Separatism in EU, roots & trends

Although ethnic issues and the right of independence – advocacy by secessionist groups is usually said to be an outcome of globalization in third world countries , still the activated identity splits in developed nations has turned secessionism into an international issue to an extent that one might speak of the globalization of secessionism. Two centrifugal tendencies in the regional analysis level (divergence in the European Union) as well as national level (independence – advocacy within members of the European Union) have preoccupied minds of politicians, researchers and experts in recent years. Through bringing up the question on what are the driving forces and main causes of identity cleavages activation in Europe, and by a comparative study of two separatist tendencies in Scotland and Catalonia in Spain and adapting to the rational calculation theory, the authors tried to analyze the hypothesis that economic constraints stemming from financial and economic crisis in the West is the main cause of identity splits activation, ethnic mobilization, and politicization of ethnic attachments as well as divergence tendencies in Europe. The data gathered on the two case studies confirms the key point that in both regions, economic situation and indexes are in a much better shape than in other regions in Britain and Spain. Accordingly, despite and at the contrary to what many secessionisms – related theories emphasize on, the emergence of separatist tendencies in those regions has not been a result of their poverty and exclusion compared to other regions