Empowering the People’s Truth Through Social Media? (De)Legitimizing Truth Claims of Populist Politicians and Citizens

Right-wing populists have allegedly fueled increasing levels of distrust regarding expert knowledge and empirical evidence. Yet, we know little about how right-wing populist politicians and citizens use social media to construct and oppose truth claims. Using a qualitative analysis of Twitter and Facebook posts communicated by right-wing populists and citizens supporting populist ideas in the Netherlands, this article offers in-depth insights into processes of legitimization (confirming truth claims) and de-legitimization (opposing truth claims). The main conclusion is that right-wing populists and citizens supporting populism do not share a universal way of referring to reality. They use social media to communicate a confirmation-biased reality: Expert knowledge and evidence are de-contextualized or reinterpreted and aligned with right-wing populist agendas. References to the people’s experiences and worldviews, conspiracy theories and crisis sentiments are used to legitimize people’s opposition to expert knowledge and empirical evidence. Based on these findings, we coin the idea of an “adaptable construction of confirmation-biased truth claims” central in right-wing populist interpretations of reality. In times of increasing attacks on expert knowledge and empirical evidence, populist discourse may fuel an antagonism between the ordinary people’s experiences and the truth claims of established media channels and politicians in government. Social media offer a platform to members of the public to engage in discussions about (un)truthfulness, perceived deception, and populist oppositions—potentially amplifying divides between the ordinary people’s experiences and expert sources.

At the Digital Margins? A Theoretical Examination of Social Media Engagement Using Intersectional Feminism

This article applies an intersectional feminist lens to social media engagement with European politics. Disproportionately targeted at already marginalised people, the problem of online abuse/harassment has come to increasing public awareness. At the same time, movements such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have demonstrated the value of social media in facilitating global grassroots activism that challenges dominant structures of power. While the literature on social media engagement with European politics has offered important insights into the extent to which social media facilitates democratic participation, it has not to date sufficiently accounted for patterns of intersectional activism and online inequalities. Using Nancy Fraser’s feminist critique of Habermas’ public sphere theory and Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality, this article explores patterns of gender and racial inequalities in the digital public space. By analysing both the role of racist and misogynistic online abuse targeted at women, nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant people in public life, as well as the opportunities for marginalised groups to mobilise transnationally through subaltern counter-publics, I argue that social media engagement is inextricably linked with offline inequalities. To fully understand the impact of social media on European democracy, we need to pay attention to gendered and racialised dynamics of power within the digital public sphere that have unequal consequences for democratic participation. This will involve expanding our methodological repertoire and employing tools underpinned by a critical feminist epistemology.

The Design and Impacts of Individual Sanctions: Evidence From Elites in Côte d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe

Since the 1990s, sanctions senders like the European Union, the United States, and the United Nations have been imposing visa bans and asset freezes on individuals as a key element of their sanctions packages. Notwithstanding the growing centrality that individual sanctions have acquired in international sanctions practice, little is known about the impact of sanctions listings on designees. Some researchers have scrutinised targeting choices, while others have explored the effects of sanctions on designees. However, no study has yet examined the fit between targeting choices and impacts on designees. First, we interrogate the theory of targeted sanctions to identify the expectations that it generates. Second, we examine the effects on designees and contrast them with the targeting logic of the sender, in a bid to ascertain their fit. Our analysis of the cases of Côte d’Ivoire (2010–2011) and Zimbabwe (2002–2017) benefits from original interview material.

The Political Economy of the EU Approach to the Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar

European institutions have repeatedly represented the EU as an actor that can use the attractiveness of its market to promote human rights internationally. From this perspective, EU trade sanctions represent a hard power tool to push the government of states accused of major human rights violations to abide by international law. In its reaction to the Rohingya crisis in 2018, despite the European Parliament’s call for the lifting of Myanmar’s trade preferences, the Council of the EU stated that it would rather tackle the problem by taking a “constructive approach” based on dialogue. We provide a political-economy explanation of this choice, making a plausible case that the political pressures from European importers and exporters, not to jeopardise trade relations with Myanmar, prevailed over the demands of European protectionist groups and NGOs advocating a tougher position. The firms interested in maintaining preferential trade relations with Myanmar were primarily motivated by a desire to avoid a disruption of trade and investment links within global value chains (GVCs) so that they could continue competing with Chinese enterprises.

Preferences in Between: Moderates in the Catalan Secessionist Conflict

Recent research on territorial preferences focuses on explaining who supports or opposes independence. However, this research overlooks the relevance of an “intermediate” category of citizens who may oppose the territorial status quo of a sub-state territory but not support independence. We use evidence from the critical case of Catalonia to illustrate the relevance of individuals with such preferences for policies and outcomes highly relevant to secessionist conflicts. We present four sets of findings using two-wave panel data from December 2017 (just prior to the December regional elections when Catalan independence was the most salient and contentious issue) and September 2018. First, we find that a sizable plurality within Catalonia supports greater autonomy short of independence; conventional sociodemographic variables explaining support for independence do not strongly account for this preference. Second, such pro-autonomy individuals have considerably more intermediate attitudes regarding the key “on the ground” actions that the Spanish and Catalan governments pursued during the crucial independence drive in 2017. They were more opposed than pro-independence individuals to the unilateral independence efforts, and more opposed than pro-status quo individuals to the Spanish government’s actions to counter these efforts. Third, they expressed emotions around the secessionist conflict similar to pro-status quo individuals. Finally, using an embedded survey experiment, we find that pro-autonomy individuals are more trusting of both the central and regional governments regarding their abiding by an agreement to resolve the conflict, and are less easily “polarized” through priming. Overall, these findings indicate the importance of further analyzing individuals with intermediate territorial views in secessionist conflicts.

The Relevance of Language as a Predictor of the Will for Independence in Catalonia in 1996 and 2020

The Catalan secessionist parties, if added together, have won all the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia from 2010 to 2021. Their voters have been increasingly mobilized since the start of the controversial reform process of the Statute of Autonomy (2004–2010). The aim of this article is twofold. First, it intends to test whether language is the strongest predictor in preferring independence in two separate and distinct moments, 1996 and 2020. And second, to assess whether its strength has changed—and how—between both years. Only the most exogenous variables to the dependent variable are used in each of two logistic regressions to avoid problems of endogeneity: sex, age, size of town of residence, place of birth of the individual and of their parents, first language (L1), and educational level. Among them, L1 was—and still is—the most powerful predictor, although it is not entirely determinative. The secessionist movement not only gathers a plurality of Catalan native speakers, but it receives a not insignificant level of support among those who have Spanish as their L1. Conversely, the unionist group, despite being composed primarily by people who have Spanish as their L1 and have their family origins outside Catalonia, has a native Catalan-speaking minority inside. This imperfect division, which is based on ethnolinguistic alignments—and whose relevance cannot be neglected—alleviates the likelihood of an ethnic-based conflict.

An Imperfect Firewall: Quebec’s Constitutional Right of Secession as a Device Against Domination

The idea of including a right of secession in democratic constitutions has been discussed by different political and legal theorists; however, little has been said on the matter from the point of view of democratic-republican political philosophy. This article undertakes this effort by means of a normative analysis of Quebec’s constitutional right of secession, as outlined in the Quebec Secession Reference. This analysis shows how the non-unilateral nature of this right minimises the risks for republican freedom (as non-domination) and inclusion in the Quebec secession conflict, while the fact that it is limited to a national constitutional framework dampens this achievement.

Explaining Secessionism: What Do We Really Know About It?

In this thematic issue we discuss what we really know about the explanations for secessionism. Over the last few decades, an increasing number of new analyses on secessionism have appeared, regarding both its normative and its empirical dimensions. We can distinguish at least three types of research questions that categorise the current analyses of secessionism: normative, explanatory, and pragmatic. Political theorists work mainly on the moral and political right to unilaterally secede, answering questions such as “under what conditions” this right is legitimate and “who” has this moral right (Requejo & Sanjaume-Calvet, 2015; Sanjaume‐Calvet, 2020). Despite the importance of normative theories, these approaches do not provide explanations for secessionism, although most of them are built on implicit explanations of these phenomena. The field of explanatory theories of secession focuses mainly on the individual and/or aggregate preconditions and variables that correlate (or not) with the presence (or absence) of secessionist movements in specific territories. Through our general guiding question—”what do we really know about the explanations for secessionism?”—we try to disentangle the current explanations of secessionism by using empirical analyses, combining comparative politics and case studies. We bring together several different analytical perspectives, from political economy, nationalism, electoral behaviour, and institutional studies. Beyond these empirical perspectives, the issue puts forward some normative implications based on what we know and what we do not know about the existence of secessionist claims.

The Democratic Legitimacy of Secession and the Demos Problem

The normative literature on secession has widely addressed the question of under which conditions the secession of a particular territory from a larger state might be regarded as justifiable. The idea of a normative justification of secession, however, remains ambiguous unless one distinguishes between the justice of secession and its legitimacy, a distinction that is now widely accepted in political philosophy. Much of the literature seems to have focused on the question about justice, while, in comparison, very little attention has been paid to the question of under which conditions secession can be regarded as democratically legitimate, as something explicitly different to the question of justice. This article addresses this second question. After some preliminary remarks, the article focuses on the main obstacle to develop a theory of democratic legitimacy of secessions, the so-called “demos problem.” Such problem, it is argued, has no categorical solution. This does not imply, however, that there is no democratic, legitimate way of redrawing our borders. Two strategies are proposed in this article to overcome the difficulty posed by the demos problem: an ideal strategy of consensus building and a non-ideal strategy of decision-making in the circumstances of disagreement.

Justifying Secession in Catalonia: Resolving Grievances or a Means to a Better Future?

This article advances understandings of secessionist strategies by examining how and why secessionist movements make the case for creating a new sovereign state. It draws on new empirical data to examine the ways in which pro-independence parties in Catalonia have justified their calls for the creation of an independent Catalan Republic between 2008 and 2018. The findings challenge the widespread scholarly assumption that secessionist mobilisation is underpinned by grievances—cultural, economic, and political—against the state. We find that arguments for an independent Catalonia rarely include cultural claims. Instead, independence is advocated as a way of resolving political and economic grievances and of creating a better, more democratic, and just Catalan society. Such justifications are highly influenced by the political context in which pro-independence parties try to advance towards secession. These insights advance on extant explanations of secessionist mobilisation by highlighting the distinctive nature of, and the motives for, secessionist claims.