Citizens' Preferences (and Contradictions) about Devolution

In a globalised and interconnected Europe, dreams of unification, deep integration or even exhaustive coordination are proving difficult to achieve. Not only do national borders play a large role in European political and cultural exchange, but so do sub-national divisions. Scholarship on policy and political attitudes is increasingly concerned with how citizens perceive this fragmentation of the societal structures in which they are embedded, and whether (and how) they support the almost-federalisation of multiple competences in European society. Mediators have been found to be political socialisation of new generations, party affiliation or regional wealth, amongst others. My research contributes to this field of policy feedback and public opinion by analysing attitudes towards regionalisation and federalisation from a historically contextual, transgenerational perspective. This paper focuses, specifically, on the existence of contradictions in citizens' preferences, who often express a desire for greater regional authority but also for policy uniformity across their state. This paper thus contributes to the growing body of literature that focuses on the ‘devolution paradox’ (and other contradictions) through in-depth, qualitative work. It follows the question “How do citizens, discursively and of their own volition, express contradictions in their preferences for devolution, and how (if) do they deal with the dissonance?” Methodologically, this paper compares two European, (quasi-)federal countries: Spain and Belgium. Both states share the existence of multiple distinct national identities within the territory, as well as conflictual policy relations between regions. The comparison focuses on two regions in each country (Madrid-Catalonia; Wallonia-Flanders) to control for linguistic and cultural identification as well as political (regionalist) discourse. The presentation will draw from 80+ interviews conducted throughout 2024-2025 in all four regions, to demonstrate how citizens' (mis)understandings about devolution are informed by their personal policy experiences.