POLITICAL SCIENCE Cross-Cutting Cleavages Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Terra Lliure, and the Centrality of Social Networks Kaitlyn Chriswell POLITICAL SCIENCE
Ana Arjona FACULTY ADVISER
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KAITLYN CHRISWELL | SUBMITTED PHOTO
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NORTHWESTERN UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL
hy do some armed groups succeed where others do not? Both the Basque and Catalan regions of Spain have been home to nationalist, separatist armed groups, yet Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) has persisted for much longer in the Basque region than Terra Lliure did in Catalonia. This paper seeks to explain how social networks affect armed group viability— whether a group “succeeds” and continues to exist or “fails” and dies out. It will specifically focus on how pre-existing social networks that are both tight-knit and heterogeneous in nature benefit armed groups and contribute to the longevity of an armed group. Two hypotheses are proposed in order to link pre-existing social networks to an armed group’s success or failure. Primary source survey and interview evidence I collected from the Basque and Catalan regions of Spain serves as a basis for examining these hypotheses. I argue that differences observed in the social networks of the two regions help explain the failure of Terra Lliure, despite the success of ETA in otherwise very similar environments.