Editorial

No. 58 — 2022
Josep Puig i Cadafalch and the origins of a diplomacy for autonomous Catalonia

Josep Puig i Cadafalch: a man of government with international aspirations Josep Puig i Cadafalch (Mataró 1867 – Barcelona 1956) is more often remembered for his distinguished career as an architect, archaeologist and art historian. As well as being the architect who designed Casa Amatller, Casa de les Punxes, the Casaramona factory and so many others, Puig i Cadafalch also sponsored the historical-archaeological expedition to the Pyrenees in 1907 that, among other things, discovered the Romanesque frescoes of Taüll, and the excavations in Empúries, and wrote L’Arquitectura Romànica a Catalunya (Romanesque Architecture in Catalonia), which brought him international recognition. However,…
No. 58 — 2022
Preface: Catalonia and the League of Nations

The historical, political, social and international context that marked the creation of the League of Nations in 1919-1920, after the end of the First World War, and the international treaties that ensued, coincided with a particularly intense period in the history of Catalonia. Catalonia, like so many other parts of the world, was in a state of effervescence, in part due to the new global context that was just taking its first steps, but also because of domestic dynamics, both within Catalonia and linked to the (always complex) relationship between Barcelona and Madrid. A significant proportion of Catalan society had…
No. 58 — 2022
An International Narrative for the Mancomunitat?

In the early spring of 1921, Josep Puig i Cadafalch placed the Mancomunitat de Catalunya (Commonwealth of Catalonia, comprising the four provincial councils), of which he was president, at the disposal of the delegates who had come to Barcelona to take part in the International Conference on Communications and Transit, the first intergovernmental conference organised by the League of Nations, formed just over a year earlier. Over a period of one and a half months, from 10 March to 20 April, a large part of this Conference’s sessions were held at the Palau de la Mancomunitat, the former Palau de…
No. 58 — 2022
J.M. Batista i Roca: A Pro-independence Intellectual during the Interwar Period (1914-1945)

Josep Maria Batista i Roca (1895-1978) was the first intellectual, academic, university professor and public figure who was a lifelong proponent of Catalan independence, proclaimed it publicly and acted accordingly . His political action was based on strengthening Catalonia and its national spirit and awareness, nurturing character and preparing the leaders of tomorrow, inspired by the British model. Batista i Roca was one of the few intellectuals who truly sought to establish a position for Catalonia in the world – Catalan geopolitics. He would do this on five levels: pan-Catalanist, pan-Occitan, Iberian, European and, lastly, Hispanic. We will briefly outline…
No. 58 — 2022
Amadeu Hurtado: The Catalan Question at the Assembly of the League of Nations

On 10 August 1931, a decree issued by the president of the provisional government of the Spanish Second Republic, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, appointed lawyer, journalist and parliamentarian Amadeu Hurtado i Miró (1875-1950) as Spanish delegate at the 12th Assembly of the League of Nations . With a long, successful legal career, he was also a lifelong Catalanist and republican, having begun political activity at the turn of the century and gained a seat at the Spanish Lower House as a member for Solidaritat Catalana. At the same time, Hurtado had made a name for himself as a journalist and press editor.…
No. 58 — 2022
Lluís Nicolau d’Olwer at the League of Nations

This year marks a century since the formation of Acció Catalana by young activists who split from the Lliga Regionalista. One of the key proponents of this split was Lluís Nicolau d’Olwer. Rather than a vocational politician, he was a scholar and humanist who went into politics, as a moral imperative, as he always said. With Acció Catalana, he began an important political career that led him to take part in the Pact of San Sebastián in 1930 and the Revolutionary Committee that was formed after that meeting. When Primo de Rivera took power in 1923, Nicolau d’Olwer went into…
No. 58 — 2022
Diplomatic opportunities in turbulent times (1931-1939)

When studying diplomatic relations and interactions between political players of varying levels and status, there is one axiomatic premise that must be accepted: the parameters of realpolitik do not always align with legal and theoretical principles. It is very common for political movements, armed groups, political parties or territorial entities without any state recognition to establish contacts and dynamics that are characteristic of internationally recognised administrations. In this respect, the 1930s are paradigmatic of this break with legally established procedures on an international scale, especially after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in January 1933, but there were also other cases.…
No. 58 — 2022
Catalanism, the League of Nations and the National Minorities

The European national minorities after 1919 Initially, the League of Nations was hampered by three shortcomings: the defection of the United States, the exclusion of Germany and the absence of Russia. France demanded infeasible war reparations from Germany, the runaway inflation destabilised the fragile Weimar Republic, the French occupied the Ruhr between 1923 and 1925, and Austria was denied the right to unite with Germany after losing Hungary and the Slavic possessions of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the League of Nations created organisations that have endured, such as the International Labour Organisation, and successfully mediated in conflicts such as…
No. 58 — 2022
Wilsonianism in Catalonia and the Catalanist Attempts to Take Part in the Paris Peace Conference

The attempts to internationalise Catalan aspirations for self-government. Union des Nationalités and the Catalan volunteers in the First World War Before the outbreak of the Great War, certain sectors within Catalan nationalism began the process to internationalise their aspirations for self-government. In 1912, the architect and Lliga Regionalista leader Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who would later become the second president of the Mancomunitat, represented the Catalanists at the Union des Nationalités (UdN). This organisation acted as an information, publicity and propaganda centre and as a lobby for those who identified themselves as oppressed nationalities, particularly European nationalities, fostering a current…
No. 58 — 2022
Francesc Maspons i Anglasell and the League of Nations

One of the constants of Francesc Maspons i Anglasell’s life (1872-1966) would be his Europeanism and his deep knowledge of international law. Born on 22 July 1872 in the Barcelona neighbourhood of El Raval, at no. 17, Carrer d’en Xuclà, his parents were Francesc Maspons i Labrós and Pilar Anglasell i Buxeres, two families that had been part of the Catalan Renaixença movement in its early days. With strong roots in the town of Bigues (Vallès Oriental) since the 12th century, the lineage had produced a large number of lawyers and notaries. Advocating a romantic, eminently rural Catalanism in which…
No. 50 — 2020
Political and media polarization: consequences of the lack of pluralism in the media system

In September 2020, the European Commission published the First Report on the Rule of Law of its 27 memberships of the European Union. The independence of the judiciary, corruption, and media pluralism –with an emphasis on the fundamental rights to freedom of information and expression– are the axes of this examination of the democratic quality of the States. In the case of Spain, shadows appear in these areas. To address the issue of news pluralism, the European Commission report takes into account the Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM) produced by the Center for Media Pluralism and Freedom (CMPF) of the European…
No. 50 — 2020
Large media companies: main challenges to democratic control of the media

Digitization, globalization and liberalization have been and still are the main vectors for the transformation of communication systems in recent years. We have moved –we are in the process– from a system characterized by mass communication (unidirectional, to a mass audience) to another on which there is still no consensus on the name. Some authors discuss between individualized communications, personalized, self-communication of masses (Manuel Castells), hybrid (Andrew Chadwick), among other terminology. In any case, one of the characteristics of this system or ecosystem is the concentration of property in a very high and growing degree. Technological convergence, which has been…
No. 50 — 2020
Media and democracy: the perspective of the European Union

Democracy and the media is a binomial that highlights the interdependence between the two concepts. It is considered fundamental for the proper functioning of democracy that citizens have access to a set of plural and diverse means that allow them to access ideologically plural information; and as a result, be able to freely exercise their vote. In fact, the European Union’s commitment to respecting the freedom and pluralism of the media and to defending freedom of expression —which includes the right to receive and disseminate information without interference by public authority— is enshrined in the Article 11 of the EU…
No. 50 — 2020
Risks to Media Pluralism in a digital environment in Europe

It is undeniable that freedom of expression, freedom of the media and, consequently, media pluralism, in all its faceted definitions and interpretations, are cornerstones of contemporary liberal democracies. They are instruments to ensure peaceful political and social debate, and are the basis for other essential democratic rights, starting from the right to vote. Media pluralism: a growing interest for the European Union In the last two decades, the European policy debate has experienced a renewed interest for media pluralism. This attention was either ignited by some national cases that proved problematic for the intertwining of media and politics (e.g. Italy,…
No. 50 — 2020
The fit of public media and its role in the communication ecosystem in the Internet age: analysis of the situation from Catalonia

The Audiovisual Communication Law of Catalonia of 2005 sets a general mission and goal in order to define the provision of the public radio and television service, as well as its functions, along with the same general orientation as the Spanish regulation and those of all the states of the European union. It basically assigns the obligation to encourage through the programming of its channels and services the support and promotion of basic democratic values. Among the main ones, we can find freedom of expression and information, the right of participation, the pluralism of voices in the service of citizenship…
No. 55 — 2021
The Catalan law on cooperation: creation and objectives

On 17 December 2001, the Catalan Parliament unanimously passed Law 26/2001 on Development Cooperation. Looking beyond its content, the fact that it has a legally binding regulatory framework and that it involves the creation of new instruments and structures, as well as a clear commitment towards a substantial and sustained increase in resources, was a reflection of both social demand and political consensus. Through this article, I would like firstly to put the process through which the law was created into context and, secondly, highlight the most innovative and significant aspects of the legal text. As regards its implementation and…
No. 55 — 2021
Risks and opportunities of the digital transformation

According to Heeks , digital technologies have impacted international development in three particular ways: they now reach almost all low-income communities, both in urban and rural contexts (reach), they are relevant to almost all development issues and sectors (scope), and they play a vital role in all aspects of development processes (depth). Given the changing patterns in the field of international development these three impact dimensions can be associated with the major challenges: transformation (incremental developmental changes are no longer sufficient), inclusion (decision making beyond elite circles), and sustainability (development within the remits of planetary boundaries) . Digital technologies have…
No. 55 — 2021
Rethinking Decentralised Development Cooperation in light of the Covid-19 pandemic

Decentralised development co-operation (DDC) lacks a harmonised statistical definition and is often embodied in diverse legal frameworks and governance structures that vary according to levels of decentralisation across countries. Attempts to provide a unifying definition of DDC often fall short of capturing the diversity of actors involved and their value-added to deliver development co-operation and finance in support of sustainable and inclusive development and recovery. DDC can include activities beyond aid, or what is counted as Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows . In 2005, a first OECD report defined DDC as, “Aid extended by the public sector other than the…
No. 55 — 2021
The challenges of the 21st century call for a radically different approach to North-South relations

The development era reordered the world after the Second World War, drawing a geography divided between “developed” countries and “underdeveloped”, or poor, countries. Although the concept of “development” already existed, it became hegemonic when the Government of the United States, the new world power at the time, made it the core of its international policy in 1949. The United Nations was created not only to prevent future wars, but also to foster development in those two-thirds of the world, especially in the geopolitical South, which were classified as “underdeveloped” at the time. This was the time when the Declaration of…
No. 55 — 2021
Public-Private Partnerships and Sustainable Development Goals

In December 2021 I participated in a major Public-Private Partnership (PPP) conference in Istanbul, attended primarily by participants from emerging economies. There was considerable enthusiasm for PPPs as a mechanism to help developing countries achieve their sustainable development goals (SDGs). This continued enthusiasm was interesting in the light of reduced global keenness for PPPs over the last two years, due to the fact that unexpected COVID pandemic induced force majeure risks in the projects . It was noteworthy that one of the distinguished PPP conference speakers made the following comment during his speech – “PPPs need to be seen as…
No. 55 — 2021
The Challenges to Peace in Latin America: From Guerrilla Warfare to the Fight Against Organised Crime

The age of guerrilla movements has come to an end, but homicidal violence has not subsided The second half of the 20th century was marked by the emergence of guerrilla groups across the length and breadth of Latin America. Most of these groups followed the model of the Cuban Revolution and the “foco” theory used by Ché Guevara, in other words the creation of small groups (or focos in Spanish) throughout the region to obviate the need for the right social, political and economic conditions for revolution. Some of these groups used guerrilla tactics in rural areas, from where they…
No. 55 — 2021
Proposals for an ecofeminist model of development

Ecofeminism is a movement on the rise Ecofeminism experienced a rebirth in 2019, just before the emergence of the current pandemic. Among other factors, this was due to the strength of the feminist movement and the youth climate movement, as thinker Alicia Puleo explained. She also correctly pointed out that another of the reasons behind this increased strength is ecofeminism’s focus on indigenous women ho defend the land against extractivism, which sometimes even costs them their lives. Many young women identify with this movement, which began in the early 1970s. But it is now, after 50 years of ecofeminist history, that…
No. 55 — 2021
Have NGOs and their work lost their meaning?

For some time now, people have been asking me whether the work done by NGOs still has any meaning, or whether they are a vestige of our society that is now obsolete. And the next question is whether the NGOs themselves should continue to exist. It makes you seriously wonder whether they’re right. And if they’re not, we need to have a good explanation as to why. When cooperation started in the 1960s, it basically stood on three legs, generosity, transfer and assistance. Transfer because it was about transferring money, trained people and knowledge from us to the countries that…
No. 55 — 2021
Companies facing the climate crisis: sustainable commitment or greenwashing?

As the world emerges from the COVID pandemic and grapples with the impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on supplies of food and energy we need to be thinking about changing the way things work more than ever. COVID has wreaked havoc with economies. The World Bank estimates that COVID has pushed over 147 million people into absolute poverty, wiping out some of the gains of the last 10 years and the war in Ukraine has sent wheat and oil prices spiralling, threatening the chances of reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
No. 56 — 2021
Women in South African Politics

In transitions to democracy, especially third wave transitions in Africa, there has been the assumption that women’s participation in politics will increase and gender inequality will diminish. One of the main assumptions is that women will be represented by women in government who will champion women’s issues (called substantive representation). Of the mechanisms employed by African governments to increase women’s representation, in line with global developments, are the use of quotas and reserved seats. Globally where quotas have been used women’s descriptive representation (numbers of women) have increased. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have more than doubled their women’s representation since…
No. 56 — 2021
Adebayo Olukoshi: «The process of democratic deceleration in Africa has been accompanied by a complex of discontents»

Adebayo Olukoshi is a Researcher and Distinguished Professor at the Wits School of Governance of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. With a long career in the field of international relations, governance and human rights, he has served as Director of the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning in Dakar (Senegal) and, until recently, he was the Head of the Regional Office for Africa and West Asia of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). Interviewed by Oscar Mateos, Adebayo Olukoshi reflects on the several waves of political reforms and transitions towards…
No. 56 — 2021
A not so global war on terror?

Few jihadi fronts have had a more global moment of horrific glory than the jihadi insurgency in the northeast of Nigeria generally designated as Boko Haram. The kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, in 2014, created a truly global emotion, as #BringBackOurGirls reverberated through the social networks. The Sambisa forest, the haunt of Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau, came to be the theatre of the opening scene of the 2018 blockbuster Black Panther, with the heroes of Wakanda overpowering jihadi fighters to release a group of kidnapped girls. In real life however, despite this global emotion, international intervention…
No. 56 — 2021
Southern Africa: Between the “South African Land of Opportunity” and Survival

Many of the region’s unstable countries see South Africa, the country that dominates the south of the continent due to its size and economic importance, as a panacea. The socioeconomic reality of neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe, where future prospects are bleak, as well as the people of Lesotho —literally engulfed by the influential South Africa—; of countries where conflict and violence have forced many into exile, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), or Rwanda and Burundi before it; and of countries poised to see mass migration due to famine and climate change, such as Madagascar, has…
No. 56 — 2021
The Ethiopia of Abiy Ahmed and the Pending Transition

In April 2018, following Abiy Ahmed’s appointment as prime minister by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the political coalition in power since 1995, Ethiopia seemed on track for a possible transition. However, on the night of 3 to 4 November 2020, armed conflict erupted between the central government and the government of the Tigray region. The outbreak of civil war nipped the fledgling transition in the bud and marked a new chapter in the history of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE). The clash between the government of Abiy Ahmed and his new party, the Prosperity Party…
No. 56 — 2021
Idayat Hassan: «In Nigeria, disinformation is driving dissent and threatening national cohesion»

Idayat Hassan is a lawyer and Director of the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), an African think tank based in Nigeria. For years, she has been doing research on social media and the use of ICTs for development in West Africa. She has also reflected on democracy, peace and security. In this interview with Oscar Mateos, Hassan discusses the Nigerian reality, including issues such as the phenomenon of misinformation and its impact on the upcoming 2023 elections, security threats, the fight against Boko Haram, the role of women and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nigeria is one of…