This thesis set out to examine the impact of the state in the reciprocal development between mobilising centralist elites and marginalised national movement peripheries. What has been examined has been the development of reciprocal centre-periphery mobilisation with the state playing a significant role in providing the raison d’être for initial movement mobilisation. Central to this thesis has been the role the state has played in forging peripheral identity, as well as its role in assisting the genesis of competing ideological frames in which resistance to further integration is based. The study of the role of the ‘cycle of protest’ and nationalism as a doctrine/repertoire of social movement action has been important in deciphering the reasoning and methods chosen by communities opting for the national movement path to mobilisation. This thesis has argued that at the core of all peripheral mobilisation is the nature of the political environment created by the state, and the subsequent cleavages that emerge from shifting state centres in the process of reform. The nature of elite control over the state has meant that peripheral movements have had to shape their own counter mobilisation according to the nature of the regime’s repression of the periphery. In effect, this thesis has provided an examination into the nature of these peripheral movements that have ‘mimicked’ the state according to the ideological premise of state formation placed before them.

Within the development of ‘Social Movement’ theory, fundamental differences have emerged between those social scientists who seek to explain oppositional movement mobilisation in terms of political opportunity structures created by enfranchising state centre’s and ‘life style’ choices that focus on a movement’s rejection of institutional means for social movement redress. Divided between the ‘Resource Mobilisation’ and ‘New Social Movement’ paradigms, both schools of thought have tended to be somewhat exclusive of the other. Whilst the former has ignored the ideational reasons behind oppositional mobilisation, the latter has ignored the significance of the state as anything but an object of derision by movements seeking a societal alternative to pre-existing state structures.

This lack of synthesis within the field has led to the minimisation of what I believe to be a significant aspect of peripheral movement mobilisation that is the role of the state in the cyclical development of elite core centres and rebellious peripheries. As discussed in chapters 1 and 2, the inability of social movement theorists to provide a syncretic analysis has led to the ignoring of the state as the shaper of all political events, both legal and illegal, within the arena of its auspices. Both political opportunity structures and the desire for a societal alternative to the state’s encroachment play an equal role in determining the nature of resistance. Yet, not one is more influential than the other. This is due to the nature of elite consolidation and peripheral rebellion which I believe to be highly reciprocal and responsive. This has led to a parallel, yet interdependent, development between state centres and peripheries due to the dynamic nature of state expansion and consolidation.

The state is far from a static entity. Thus, the tendency of social movement theorists to view state enfranchisement and consolidation as set ignores the fluid and porous nature of centre-periphery relations. As argued in chapter 3 I believe it is the very dynamic nature of state formation that is at the core of the active agency of movement mobilisation against the centre. The movement is but a response. A response to the inability or unwillingness of the state’s governing elite to incorporate certain segments of society into the overall national polity. Central to this dynamic of movement counter mobilisation is the ability of the aggrieved community to formulate an ideological construct within a given historic continuum of protest in which the periphery may frame their contestant demands. This is found within the ‘cycle of protest’ that is derivative of the state’s own process development.

Each action creates an opposite action, each frame is met by a challenging frame. What the ‘cycle of protest’ paradigm grants the social scientist is a mechanism by which movement development can be charted. It is here that I believe that the dynamic nature of centre-periphery mobilisation is shown to be a continuation of an historical process of state formation. At the core is what I call the movement’s ability to ‘mimic’ the state in order to create an opposing ideational structure of societal organisation juxtaposed to that of the official doctrine of state. This ‘mimicking’ recognises simultaneously the necessity of the state as a precursor to movement mobilisation and the fact that the oppositional movement is but a child of the state’s own movement to modernity. Hence, if the state chooses to repress the periphery in the form of capital and labour, the peripheralised community will organise in terms of workers’ movements. If the nature of the suppression is sectarian in nature, the periphery will supply a movement alternative steeped in culturo-religious symbolism. Subsequently, it follows that if the state chooses to differentiate in terms of national identity then the periphery has little choice but to challenge the state on its own terms. It is for this reason I chose to explore in chapters 4, 5 and 6 the national movement as a means of addressing societal discontent in the context of overall social movement rebellion against centralist encroachment.

National movement mobilisation in Northern Ireland, the Basque Country and Croatia from the 1960s onwards are examples of this ‘mimicking’. Each movement has been defined by the nature of the perceived repression at the hands of their state elites. Whether or not this suppression existed, is not as important as the fact that it is felt as such. As explored in chapter 4, there has been a tendency within the discipline to ignore the dynamic nature of national movement development. The theoretical debate surrounding the successful consolidation of the modern nation-state system, in the ‘Nation-Building’ paradigm, has negated the role of so-called ‘sub-nationalities’ as means to modern movement mobilisation against the centre. This is why I believe Charles Tilly (1993b) to be correct in recognising that this has led to the subsequent failure of both national and social movement theorists to foresee the emergence of contestant nationalist ideologies throughout the ‘First’ and ‘Second’ world since the 1960s. They have wrongly presumed that the process of modern state development was complete, thus minimising the role of nationalism as an agent of social change.

Nationalism, as explored in chapters 5 & 6, has become the most effective means to mobilisation for what I have described as historic protest communities. The reasons lie in the ability of the peripheralised nation, once mobilised, to provide an historic continuum and a place within the overall development between state centre and periphery. Through exploring the ‘cyclical’ paradigm there emerges a pattern of state engendered repression-protest-repression that becomes integral in forcing the marginalised community into reaction. Yet without a strong state alternative the national movement would lack legitimacy within its own constituency. I believe this is because the state, as the creator of the conflict and fulcrum of public discontent, is necessary in defining the political ‘other’, ie, the enemy.

What develops is a reciprocal ideological movement found within the cleavages of the conflict. Two contestant ideologies that feed off each other, that would find it difficult to formulate a frame of contention without the perceived threat of the alternative. This has led to a parallel development of competing ideologies that become more exclusive with the completion of each cycle of repression-protest-repression. For a protest community seeking longevity this allows for a ritualisation of contention that allows the movement to be in a state of heightened mobilisation for as long as the state refuses to meet their goals. Thus, the movement becomes dependent on the state to provide a target of discontent that, in not enfranchising their demands, at once allowing the movement to become important in the day to day life of the community.

The problem with this cyclical development is that if the state is not willing to grant significant political opportunity structures then there is the chance that the conflict between centre and periphery may itself become stratified. This stratification I believe is derivative of the inability of both centre and contestant movement to successfully compromise on issues of sovereignty and self-determination. Though, I believe that for the survival of the state this could be to its advantage. It is the Northern Irish example that I feel best exemplifies this stratification of the crisis that leads to little resolution, or advantage, for an entrenched elite who themselves are seeking a lasting identity. Even if it be defined in opposition to the periphery.

In adopting what I called in chapter 6 a “consecutive study” for the forthcoming six empirical chapters on the Irish Republican, Basque separatist and Croatian national movements I desired to show the machinations of this stratification of crisis vis-à-vis the reciprocal development of state centre and periphery ideological movements of state. The premise I put forward was that for a movement to be successful it had to successfully mobilise their community against the state within the cleavages that emerge from state expansion and consolidation. Central to this development is the ability of the movement to demonstrate the illegitimacy of the state, in its current form, in providing any framework for the resolution of the community’s demands. This may be achieved by challenging the state directly, through utilising cyclical processes of reform to equate current discontent with those of the past. A scenario that grants the periphery an historic continuity of their own defined in the nature of state repression against them, which in turn plants the seed for future rebellion. Once this is achieved there emerges a polarisation of society in which the minority, now continuing the desire for protecting their cultural separateness from the ‘other’, can no longer look to the centre for resolution.

Societal polarisation hence provides the leverage for continuous action. Yet, if the state remains in control of the reform process then little opportunity may be created for the active involvement in policy formation of the alternate movement. The solution is to engage the state at the same level they have in the past engaged the periphery. The state must be ‘mimicked’, rather than mirrored as mirroring implies reflective passivity. In the process of ‘mimicking’ the movement attempts to copy each action of the state in order to escalate their contention, yet simultaneously parodies the state in a bid to attain a sense of autonomy. Whilst recognising the impossibility of the movement initiating reform, the movement nonetheless recognises the necessity of influencing the processes of reform through placing continuous pressure upon the state in periods of lull in the overall cycle of reform-protest-reform. This may be achieved by escalating the crisis, yet not the conflict itself.

National movement mobilisation, hence, becomes an agent of opposition that not only challenges the state’s inability to enfranchise peripheral demands, but also provides an ideological alternative. In this sense the concept of the nation itself is an extension of the state’s expansion of repertoire to incorporate cultural, social and political integration. Yet, it is when the movement commences to ‘mimic’ the state’s own repressive arm that I believe the desired polarisation of society may run the risk of isolating the militant wing of the national movement from the political opportunity structures of state. If the state elite, in turn, opts to enfranchise certain aspects of the rebel community and isolate other sections, there emerges the opportunity of the centre to divide the militants from its support base, as the periphery now view the reforms themselves as sufficient in dealing with the initial demands.

Consequently, this leads to the intractability of the conflict, in which the state itself gains greater legitimacy as the keeper of public order, as counter-movements define themselves, in terms of the conflict, as perpetual challengers to the centre. This is a reciprocation of identity formation that continues the historic enmities rather than resolves them. However, it may be enough to minimise the support base of the extremists, and thus, placing the state at the centre of any future conflict resolution as the legitimate voice of one of the competing communities. Thus, for secession to occur the national movement must polarise the communities and somehow avoid challenging the state to the extent where the centre sees benefits for itself in partaking in an overall process of reform.

Chapters 7 and 8 provide an insight into how the state may seek to reshape itself without necessarily threatening its own identity. The IRA are a response to the innately chauvinistic methods in which the Protestant state elite chose to put down competing ideas of statehood. Yet it has been the ability of the Ulster elite to at once slowly enfranchise variant Catholic groups such as the SDLP, as well as foster a Protestant militancy in response to IRA attacks on the UDA, that has enabled them to force upon the peripheral Catholics the notion that Protestant/Ulster state identity is as legitimate as that of the Republic of Ireland. Nevertheless, the nature of the state’s insistence on countering terrorism with counter-insurgency served to radicalise much of the Catholic community against any compromise. Thus, any positives gained by the Ulster state in acceding to the demands of the NICRA have been nullified by their desire to eliminate the IRA from the political process. This has led to the parallel development of two mutually exclusive ideologies of state that could only be resolved through the attainment of joint rule on the side of the Ulster elite and the recognition of the right of the Protestants to have a statelet independent of the south or the incorporation of the majority Protestant north into a restructured Republic of Ireland. Both solutions seem unlikely as such a solution would still not cover those Catholics living in predominantly Protestant areas and vice versa.

Hence, the mistakes of 1922, 1969 and 1975 would be repeated, as both communities have clearly defined themselves in terms of the ‘Troubles” rather than within their movements themselves. What has developed has been the identification of the movement with its actions rather than its own sense of community. Out of this a permanent militancy emerges by which the IRA cannot be satiated within the preexisting state and hence the ‘Troubles’, in my opinion, will continue to spiral out of control as long as the IRA sees little change occurring to the Union between the province and the mainland. The fact is, due to memories forged in previous cycles of reform-protest-reform, the majority of Catholics have failed to see the Ulster and British states as a viable solution to their demands. As such they will continue to rebel. Yet, unlike the past there is now a prominent Protestant counter identity that is Irish, not British, that has emerged from the crisis. One that would itself continue the cycle of violence if an ‘All-Ireland’ solution is proffered.

A similar stratification of the crisis has occurred within the Spanish state. State repression created peripheral response. Yet, the level of violent reciprocity between the state and ETA has been outweighed by the ability of the Spanish state to enfranchise a reluctant Basque community through the realisation of the Francoist elite that only through democratisation of government could a full scale confrontation be avoided. This has by the 1990s led to the alienation of ETA from much of its popular support base. Consecutive UCD and PSOE Governments have realised the necessity of granting autonomy within a general Spanish framework in order to placate the moderate nationalist community. In general this has worked. Though, in my opinion, the state lost the opportunity for lasting peace through the insistence of the PSOE and Spanish Security Forces of waging a clandestine war against ETA activists throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

This intensification of centralist pressure on ETA has raised much doubt within the Basque community of the willingness of the state to accept Basque opinion if it should ever contradict the centre’s view of how the Spanish state should be ideologically and politically structured. The state, in its insistence of eliminating one wing of the overall Basque movement, is opening a window of opportunity for ETA to sow the seeds of future rebellion. ETA, schooled in the strategy of action-reaction-action, may yet be able to survive. Relevance for its militancy is after all dependent on its ability, through deed of action, to portray the state as intolerant to any formation of Basque dissidence. The emergence of the Parti di Popular and its new campaign of arresting HB activists can only prolong ETA’s existence. Yet no matter what the circumstance, the Spanish state in general has successfully redefined its own identity to become a more pluralistic and inclusive ideology. This, in my mind demonstrates the significance of the state as the definer of the socio-political environment in which conflict occurs. The very fact that the state recognised the need to absorb these cleavages, rather than isolate peripheral demands, has led it to survive its social movement challenge. Suggesting that for the peripheral nation militant to survive there is a need for a repressive regime to justify a continuance state of mobilisation that the national movement demands.

State repression hence is at the core of peripheral militancy. Without state encroachment there is little justification for peripheral mobilisation. When the state chooses to absorb the disparate groups and demands, it lessens the justification for oppositional mobilisation. Yet, as I have shown in chapters 11 and 12 on Yugoslavia, if the state remains intransigent, and unwilling to hear counter demands then there is little option left for the periphery but to ride the cycles of reform until the goal of independence is attained. Herein lies the reasons for the successful attainment of statehood by the Croatian political periphery. That is, without the exclusive nationalism of Milosevic there is little doubt that the move to autonomy by the LCC and the HDZ would not have been achieved. Milosevic and the LCS failed in not providing a rhetoric that could include disparate Croats. The last chance of reform was in the hands of the Markovic Government.

Yet, with the move of the centre to counter peripheral discontent with the fostering of a new ethno-centric centralist state ideological movement, the periphery would be forced to ‘mimic’ the centre in order to proffer an alternate movement for the survival of their own community. Where the Croats were able to succeed where the Irish and Basque could not, had more to do with the lack of any political opportunity structure created by the centre than anything to do with their own initiative. Though, it must be recognised that the choice early on in 1967 not to engage in open militancy allowed for Croatian voices to be represented within the structures of power well after past movement activism had been suppressed. This placed the Croatians in a position to be able to exploit any future opportunities that emerged from future redefinition of centre-periphery relations. The ability to ‘mimic’ the centre without necessarily physically challenging the state enabled the periphery to formulate an alternate society that had already created the infrastructure necessary to secede. A point bourn out in the rapidity in which the HDZ consolidated the national movement within the new Croatian state after the first Republican elections of 1990. By the time the centre reacted it was too late, as the means to absorbing the periphery could no longer be found in a new Yugoslav state ideology steeped in anti-pluralistic rhetoric.

The development of successful national movement mobilisation is hence dependent on the very state structure that it opposes in the first place. It is the state through the way it chooses to expand and consolidate which provides the reasoning behind oppositional mobilisation. Movements are responsive entities of collective demands that maintain agency through remaining relevant as focal points of peripheral discontent with the overarching structures of state rule. When the state is repressive, the movement responds likewise; when it opens opportunity structures, the periphery tends to explore the path to enfranchisement. As such national movements are responses to preconditions of state enfranchisement based on one’s own national identity. It is within this very continuum of dynamic reciprocal centre-periphery development that cycles develop two competing, mutually exclusive ideological movements. Their saliency within the modern world however, lies in their ability to grant protest communities a sense of longevity unattainable to more conventional forms of social movement organisation. The national movement is hence an ideological construct that provides a point of opposition to the state centre’s own notion of societal development towards modernity.

While this dissertation does not claim to proffer a more complete theoretical solution to the reasons behind national movement mobilisation, it has nevertheless, heightened the need for a more syncretic solution that would include a convergence of ‘Social Movement’ and ‘Nation-Building’ theories. The solution to this need for a convergence of political opportunity structures and social alternatives needs to be found within a more dynamic paradigm. A dynamic solution which can be found in the cyclical development of state centre and periphery relations, as parallel, yet interdependent, movements to political organisation. One cannot survive without the other, as each movement by the state is countered by the periphery. A countering of strategy that allows the national movement to ‘mimic’ the state to the point of proffering a new state alternative, ideologically juxtaposed to the original state structure. Hence, the ‘other’, ie, the ideological opposition, plays a significant role in the perpetual development of state, and as such the state as the raison d’être and target of social movement mobilisation should never be diminished. For in ignoring the significance of a strong state centre in formulating peripheral counter-mobilisation, one runs the risk of negating the cause of the rise of many a national movement in contemporary Europe.