Debate: Social Fragmentation in Catalonia: a civil conflict?

This event explored the endogenous historical factors and contemporary dynamics that have led to unprecedented political polarisation and social fragmentation within Catalonia around the issues of secession, ethnic identity and language. The event took place on Faw 2.04, Fawcett House, on Tuesday 3 Decemeber 2019.

Chairs:

Mary Kaldor (@LSE_CCS) is Director of The Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit at LSE and Professor of Global Governance. Professor Kaldor pioneered the concept of new wars and global civil society and her work on the practical implementation of human security has directly influenced European and national politics.

Jose Javier Olivas is Principal Investigator Interdisciplinary Comparative Project on Populism and Secessionism (ICPPS), Department of Political Science and Administration, UNED, and Research Associate to the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit, LSE

Speakers:

Adolf Tobeña is Professor of Psychiatry at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He researches the neurobiology of fearfulness and the neuroimage of mental disorders at the Unit of Medical Psychology, School of Medicine, Bellaterra Campus. He is the author of 18 books and 170 papers published in journals of neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology. He co-authored the paper Pathways and Legacies of the Secessionist Push in Catalonia which was recently published by Policy Network. You can find his slides here: CATFeastsClashesLSEDecemb2019

Albert Satorra is Professor of Statistics at the department of economics and business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and is research professor at Barcelona GSE. His area of expertise is statistical methodology for social sciences, especially structural equation modelling, a topic in which he has contributed with numerous articles in leading journals. He co-authored the paper Pathways and Legacies of the Secessionist Push in Catalonia which was recently published by Policy Network. You can find his slides here: LondonLSEpresentation2019reduced_compressed (11)

Caroline Gray(@CarolineMGray) is Lecturer in Politics and Spanish at Aston University in Birmingham and Deputy Co-Director of the Aston Centre for Europe. She specializes in nationalist movements, decentralization and the political consequences of the global financial crisis, with a particular focus on Spain. She is the author of Nationalist Politics and Regional Financing Systems in the Basque Country and Catalonia (Bilbao: Diputación de Bizkaia, 2016) and co-editor of Contesting Spain? The dynamics of nationalist movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country (Oxon/New York: Routledge, 2015).

Jeffrey Miley (@jeffmiley) is Lecturer of Political Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge University. He is co-author of Conflict in Catalonia: A Sociological Approximation, which was recently published in a special issue of Genealogy dedicated to New Perspectives on Nationalism in Spain. His research interests include comparative nationalisms, language politics, the politics of migration, religion and politics, regime types, and democratic theory. He has lectured at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and Saint Louis University (Madrid) and he has been a Garcia-Pelayo Research Fellow at the Center for Political and Constitutional Studies in Madrid (2007-2009).

Sergi Pardos-Prado (@sergipardos) is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Glasgow. Previously, he was Associate Professor and Fellow in Politics at Merton College, University of Oxford and Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He has a PhD in Political and Social Sciences (European University Institute in Florence). His research and teaching focus political behaviour, European comparative politics, political economy, and quantitative methods. You can find his slides here: pardos.

This event is hosted by The Conflict and Civil Society Unit (@LSE_CCS). Building on the work of the Civil Society and Human Security unit, the team was renamed in 2017 to reflect the changing focus of the research being undertaken. The core concern of the unit remains the desire to better understand the ways in which ordinary people seek to shape the decisions that affect their lives, with a particular focus on those experiencing conflict, prolonged violence, or war.