Party competition during secession crises in advanced democracies

Abstract

This paper analyses party competition during secession crises in advanced democracies. It focuses on Quebec, Scotland and Catalonia to show how a party or parties use secession as a competition issue, how other parties respond and what are the consequences for regional party systems. Using quantitative text analysis of parliamentary debates, this work finds that during secession crises, most parties are forced to talk about territorial integrity and that party systems polarize in the territorial dimension. However, parties can adopt different strategies to alter their salience and position on the issue. Most surprisingly, this paper shows that secessionists are not always the ones that emphasize secession most and that parties do not always position at the poles of the territorial dimension.