Containing Nationalism? Unpacking the Role of Culture, Politics and Economics in Corsica

This paper investigates the demand and supply of peripheral nationalism, using Corsica as a case study. We theorize both culture-driven demands for increased regional autonomy and the supply of nationalist parties to be mediated by political and economic institutions. Chief among the latter are clan control and the availability of non-state-controlled resources such as tourism. To test our propositions empirically, we conducted an original survey among 264 locally-embedded Corsican experts, combined with matching observational data. We further corroborate our quantitative, cross-sectional findings with insights gained from a number of semi-structured interviews. The paper finds that both clan control and economic resources matter for suppressing demands for regional autonomy, and that these demands in turn strongly influence the success of nationalist parties. However, clan control even matters in this second stage, lowering nationalist success where it would otherwise be high. Our findings thus contribute to the literature on nationalism, state restructuring and the effect of political and economic factors. More generally, it calls for greater attention to local context when explaining region-wide phenomena such as nationalism.