National revivals and violence

Abstract

Micro factors that induce violent confrontations amidst national revival movements are identified. These factors include the nature of local social structures, tipping phenomena, and fortuitous events that set off action/reaction cycles. They are shown to he better explanations than reigning macro theories to account for the peaceful nationalist revival in Catalonia in contrast to the violent one in the Basque Country. A robustness test for the micro factors succeeds in differentiating levels of violence in the politics of separation from the Soviet Union in the Ukraine and Georgia.