When Welfare Shapes Belonging: Substate Nationalism and Citizen Attitudes in the Basque Country

Substate nationalism is often analysed as a project of identity and territorial autonomy, yet it also operates as a mode of governance that reshapes political accountability within multilevel states. This paper examines how substate nationalism conditions the relationship between citizens’ evaluations of welfare provision, institutional trust, and political participation across different levels of government. Focusing on the Basque Country, a paradigmatic case of strong substate nationalism with extensive welfare competences, the study develops two main expectations. First, drawing on work on the territorialisation of social policy, it argues that in contexts of substate nationalism citizens’ territorial attachments are closely linked to their assessments of regionally governed welfare services. Second, building on the home-effect and second-order election literatures, the paper expects substate nationalism to produce differentiated patterns of trust and political engagement across governmental arenas. Empirically, the analysis relies on repeated cross-sectional survey data collected biannually in the Basque Country between 2014 and 2024, which allows for examining how welfare satisfaction, institutional trust, and electoral participation evolve over time at regional and state levels. By linking identity, welfare governance, and political behaviour, the paper contributes to broader debates on citizen attitudes, accountability, and democratic representation in multilevel systems, with implications for other regions characterised by strong substate nationalism.