Between Rupture and Bargaining

What drives mainstream stateless nationalist parties to adopt secessionist positions? Over the past decade, independence referendums in Catalonia and Scotland have made this question a timely and crucial topic in studies of political parties and nationalism. Using process-tracing and semi-structured in-depth interviews with political elites and activists, this comparative study examines the political strategies of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and the Scottish National Party (SNP), the mainstream nationalist parties in their respective contexts. It seeks to address the puzzle of how these two relatively moderate parties moved beyond the discourse of secessionism to undertake a concrete initiative toward independence through referendums. The study analyzes the divergent paths of radicalization in their territorial strategies and their strategic ambiguities, oscillating between rupture and bargaining.