Regionalist national parties and ‘new politics’: The Bloque Nacionalista Galego and Plaid Cymru

Article abstract:

It has become commonplace for scholars to lump regional nationalist parties in Western Europe together with other so-called 'New Politics' parties. However, little systematic work has been undertaken to determine the validity of this claim. Employing original membership data related to two such parties in Galicia and Wales, I test the assertion that regional nationalist party activists are characterised by certain socio-demographic profiles and postmaterialist attitudes typical of other New Politics parties. The findings demonstrate that while the Galician party follows the New Politics paradigm, the Welsh party does not. These findings are insufficient, however, to categorically reject a link between regional nationalism and the New Politics. Instead, I conclude that analysts need to develop better models to account for the variation in regional nationalist party support across Europe. In particular, greater attention must be paid to patterns of party development and to the various constraints imposed by the configuration of party competition and the structure of the electoral system.