Independence Movements in Subnational Island Jurisdictions by Eve Hepburn & Godfrey Baldacchino

Author:Eve Hepburn & Godfrey Baldacchino [Hepburn, Eve & Baldacchino, Godfrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Political Freedom
ISBN: 9780415505857
Google: ZYhAXwAACAAJ
Goodreads: 18607230
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-15T10:07:00+00:00

Electoral representation: an essential condition?

All of the parties studied here exert influence on the regional political system, but this influence takes very diverse forms. The clearest feature is the correlation between electoral representation (Tables 1, 3, and 4) and the overall level of influence.

At the scale of the party system, notwithstanding the scope of the violence, Corsican independentists are the only ones whose structural impact is significant. Every SWP is affected by the polarisation related to the centre–periphery cleavage. The most strongly concerned is the PRG, which is divided into two factions, a regionalist one and a conservative one, that ran separately in the last two regional elections.

The Psd’Az has a widespread impact only during institutional debates and when the majority in the Regional Council is uncertain. Its ideological versatility makes it possible for it to swing the vote, as in 1999. Thus, its ‘coalition potential’ and ‘blackmail potential’ (Sartori, 1976: 122–123) can give it considerable influence.

Finally, the ERC has a strong influence only over the alternative left. Moreover, the impact of this pole on the two dominant parties has been declining over the last 20 years. Especially since the radicalisation of the PSIB in 1995, this party has largely appropriated not only the themes but the votes of the alternative left (Table 5).

The influence of Corsican independentists is also higher at the level of the regional political agenda. Independentist parties seek to defend the interests of a territorial community (Türsan, 1998: 5), and that concerns principally: (1) the level of regional autonomy, (2) the regional language, (3) the status of members of the community, (4) economic interests, which we will view through preferential tax schemes, and (5) the territory (notably landscape protection). In the case of Corsica, we have to add the situation of activists imprisoned for resorting to political violence.

In Corsica, these six themes dominate most political debate. Their importance is well illustrated by the shift in the regional majority since March 2010. This shift is correlated with a new agenda, and belongs to a context in which the two nationalist lists of candidates received 35.7 per cent of the votes. Consequently, the new left-wing majority have given more consideration to independentist issues while in power than was pledged in their election manifesto (Table 6).

In the other regions, independentists’ special themes are much less often on the real political agenda, even though independentists participated in the coalitions that came to power in 2007 and 2009. In the Balearic Islands, the PSIB, which led the centre-left coalition, have taken few independentist priorities into concrete consideration. The only ones have been language and territory, and the implementation of these policies was very difficult. The linguistic normalisation plan was only adopted in December 2010, and the urbanisation process has not noticeably slowed. As a result, the ERC left the majority in December 2009, initially through the pretext of corruption, but above all because of dissatisfaction with the failure to respect of the governmental pact (Acords incomplerts, 2011) (Table 7).

Table 5. Balearic regional elections: PSIB and alternative left, 1983–2011.

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