Catalonia is deeply divided for and against independence. Here’s what makes the difference.

The result of the election held in Catalonia on Dec. 21 appears contradictory. On the one hand, parties advocating independence collectively won a majority of seats. On the other hand, the party that most strongly opposes independence, Citizens, came in first place. The election came amid enormous political unrest. In October, the Catalan government held a referendum on independence, even though Spanish courts had declared it illegal. After the results came in, the Catalan parliament unilaterally declared independence — after which the Spanish government suspended Catalan autonomy and jailed many pro-independence leaders. In the wake of such dramatic events, we might have expected citizens to shift their votes significantly. That’s not what happened. Some parties did gain or lose votes. But strikingly, overall support for pro-independence parties has remained surprisingly stable. The total vote for pro-independence parties went from 47.8 percent in the previous 2015 election to 47.6 percent in 2017. We see this as evidence of a deeply polarized society. After years of conflict over Catalonia’s right to hold a referendum and on independence itself, Catalans have divided into two opposing groups — based on family origin, as measured by first language.

Here’s how we did our research

The Making Electoral Democracy Work (MEDW) project conducted an online survey over the seven days before this week’s regional election, with 1,500 respondents obtained from Survey Sampling International. Respondents were weighted so that our...Read more...

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