It was in February 1996, whilst taking a break from my doctoral field work in Seville, that I was to have an experience that would change the nature of my research. This was the period of Carnevale and the ascension to Lent. The allure of Carnevale’s expectant festivities played a large part in my decision to head south to Andalusia; as well as the fact that it was in the opposite direction from where, until then, all my attention had been focused. Seville that morning was glorious in its promise of sun, festivity and Moorish culture. A far cry from the bleak European winter that had awaited me in Belfast, Coleraine, Zagreb and Bilbao.

Whilst admiring the Sephardic architecture and tree lined streets of the old city, with a group of Jamaican and Quebecois students, our early morning jaunt was halted by the sounds of discontent coming from nearby the old colonial Cathedral. Before us was a group of some eighty Romani protesting about the levels of poverty experienced in government funded housing projects, and the inadequacy of social welfare policies in dealing with ethnic specific cultural needs. However, neither the fact that the Romani were protesting, nor the looks of distaste that the Romani were receiving from the average Andalusian, angered by the disruptive nature of the protest, caught my attention. It was one sign. A powerful image of protest, which for me at that time seemed to be irrelevant to the Romani cause, much less the issue of public housing. This sign neatly sewn on the sleeve of a green army parker was the flag of the Basque Country. Worn by a Romani in his early forties, this brazen act of defiance towards Castilian ethnic rule was to question my intent to study the relevance of nationalism purely outside its role as a tool to social mobilisation for the initiation of collective action.

This move was brazen on behalf of the Romani, due to the fact that a week prior to the occurrence of this small public rally, some two million people marched through Madrid demanding an end to the Euzkadi ’ta Askatasuna’ (ETA)1 movement’s ‘terror’, and a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Yet here in Seville, one week after the show of two million protesters moving towards a populist solution, there stood one Romani, a member of perhaps the most persecuted ethnic community of contemporary Europe, defiantly standing in the face of mass opinion, wearing the symbol of the people considered by many Spaniards as the cause of comtemporary violent dissidence.

This was reminiscent of Charles Tilly’s experience in writing The Contentious French and how he had, whilst researching the rise of popular rebellion amongst the French nation in the dusty library of Versailles, been similarly interrupted by the voices of a few hundred protesters who today still felt, nearly two hundred years after similar activism had successfully removed the monarchy, the necessity to take to the streets when more official avenues of access were denied them. For Tilly the nature of the protest and the cause were of little significance in comparison to the epiphany he felt when recognising that in many ways, such a movement of people was cyclical and would remain an integral part of peripheral expression of discontent as long as the state existed.

In my opinion, the power of this Romani evoking the symbol of the Basque was a throw back to the Francoist period whereby for most on the periphery the now vilified Basque radical movement ETA was once the symbol of open resistance to an overtly centralist Falangist regime. For this Romani, it was a symbol, a reminder of another time, when social movement activism was a means to political revolution as much as it was a manifestation of the cyclical nature of movement activism and state response. For me it was a reminder that the movement that I was studying was as relevant today as it was in the past, according to the nature of the state’s efforts to deal with it.

Progressively my research changed. Initially I desired to study the contemporary relevance of nationalism in the Irish, Basque and Croatian communities. Eventually though, I was to broaden my research to include the cyclical nature of social movement activism in challenging core ethnic elites at the centre of restructuring state entities. Sparked initially by the experience in Seville, after each interview undertaken with political activists from the movements researched throughout this thesis, it soon became clear that the problems these movements face today- in terms of responding to state policy changes and the mobilisation of the population in order to accrue popular legitimacy- were cyclical. What the Irish Republican Army (IRA) faced today in the Joint Frameworks Agreement, was played out ten years prior in the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and the Sunningdale Agreement a further ten years before that. The cyclical nature of this took my interest as I came to realise that nationalism itself could be seen as a tool of social mobilisation in cycles of activism against the state and, as such, should be studied in like terms.

The Thesis that will be Examined.

The rise of nationalist movements to political prominence throughout Europe in the 1960s has caused a dilemma for many social scientists. The study of national movement development had seemingly been resolved, within the European context, by the completion of the two World Wars. Nation-building theory had provided a paradigm that explained the development of the modern nation-state in terms of increased state cultural, political, social, economic and communicative centralisation. Negating socio-psychological and peripheral reasons behind national mobilisation, ‘Nation-Building’ theorists seemingly ignored the significance of peripheral non-statist nationalist claims as being atavistic, sub-national and retrogradist. This had the effect of marginalising such movements as by-products of industrialisation, and as such should be given due consideration accordingly.

National movement theory, hence, became static- imprisoned within the status quo that reflected the make up of European state development. The nation, however, as a means of socio-political organisation, was far from static. What the rise of national movement mobilisation on the peripheries of the European state system had demonstrated was that the international state system was far from completed, and the nation-state as we know it is dynamic. In my opinion, states are dynamic in order to absorb the demands and tensions that emerge from society. States respond in kind to demands from the periphery, reflecting not just the nature of centre periphery relations, but the fluidity of the state as a means of conflict resolution between competing elites, communities, and ideologies of state. Where crises emerge, is when the state has failed in its role as arbiter, bringing a corresponding questioning of the state’s legitimacy to monopolise the control of state apparatus over society.2

Social scientists, in failing to recognise the dynamicism between the corresponding development of centre and periphery, have ignored an aspect of state-periphery development that could prove helpful in explaining the reasons behind increased peripheral national movement mobilisation. This dissertation will henceforth attempt to demonstrate that state and peripheral national development is parallel. At the core is the cyclical development of centre-periphery relations, whereby the state is placed at the centre of the expansion of centre consolidation and peripheral mobilisation. Through combining ‘Social Movement’ theory and a re-evaluation of nation state development it will be shown how national movement mobilisation is a reaction of the periphery towards greater state encroachment that must be taken from an historic paradigm.

The mobilisation of political communities to rebellion as a step response to the state’s own processes of reform and consolidation is what I call a ‘mimicking’ of the state.3 The movement is but a reaction, yet for rebellion to occur the mobilised community must chart its own expansion of repertoire according to the historic continuum it finds itself in. Radicalisation can only occur with the failure of the state to provide the necessary political opportunity structures to absorb the demands that arise within the cleavages between consolidating state centre and mobilising periphery. For the movement to successfully achieve their goals of autonomy, or independence, they must ‘mimic’ the shifts in state, exemplified in the reform process, frame by frame, action by action. They must utilise the cycle of reform-protest-reform in order to wrest control over the pace of reform away from the centre through an intensification of the engagement of the state. The cycle provides the opportunity for this joint reshaping of the political environment to occur.

Central to this cyclical development of crisis is the recognition of the role of the state in the process of identity formation. My thesis will be that the state not only is integral to the formation of centralist ideology that forces the periphery to radicalise, but also to peripheral identification. With each frame by frame tactical ‘mimicking’ of the state, there develops a simultaneous ideological ‘mimicking’ of the other. This places great importance upon the state as both raison d’être and fulcrum for the rise of peripheral discontent. What occurs is not just a cyclical parallel, yet inter-dependent development between centre and periphery, but also between the competing ideologies of movement vis-à-vis the state. Thus, without the overt centralist nationalist ideology, there would be little room for the development of a competing peripheral nationalist ideology.

The nature of peripheral rebellion is a ‘mimic’ of the nature of state rule. Intensification of state centralisation, policing and militarisation policies at the completion of each cycle, provides for the reciprocation of movement response. A scenario which can be utilised to the advantage of both state and periphery alike. My premise is that for the centralist state to be successful they must provide significant opportunity structures in order to enfranchise the majority of the competing community and further peripheralise the radicals. This ability to restructure the nature of centre-periphery parallel development through cyclical reforms has two outcomes: the consolidation of the centralist state as a fluid entity of conflict resolution, or the stratification of the conflict whereby the movement is no longer defined in terms of its community, but rather within terms of its role within the conflict itself.

For the movement to be successful, the cycles of reform-protest-reform (Maguire 1998) must be ridden at a level that encourages further reform from the centre. The stratification of the crisis into a permanent polarity between the two communities must be avoided. Polarisation is significant for initial mobilisation as a distinguisher between the two competing communities, but it must not become the raison d’être for mobilisation itself. This resides in the state alone. The movement must ‘mimic’ frame for frame, action for action, the actions of the reshaping state, utilising the cycle of protest, as the national movement is but a protest community within the historic continuum of parallel state centre and periphery development. Intensification of the crisis may only serve to justify the radicalisation of the state’s own identity as a military counter-movement to that of the periphery, and the criminalisation of the minority community with the criminalisation of the crisis. Successful mobilisation, hence, occurs when the peripheral movement ‘mimics’ the state to reform, without falling into directly challenging the state physically. For only when a state has been created or attained that at the end of the cycle, can force be used to consolidate the new gains.

Rationale Behind the Movements Chosen for Study.

In undertaking a comparative study of the Irish, Basque and Croatian national movements I have chosen three communities from three varying political circumstances so as to test the applicability of my thesis. By incorporating movements that emerge from a democratic, fascist and communist state system, I wanted to test the dynamic and cyclical paradigm within these three unrelated systems, except of course in the nature of their battle against perceived ethnic centralist elites, so as to demonstrate the ubiquitous nature of parallel, and interdependent, centre-periphery development.

The commonalities that exist between the three empirical case studies lie in the nature of the development of centralist elite politics, and how all three peripheral communities have subsequently defined their own identities and action accordingly. The Irish, Basque and Croat national movements are far from aberrations on the political landscape of European state development. All three are placed within an historic continuum of state development and peripheral mobilisation that can be traced back two centuries. Sovereignty and autonomy, within a contemporary statist-nationalist paradigm, have been political catch-cries with the Irish since 1792, the Basques since 1832 and Croatia since the 1830s. This, allows all three to be perceived in terms of protest communities that have continuously redefined and reshaped their notions of community and identity in terms of the dynamic development of state and peripheral elites.

The Irish since 1968, the Basques since 1959 and the Croats since 1965 are examples of communities that have previously been seen to have resolved their nationalist aspirations within the pre-existing state structures. At the core of each movement was the mobilisation of cultural, political and social discontent that would manifest into direct political opposition to the centralist state. Originally culturally based, all three movements would manifest in the form of social movement mobilisation with civil rights, equal opportunity and full enfranchisement at the core of their doctrines. The state would become the fulcrum of their activism as well as the raison d’être for their continued mobilisation. Each would prove highly responsive to the shifts in state structures, and similarly would sporn radical movements to directly combat the state’s own repressive apparatus.

Differences though, exist within the nature by which these respective movements have chosen to engage the state. In Northern Ireland and the Basque Country, the emergence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and ETA respectively, would signify a radicalisation of peripheral political mobilisation as a response to increased state isolation of minority claims. To a lesser extent a similar occurrence would emerge within the Croat diaspora, with the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood (CRB). Yet, the fact that they were never to gain a foothold within Yugoslavia would diminish their effectiveness. The Croats would come to be defined in terms of the ability of the League of Communists of Croatia (LCC) to foster underground political activity to use in times of state recentralisation against the centre. Formed along a populist leftist
national liberation movement the LCC held a considerable advantage over the Irish and Basque movements. It provided a vehicle for nationalist aspirations to be explored within the structures of state power. This allowed for the development of the Croatian Spring Movement from 1967 to 1971 under the direct auspices of a wing of government. The Irish, facing electoral gerrymandering, were effectively excluded from all aspects of governmental policy formation, whilst the Basques were viewed as a cultural anomaly preventing the cultural Castilianisation of the state so desired by Franco and his own movement of nation renewal, the Movimiento Nacional.4

All three movements, in one way or another, are dependent upon the state system they oppose for the nature of their response. They, likewise, are defined in terms of the nature of the state centre’s own definition of the nature of state nationalism. Hence, the IRA is not only ‘mimicking’ the nature of government reaction to demands for reform from the periphery, but also the ideological tenants of extremist Protestant Ulsterism. ETA is also a child of repressive Castilianisation, and much of its distinctiveness from the rest of Spain’s diverse national polity is defined in opposition to the nature of Castilianisation which is at the core of the centre’s own identity. Similarly, Croatian nationalism can be viewed as a counter movement to the nature of Serbian centralisation of state and ‘Greater Serbian’ national movement development. The development of each of these movements and states are reciprocal, with each needing the ‘other’ to frame the reasons for their existence and the nature of their action.

What will be demonstrated throughout the empirical part of this thesis will be how the nature of the responses of each movement, to state reform and reaction, within the cycle of reform-protest-reform, has shaped the development of each movement vis-à-vis the state they oppose. The development of two strands of Irish Republicanism from the successful Northern Irish Civil Rights Association (NICRA), ie, the IRA and Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP), will become integral in demonstrating how the ability of the state to co-opt one section of the national community whilst peripheralising the other, leads to the stratification of the conflict. Further entrenching the Ulster state as integral to any future resolution of the crisis, as the conflict it has created has enabled the state to become the protector of both radical, and moderate, Protestant interests in opposition to Catholic Republican peripheral pressures. This at once stratifies the conflict and peripheries in a permanent state of mobilisation that prevents compromise to emerge between the two competing ideologies of state.

Similarly, the radicalisation of the conflict in the Basque Country has led to a polarisation of the two competing ideologies of state. The difference between the Irish and Basque examples is that, though initially intransigent, the ability of the Francoist elite to reform the nature of state identity through the democratisation process, has led to an opening of political opportunity structures of state that would enfranchise significant sectors of the Basque polity and isolate others. This hence minimised the role of ETA with each completion of a cycle of reform-protest-reform, as the state successfully sought to re-identify itself in an environment conducive to parallel dynamic centre-periphery development. This left ETA marginalised from its own constituency due to the nature of its actions. By keeping control of the cycle the Spanish governmental centre was able to rejustify the reasons for its continuance whilst questioning the relevance of not just ETA, but any rival Basque ideology of state.

A Working Definition of Terms.

The difficulties in undertaking a study that incorporates two strands of social science are many, especially when attempting to use working definitions from certain theoretical concepts. Attempting to combine definitions from ‘Social Movement’ theory and the wealth of literature on nationalism is no less difficult. Nevertheless, due to similarities between the two strands, within the discipline, more general working definitions were needed that were applicable to this thesis.

Social Movement
Social movements are entities that are defined by the nature of their struggle with the state. As entities defined by their action they become fluid in their ability to adopt and change ideology and strategy according to the nature of the struggle with the state. Found within the cleavages that develop between shifting state centres and peripheries, they are born of struggle and conflict and must, therefore, be viewed in terms of their dynamic nature. Extra-parliamentary in nature, they have the ability of partaking within a given political system as long as their challenge to the system is not compromised. They are dependent on the ability of the state to either co-opt or repress them, through ‘political opportunity structures’ created in the conflict between state and movement, for their relevance to a protest community. Therefore, in this thesis I will utilise Sidney Tarrow’s (1995: 3-4) definition of social movements to best describe the movement in dynamic terms as “collective challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interaction with elites, opponents and authorities.”5

Cycle of Protest
‘Cycles of Protest’, ie, the dynamic paradigm of social movement development will be the core theory of this thesis. The significance of this dynamic paradigm is the ability of it to explain the development of social movement mobilisation in terms of the historic development of social movement activism vis-à-vis the state. The two predominant paradigms of the 1970s and 1980s, ‘Resource Mobilisation’ and ‘New Social Movement’ theory, failed due to their tendency to view movement mobilisation in terms that negated the role of historic state ideational development (see chapter 1). By placing collective activism within an historic continuum, social theorists like della Porta (1995, 1996), Tarrow (1991, 1993a) and Tilly (1986, 1995) have recognised the significance of the state as an ever changing target and raison d’être for collective mobilisation. Social movements, accordingly, react likewise, mobilising in times of lulls in state reform and de-escalating activities when little gains can accrue from continued activism. What the ‘cycles of protest’ paradigm offers is a model that recognises that state and movement development are far from static. Rather they are dynamic and responsive entities that continue to evolve as long as discontent and crises exist. Thus, within this thesis Tarrow’s (1995: 153) extension of Tilly’s (1994a: 13-14) definition of protest cycles will be used:

referring to a phase of heightened conflict and contention across the social system that includes: a rapid diffusion of collective action from mobilised sectors; a quickened pace of innovation in the forms of contention; new or transformed collective action frames; a combination of organised and unorganised participation; and sequences of intensified interaction between challengers and authorities which can end in reform, repression and sometimes revolution.

Political Opportunity Structures
The premise in this thesis that movements and nations are dependent upon ‘political opportunity structures’, created by the state in transition for further mobilisation, is dependent on the dynamic parallel, yet interdependent, development of state-centre and periphery-movement. They may be designed as a response by the state to alleviate or intensify crisis, as an attempt to enfranchise or further isolate dissident communities; they may also arise incidentally within the cycle of protest itself. Henceforth, throughout this thesis when talking of political opportunity structures I will refer to Tarrow’s (1996: 54) definition of such structures being the “consistent- but not necessarily formal, permanent, or national signals to social or political actors which either encourage or discourage them to use their internal resources to form social movements.”6

Nation
This thesis examines the dynamic nature of centre-periphery development vis-à-vis the state. The definition of ‘nation’, hence, must be seen as a reflexive and mutable entity that exists within the historic continuum of state development. Reference is often made throughout this thesis to ‘ethnicity’ and ‘kinship’, yet it would be a mistake to overemphasise the role of such notions in all cases of national development. While not negating aspects of the ‘nation’ that pre-date industrialisation, this thesis concentrates on the development of three specific nations within modern state contexts. Significantly, the ‘nation’ is defined here in terms of its discursive and dialectic nature, as well as its fluidity as a movement of societal discontent and organisation. Thus, Anthony Smith’s (1991: 14) definition of the ‘nation’ shall be used in this thesis and will be defined as: “a named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members.”7

National Movement
In this thesis the nation is defined in dynamic terms, as such the ‘national movement’ is viewed as an extension of the politicised nation. This politicisation of the nation is a response to state centralist encroachment upon the periphery. Therefore, the ‘national movement’ is to be viewed as the ‘nation’ mobilised, ie, as a continuous extension of the responsiveness of given elites to shifts within the political environment. It is, therefore, a protest community that is in a state of continuous mobilisation within a given historic paradigm, that has as its main goal the attainment of statehood for the community it represents.

Centre-Periphery
The final definition that shall be addressed here is that of centre and periphery. Throughout this thesis the notion of centre-periphery conflict, development and mobilisation are common place. For the sake of simplicity, the definition of centre and periphery will be limited to the dynamic development between state and movement that is explored throughout this dissertation. Henceforth, the concept of ‘centre’, and thus ‘centralisation’, will be equated with the culturo-national elite at the head of state. ‘Centralisation’ will, therefore, be described as the state ideological encroachment upon the periphery in the name of elite consolidation. ‘Periphery’ will be defined as the ideological counter-movement to the state’s centralisation, as defined within the national movement and community that is in direct opposition to the centre’s predominance of the political system.

Data and Methodology.

In the development of this thesis I have divided my research into three major sections:

1. Academic, biographical and popular literature that deals with ‘Social Movement’ theory, ‘Nation-Building’ theory and the overall historic development of state nationalism and periphery mobilisation;
2. Documents and pamphlets attained from archival and political party libraries; and
3. Interviews with political activists and politicians that were and are currently active within the movements discussed throughout the empirical chapters of this thesis.

Library Research and Literature Review.

The nature of the literature reviewed:

1. Material dealing with general ‘Social Movement’ theory which included ‘Resource Mobilisation’, ‘New Social Movement’ and the dynamic ‘Protest Cycle’ theories;
2. Material dealing with the development of the state, modern nation and contemporary peripheral European national movements;
3. The historical development of Irish, Basque and Croat national movements; also state based Ulster, Castilian and Serbian counter-movements; and
4. Political science and historical reports, articles, biographies and newspaper reports dealing with the contemporary rise of national movement mobilisation and conflict escalation with the state in Northern Ireland, Spain and the former Yugoslavia.

Primary and Archival Research.

The archival research was divided equally between all three case studies, though equally limited by the willingness of the movements concerned to allow me to access relevant material. In Northern Ireland much of the archival and pamphlet material was gained from the library at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, through the assistance of the United Nations’ Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution. In the Basque Country the archival research was conducted with the assistance of the Basque Nationalist Party8 (PNV) document and policy sections, where access was gained to their extensive collection of past and present documents. In Croatia, the research was attained from two sources. Firstly, the Archives of the Library at the University of Zagreb. Secondly, at the archives of the Institute for Applied Social Research in Zagreb. Most are in pamphlet and document form and are as such listed separately from the rest of the bibliography.

A Brief Note on Interviews and the Original Primary Resources.

In the course of the research, nineteen people were interviewed in two separate periods of this research. The first period, which was attained in the late winter of 1992, consisted of interviews that were recorded as follow up interviews for my Honours Thesis (Ercegovac: 1992). The reasoning for this unusual strategy was that at the time Croatia was at war, and there was little guarantee of whether the politicians interviewed would be willing to further conduct interviews in such busy times, and whether or not they would still be alive.9 In fact, in December 1995, whilst I was organising interviews in Madrid, Miko Tripalo, the Croat representative on the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY), died, reinforcing the importance of attaining interviews for my future doctoral thesis whenever available. The second period of research occurred during the northern winter of 1995 and 1996. These were the interviews completed with councillors and politicians in the Basque Country and Northern Ireland.

The length of interviews varied, from fifteen minutes to one hour. However, due to certain circumstances five interviews were not recorded. Two because of equipment failure, though the interviews were hand written. The three others were purposefully not recorded at the bequest of the interviewees. This was due to their unwillingness to have their voices recorded, as they are members of Herri Batasuna and do not wish to express opinions publicly that may differ with the official party line. In these cases the interviewees were given pseudonyms, and their responses were recorded by hand for obvious security reasons. All interviews for both periods are listed in Appendix 1 of this thesis.

Those chosen to be interviewed consisted of political activists who were prominent within the structures of their movements and parties for their input into the strategies and platforms of the movements they represent. In Northern Ireland, I concentrated on the Republican Nationalist community. Thus, the interviews were done with members of Sinn Féin and the SDLP. In the Basque Country, interviews were recorded again with members of the nationalist community. The spread of interviews over a broad political spectrum of movements and parties was intentional in order to gain a larger perspective into strategies of the overall nationalist movement. Therefore, the PNV, Herri Batasuna (HB)10 and Eusko Alkartasuna (EA)11 were given equal weight. Similarly, in Croatia, the interviews were conducted with members of the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ), Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS), Croatian National Party (HNS), ex-LCC and Croatian Democratic Party (HDS).

The questions were directed towards the national question, although, more often than not, the interviewees were encouraged to discuss points they considered imperative to the nature of their movement’s activism. For this reason I left much of the questioning open ended once the initial questions on nationalism were addressed. Central to this was my aim of utilising interviews to augment the theory proffered throughout this thesis, rather than concentrating on quantitative methods. Della Porta (1992), and della Porta and Tarrow (1986), noted that it was important to record quantitative methods in certain circumstances except when attempting to understand the rationale behind why people embrace movement activism and the significance that ideology plays as a mobiliser to action. It was with this in mind that I undertook my interviews in order to ascertain the personal motives behind why such activism was embraced.

Questions, therefore, corresponded with the ‘mood’ of the discussions. By ‘mood’ I mean the nature in which the interviewees desired to approach the interview. Nevertheless, the core questions put to the respondents were as follows:

1. The reasons behind their joining the national movement;
2. The significance of nationalism to their political beliefs;
3. The reasons to why they remained active;
4. The history of their activism;
5. The role of the opposing elite in mobilising their community through repression;
6. The aims of their movement;
7. The role of the state as fulcrum of protest activism and conciliator of societal cleavages;
8. The possibility of reforming the state and the desire for the attainment of a separate state entity.

A Brief Breakdown of the Thesis Chapter by Chapter.

This thesis will be divided into four parts. The first two parts will deal with the overall theoretical explanation of this dissertation, the third part with the empirical case studies, and the final part the conclusion.

Part I
Chapter 1 will examine the contemporary move by social movement theory to incorporate a more ideational, historical and dynamic model into the discipline. Thus, it becomes important to lightly examine the reasons why ‘Resource Mobilisation’ and ‘New Social Movement’ theory prove insufficient in explaining the reasoning behind the emergence of contesting ideational movements in the post-1960s European political environment. This will allow for the development of a dynamic statist analysis that will be further developed in the following chapter.

Chapter 2 shall explore the significance of the state as both target and fulcrum of peripheral discontent. Central to this chapter will be the importance of the state in the mobilisation of social movement activism in direct opposition to that of the state. It will provide a base for chapter 3’s analysis on the cyclical development of state centre and periphery.

Chapter 3 continues on from chapter 2 and places the state at the core of contemporary ideational movement mobilisation. This chapter examines the complimentary and reciprocal development of centre and periphery development. The core is to show how mobilised peripheral discontent, in the form of protest action, is a reciprocal response to the continuous development and encroachment of the state on the periphery of society. This is where my theory of movement ‘mimicking’ the state shall first be explored in full, with the intention of demonstrating how state and movement development is parallel, yet interdependent.

Part II
Chapter 4, the key to this chapter will be exploring why traditional ‘Nation-Building’ theory fails to explain the emergence of national movement mobilisation throughout Europe during the 1960s. Central to this will be the analysis of the cyclical nature of national mobilisation and how the great wave of nation building that occurred throughout Europe in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles far from satiated the demands of Europe’s marginalised national communities. It will provide the lead into a further exploration of the reasons behind national movement mobilisation in chapters 5 and 6.

Chapter 5 explores the attractiveness of nationalism as a doctrine of social agency for protest communities seeking longevity within the established political order. The populist, democratic and mobilisational nature of nationalism will be explored within the context of peripheral counter mobilisation to the centre’s expansion. Nationalism, will hence be portrayed as a flexible movement strategy designed to ‘mimic’ the state’s official ideology. Furthermore, nationalism’s reciprocal dynamic nature and its ability to restructure the political environment according to the strategic needs of the periphery will be examined in detail. This will lead into the final theoretical chapter that will deal with the reasons behind peripheries choosing nationalism as the optimum form of societal liberation.

Chapter 6 will, as the final theoretical chapter, explore why nationalism has become seen as the cure all for marginalised disenfranchised political peripheries. At the core of this will be the recognition that as the predominant doctrine of state it ‘mimics’ the very state structure that the periphery seeks to reform. The nature of the state’s own ideology will be shown as the catalyst for such mobilisation. Thus, the ideological, social and cultural role of nationalism as a doctrine of socio-political liberation will be
explored, with the aim of placing the state as the reasoning behind such peripheral mobilisation.

Part III
Chapters 7 & 8 will commence the progressive analysis of the empirical case studies within this thesis. The aim of these chapters will be to provide a base for the comparative study of the Irish, Basque and Croat national movements. This will be demonstrated by showing, in the context of the cyclical development of protest movement and state consolidation, how the Irish national movement has in fact stratified the conflict by the way they have chosen to respond to increased state centralisation and consolidation.

Chapters 9 & 10 demonstrate how the willingness of the Spanish state to open up political opportunity structures to the Basque community has enabled them with each completion of the cycle of reform-protest-reform, to co-opt the moderates on the periphery. This leads to a subsequent isolation of the radicals and a further legitimisation of the previously challenged state as the arena for further conflict resolution, thus, consolidating the position of the state in future centre-periphery development.

Chapters 11 & 12 will examine the development of the Croat national movement in the context of state initiated reform cycles. The key will be exploring the success of the Croats in polarising the political system through their activism as opposed to polarising the communities. This strategic ‘mimicking’ of the state, yet never directly challenging it physically, was to enable the Croats to see out successive cycles until they were in a position to demonstrate the inability of the state to reform.

Part IV
The Conclusion will review the aims of the research and conclude that the state as an ever reforming political entity plays an integral role in the parallel, yet interdependent, development of the centre and periphery. This is to be demonstrated by a summation of the role of the state in the instigation of the cycle of reform-protest-reform. It provides the fulcrum for peripheral mobilisation, as well as the target. Thus, whether or not the state or the movement is successful in attaining their goals is dependent upon the ability of one or the other to control the pace of the cycle of reform. Success is granted to the movement, be it state or periphery sponsored, accordingly. If both fail then there emerges a stratification of the crisis, as the conflict escalates to whereby both state and movement identify with the struggle itself. A perpetual continuation of the cycle of state consolidation and peripheral movement rebellion that will spiral into the future, with little chance of resolution.