Bulletin n. 3/2006
December 2006
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Morgan S.
    Language Politics and Regional Nationalist Mobilization in Galicia and Wales
    in Ethnicities , Vol. 6 n. 4 ,  2006 ,  451-475
    Marshaling original data from surveys and interviews with regional nationalist party activists, this article compares language politics in two ‘stateless’ European nations with strong regional identities: Galicia (Spain) and Wales (UK). In Galicia, where the regional language is widely spoken, the nationalist party places significant emphasis on language-related issues. Yet in Wales, despite the minority status of Welsh, the political arm of the nationalist movement assumes a restrained stance toward the regional language. What explains the apparent paradox that mobilization on language grounds is more pronounced where language is least threatened? The article concludes that Galicia and Wales differ in the way that language functions in society, which, in turn, conditions the possibilities for deploying language politically. It is more difficult for the nationalist party Plaid Cymru to mobilize on the Welsh question given the language’s recent revival and the current recruitment objectives of the party. In Galicia, not only are the recruitment needs of the comparable nationalist party, the Bloque, less complex than in the Welsh case, but the perception of threat to the regional language is far greater.
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