Institutions of Elections and Referendum in the Realisation of the Right to Self-Determination: Analysis of the Catalonia Case
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/mhpi2025.51.233-244Keywords:
EU, Spain, Catalonia, elections, referendums, Constitutional Court, self-determination, digitalisationAbstract
The paper considers the use of the institutions of elections and referendums in implementing Catalonia’s right to self-determination. Spain’s policy to counter Catalan separatism is analysed and shown to have been balanced and consistent. Although government measures were not always timely, they remained within the legal framework and complied with Spain’s constitutional norms.
It is demonstrated that, in the formation of and resistance to Catalanism by the central government of the Kingdom of Spain, elections and referendums played a significant role. Their application highlighted the indisputable regulatory function of the Constitutional Court of Spain in defining and specifying terms related to the exercise of the right to self-determination. In particular, the Court distinguished between “popular consultations” and “referendums” and confirmed the requirement to ascertain voters’ opinions solely on matters of state governance by strictly observing electoral procedures (population census, management by the electoral administration, jurisdictional guarantees).
A crucial factor in the surge of Catalanist sentiment in Spain during the second decade of the 21st century was external interference by Russian governmental circles, which initiated and financed separatism in Catalonia through the legitimising technology of an independence referendum.
An important feature of the referendum process – the use of digital technologies to organise and convene citizen participation in 2014 and the 2017 referendum – prompted European bodies to intensify the adoption of acts on electoral communication, media coverage of electoral processes and the use of digital tools to manipulate public opinion.
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