Civic Patriotism as a Basis For Autonomous Regions Legitimation in a Time of Crisis

The bond between citizens and the autonomous regional governments can be read in ethno-cultural terms: self-government conceived as the political expression of a national or historic community and decentralization as a requirement of national diversity.This ethno-cultural foundation prevails in legitimating discourses of Autonomous Communities in Spain. Nevertheless, it is questionable whether this ethno-culturally based identity can provide a solid foundation for legitimation of those Autonomous Regions where there is no strong nationalistic sentiment. An alternative to conceiving the bond between citizens and Autonomous Regions in ethno-cultural terms is to take constitutional patriotism as our starting point. Thus, the Autonomous Communities can be considered as political communities to secure the civil, political and social rights of their citizens. This form of conceiving the Spanish autonomous regions matches well with the fact that the responsibility for political and social services is in the main attributed to them.