Politics,economy, or culture? The rise and development of Basque nationalism in the light of social movement theory

Nationalism and social mobilization are two of the most prominent areas of research within the social sciences since the end of the Second World War. Yet, the scholarly specialization has so far impeded a mutual exchange of the theoretical and methodological literatures of both areas. While theorists on nationalism dispute about the validity and scientific efficacy of approaches such as primordialism, perennialism, modernism, functionalism or – more recently – ethno-symbolism, scholars concerned with social movement theory have been divided about approaches commonly known as resource mobilization, political process, framing, or new social movement theories. The recent proposal forwarded by McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (MTT) in their book Dynamics of Contention is an important attempt to overcome the scholarly specialization by presenting a new explanatory framework that aims at opening new analytical perspectives to a better comprehension of contentious politics beyond the “classic social movements agenda.” This article on the rise and development of Basque nationalism, however, while accepting the proposal as a valid focus for the macro-analysis and comparison of broad structures and processes, is rather sceptical as far as its hypothetical productivity on the theoretical meso-level (analysis and comparison of one or a few single cases) is concerned. Instead, in the light of the historical evolution of Basque nationalism since the end of the nineteenth century, including its more recent violent dimension, it is suggested that a productive and intelligent combination of approaches coming from both areas: theories on nationalism and on social movements, is still a useful and necessary task to carry out in order to facilitate a better understanding of nationalism in particular and contentious politics in general.