. Unlike many other French regions, it can look to its past existence as an independent political entity, with its own founding myths and political institutions . Though the symbols of statehood have long since disappeared, the region retains many distinctive characteristics. In theory, Brittany possesses at least some of the key features identified by Moreno to develop an ‘ethno-territorial’ identity: a pre-state political existence, an autonomist Breton political movement, a language rights movement, strong cultural traditions and specific forms of elite accommodation. Brittany is also one of the few regions where political institutions refer to a distinctive political region. Brittany therefore provides a robust case for testing the importance and limitations of the relationship between dual identities, institution-building and political and discursive opportunity structures.
Brittany and Wales are both historic regions with complex but strong identities. Both Brittany and Wales possess distinctive institutions and strong political and/or cultural identities, features that set them apart from most other regions within their respective nation-states. The research design is thus based on the most similar comparative case study (Ragin, 1997). Brittany and Wales are both located on the far Western Atlantic seaboard of Europe, on the geographical margins of traditionally highly-centralised states. Both regions have strong cultural, linguistic and political identities. Closely-related Celtic languages, Breton and Welsh, are spoken in both regions, which provide a direct object of comparison. Religion has been important in shaping regional identities. Catholicism in Brittany, one of France’s most pious regions, for long performed a critical role in defining acceptable political and societal choices. Non-conformism in Wales had at least as strong an influence. Though Catholicism and non-conformity have both declined as identity markers, in each case they have an important political and cultural heritage. Unlike in many other regions in both states, in Wales and Brittany there is a strong ‘communitarian’ tradition in politics and civil society that makes both regions distinctive within their larger state settings (Keating, Loughlin and Deshouwer, 2003, Monnier, 1994, Morvan 1997). There are many similar characteristics, but one major difference: the overarching state structures that are more or less permissive towards territorial asymmetry and expressions of regional identity.
These two regions are broadly comparable in terms of the challenges they face. In historical terms, both Brittany and Wales correspond to those regions identified by Rokkan and Urwin (1982), in which the development of regional consciousness is a function of economic dependency and the persistence of a strong cultural identity. Brittany and Wales share many similar features. Traditionally, both regions were poor, peripheral, economically under-developed regions. As measured in terms of GDP, Brittany was France’s poorest region in 1945, and Wales has always been one of the poorest parts of the United Kingdom (with GDP hovering around 80 per cent of the national average). Brittany has recovered impressively in the post-war period and is now in the average of French regions, with a GDP just below the national French average. Wales remains the UK’s poorest region, a status that allowed most of the country to qualify for Objective One status for the 2000-2006 period. Both regions share problems of economic under-development or adjustment. In the case of Brittany, recent years have produced a farm crisis, a process of painful industrial restructuring and environmental catastrophe. Compared with Wales, however, which has lagged behind the UK and EU average, Brittany has been a post-war success story. There are some striking similarities between the two regions. In both Brittany and Wales, there is a large preponderance of small and medium-sized companies and sole traders. Both Brittany and Wales have attracted state firms and agencies as a deliberate measure of post-war territorial planning. Both regions have been favoured destinations for foreign direct investment, though mainly for opposing reasons (cheap labour in Wales, a well-educated workforce in Brittany).
Both regions operate within overarching national and EU environments. Neither Brittany nor Wales can escape from the legacy of its past. The contrasting prospects for Brittany and Wales of autonomous forms of regional governance today are to some extent tied into their different experiences of nation-state building. The French State building enterprise has, historically speaking, been remarkably successful in inculcating deeply rooted beliefs linking the national territory with social progress. The UK Union State was far more permissive and inclined to take into account territorial differences. The UK was less insistent than France on linking uniform state structures and the enjoyment of civil and political rights. In Brittany, regional autonomists face ideological as well as institutional challenges that go beyond those in the UK. Though there is a difference of degree, Brittany and Wales are good comparators, insofar as their comparison informs us a good deal about the evolution of democracy in France and the United Kingdom, the two key, non-federal European Union states. In both states, the degree of autonomy enjoyed by these distinctive peripheral regions has been defined by central government, rather than by the regions themselves. Finally, the comparison is enhanced by the strong links that exist between the two regions, be they economic (the Atlantic Arc), cultural (the Inter-Celtique festival) or political (the Memorandum of Understanding of 2003 between the Welsh Assembly Government and the Brittany Regional Council).
Discussion and conclusion
There is an inherent tension within the Moreno model between, on the one hand, the empirical investigation of identity mixes and, on the other, the advocacy in favour of minority nationalism. Though the Moreno identity scale is an effective and parsimonious tool for measuring identity mixes, the prescriptive accompaniment undermines the overall model. There is a confusion of genres. Empirically, Moreno is anxious to demonstrate that post-modern European societies have become multiform and multilayered, allowing individuals to construct their own identities. Politically, Moreno sets out to demonstrate that the dangers in adopting territorial identities are greatly lessened by the development of ‘European cosmopolitan localism’ and the rooting of local and regional identities in a broader European space. Theoretically, Moreno engages with constructivist visions of identity construction. Specifically, Moreno pleads for the construction of ‘project identities’ that offer new perspectives for the development of more inclusive ethno-territorial movements. Though they can draw upon important symbolic referents of the past such as culture and language, the most successful territorial ‘project identities’ are likely to reject narrow ethnicity as a basis for political loyalty and organization. This constructivist view implies that the optimum identity mix is one that combines ethno-territorial, civic and multilayered identities. Though nowhere explicitly formulated, the assumption is that, in post-modern states, the best identity mix is not one that reverts to parochial pre-Modern identities, nor one that denies local and regional claims. There need be no contradiction between ethno-regional and civic state identities. Moreno claims not to be concerned with describing distinctiveness, as much as making a claim about the necessary interdependence between territorial levels (sub-state, state and EU) and investigating the conditions for their peaceful co-existence and interaction. The originality is to link individual identity construction with the collective projects dear to minority nationalist writers. On the other hand, the key indicators used for evaluating minority nationalism - those of political institutions, political movements, culture and language and patterns of elite accommodation - are those of classic minority nationalism. The Moreno scale allows us to investigate dual identities and the political and sociological underpinnings thereof. It does not allow us to undertake many other exercises, such as combining local, regional, national and European identities.
The closest Moreno comes to a prediction, moreover, is that ‘the more the pre-Union ethno-territorial identity prevails upon modern state identity, the higher the demands for political autonomy’ (Moreno, 2006: 4). Broadly shared civic and ethno-territorial identities are likely to produce support for forms of decentralisation and home rule; sharply divided identities are much more likely to produce calls for full secession. Political autonomy is thus reduced to its ethno-territorial core, in spite of the injunction to build new more encompassing identities.
These shortcomings notwithstanding, the Moreno identity scale and accompanying model allows us to identify distinctive types of meso-level project identities, the two extremes well captured by Brittany and Wales. Turning to Brittany and Wales, we engaged in a set of macro and micro comparisons. From the data considered, Welsh identity emerges as more divided, and Wales comes much closer to the ethno-territorial pole defined by Moreno than Brittany. In Wales, cleavages are more deeply embedded and there is a more complex relationship between identity, institutions, partisan preferences and language than in Brittany. Only since the top-down imposition of an institutional framework for devolution has the notion of ‘Welshness’ been given a basis for political nurture across the entire region. In the Welsh case, there is still a real debate between independentists, devolutionists and unionists. Support for enhanced devolution (and even more so independence) is party political, with a powerful nationalist party mobilising support for more enhanced devolutionary solutions and maintaining pressure on the other parties. Voting choice is clearly influenced by identity, as is competency in the Welsh language. Feelings of exclusive or predominant Welshness are correlated with opposition to Conservatism, support for the Welsh language and for more advanced forms of devolution or independence. In 2001, public opinion in Wales appeared to be divided about institutional futures, with positions linked to partisan preferences and identity locations. Language is arguably the best pointer to underlying ethno-territorial identities, and to the willingness of ‘project identities’ to promote inclusiveness or practice exclusion. Our survey suggests that language is a potent symbol of divided identities in Wales, while in the case of Brittany, support for the language is more symbolic and - probably - superficial. In terms of broad macro variables, Wales appears more divided than Brittany - by political affiliation, language, institutional futures - though these divisions are much less clear cut in relation to the micro-demographic criteria that we consider below. Insofar as divided identities are not conducive to broad social ownership, the Welsh identity mix appears sub-optimal. On the other hand, we argued that the devolved institutions in Wales have succeeded their apprenticeship and have become a powerful identity marker in the place of more traditional cultural or linguistic traits.
In the case of Brittany, there is a latent Breton consciousness, but this is not a political resource that can be mobilised by regionalist political parties. The absence of a credible regionalist or nationalist political force is a major differentiating factor between Brittany and Wales. In the case of the French region, we observe a much weaker relationship between dual identities, regional voting choice and attitudes to autonomy. Party performs a weaker role in articulating regional identities; for their part, most Bretons can comfortably vote for any party. Brittany also appears as a more trusting region, one where overlapping identities combine to support bounded regionality. The key finding is that dual identities are more easily assumed in Brittany than in Wales. Brittany has a broad identity spread: a powerful sense of ethno-territorial identity is easily accommodated within the framework of the existing French state. Brittany manages to combine ethno-territorial, civic and supranational identities in a mutually reinforcing manner.
We do not treat Wales and Brittany as unitary actors. Rather we can identify two clusters of attitudes in Wales and Brittany: an identity cluster and an instrumental cluster. The identity cluster interprets politics and policy processes through identity-tinted lenses. The instrumental cluster reasons on instrumental and performance-related grounds. There is no exact match of these groups of attitudes between our two regions, but, on balance, regional governance in Wales is driven more by the force of ethno-territorial identity politics and the dynamic of polity building , whereas regionalism in Brittany prospers because the prevalent mode of regional advocacy has proved to be very effective and because the political opportunity structure has pre-empted the development of a regionalist party. Thus, in Wales the relevant variables are those of political nationalism, language, and divided identities, with the devolved institutions acting as a countervailing centrifugal force. In the French region, Breton and French identities were mainly complementary and both converged in support of regional political institutions, but stopped short of secession. In Brittany, the sense of regional identity is strong, but this is not considered as being in opposition to an overarching French nationhood. Identity foci, institutional demands, instrumental incentives and political opportunity structures thus all produce substantive differences between Wales and Brittany.
Our micro-level analysis revealed the following findings. There are a number of common features in both regions. Age matters, with younger cohorts more inclined to support devolution or independence. There is no significant gender effect. We observe some class effect in both regions, with disadvantaged groups – workers in Wales, crisis-ridden farmers in Brittany – more likely to adopt ethno-territorial identities, thereby providing some support for the internal colonialisation thesis. In Wales, there is a correlation between low levels of education and strong feelings of ethno-territorial identity, reinforcing the class effect. We observed no such relationship in Brittany. Language performs a rather different role in Wales and Brittany, one that confirms the location of Wales more firmly on the ethno-territorial axis than the French region. In the Welsh case, there is a strong correlation between Welsh language competency and ethno-territorial identities; while the relationship, though positive, is weaker and less consequential in Brittany. The evidence we have in relation to territorial distinctiveness also emphasises the specific role of the Welsh Valleys, however, which are non-Welsh speaking but strongly identify with a predominant or exclusive Welsh identity. The other interesting finding relates to territorial distinctions, which, when controlling for language, appear much stronger in Brittany than in Wales. The départements of Côtes d’Armor, Finistère and Morbihan are all significantly more Breton-identifying than the capital Rennes. As the state-sanctioned regional capital, this is perhaps not surprising. In contrast with the Welsh case, there is far greater evidence of a French centre and a minority Breton periphery.
Identity mixes matter, the most effective identity mix being that which combines multilayered identities, rather than one of sharply differentiated and conflicting identities. From the Moreno model, we deduce that shared and overlapping identities in Brittany allow for interaction between levels, while the higher prevalence of mutually exclusive forms of identity in Wales are the cause of division. Institutions also matter. In both Wales and Brittany meso-level institutions help to counteract centrifugal trends, to reconfigure identities, to provide a foci for regional civil society. The party system matters. The functioning of the institutions themselves is linked to the equilibrium of the regional party system. The presence or not of a powerful nationalist party is a critical difference between Wales, Brittany and other regions. In Wales, the presence of a powerful nationalist party, closely linked in spite of itself to essentialist aspects of Welshness (such as language), performed a powerful agenda setting role. Regional languages can provide powerful foci of symbolic support, but they can exacerbate divisions if they are too explicitly part of a nationalist political project, or if public policies to support the language create tensions. Finally, patterns of elite accommodation, though outside of the model, clearly matter. The Brittany-Wales comparison illustrates that, within the contrasting national administrative frameworks represented by the British and French states, there are varying opportunities and incentives for the construction of autonomous ‘national-regional’ futures. The historical evolution of the United Kingdom, a curious mix of unitary and union-state, has been much more accommodating for the construction of competing visions, at least in its Celtic regions. In France, the reality is different. The institutional and political structures of opportunities have emphasised the conquest of national (French) power, and this has only partially been called into question with decentralisation
Interesting
MasterSamWise
