If anything, Nationalist Violence in Postwar Europe embodies two lessons. First, early concessions to nationalists can work in defusing the risk of violence. But this policy comes with a cost: the risk of triggering new (peaceful) demands for more decentralization. And second, government-holding statewide parties that are competitive in the contested regions are in a better position to deliver concessions when the nationalist threat is serious.
I came to these conclusions by emphasizing the link between regional politicians and central rulers in dealing with nationalists. It is a happy coincidence that Kristin Bakke’s own work also focuses on the political ties between the center and the contested regions. That aside, Kristin Bakke raises three critical points that I would like to address here: (1) the role of regional politicians; (2) the relevant interactions between actors; and (3) the type of concessions defusing nationalist violence.
Why is the role of regional actors so relevant? One could claim that central governments can assess intra-state challenges on their own. My intuition was that regional politicians have a more fine-grained assessment of nationalist strength. Regional actors may have easy access to intelligence gathered by local security forces. Moreover, regional politicians may have a better knowledge of the basis of support of the different political groups. This information-gathering role of local actors makes them an indispensable partner for statewide rulers bargaining with nationalists—regardless of whether they share party lines or not.
Second, nationalist challenges consist of a number of interactions between state rulers, nationalists and regional actors, all of whom can be plausibly split into radicals and moderates. These interactions model the level of support for each group. In my book, I took for granted that nationalist movements have two fractions and figured out the conditions under which radicals could use violence to take over the movement. For that end, state repression was the ultimate mechanism. The question then was to investigate why governments sometimes repress instead of concede, and I think the missing link between central rulers and regional politicians helped us understand this. The analysis of the other potential dyads is nonetheless very important, and research should shed more light on them.
Finally, Bakke’s review convincingly warns against considering all decentralization packages as similarly violence-proofing. States must target devolution policies depending on the characteristics of their nationalist rivals. In my work, I did not take into account this wise recommendation for two reasons. First, most nationalists in Western Europe demanded some measure of self-rule with cultural protection attached. Thus, it was clear for governments that certain policies such as sharing powers with the regions would find a sympathetic audience within the nationalist constituencies. And second, my main point is that early concessions in the form of devolution were enough to defuse the risk of violence, as long as they predated escalation. Moderates could gain legitimacy and halt militant inroads. But I agree that a more systematic analysis of concessions may render additional light on the dynamics of nationalist mobilization in the world.
