No abstract

This article follows the approach originally pioneered by Juan Linz to the empirical study of nationalism. We make use of original survey data to situate the emergent social division around the question of independence within a broader constellation of power relations. We bring into focus a variety of demographic, cultural, behavioral and attitudinal indicators with which this division is associated. We emphasize the special salience of language practices and ideologies in conditioning, if not determining, attitudes towards independence. We stress the continuing legacy of what Linz famously referred to as a “three-cornered conflict” among “regional nationalists, the central government and immigrant workers,” which has long conditioned democratic politics in the region. More concretely, we show how the reinforcing cleavages of language and class are reflected in, and indeed have been exacerbated by, the ongoing political conflict between pro-independence and pro-unionist camps in Catalonia. At the same time, we highlight that near half of the Catalan citizenry has come to register a rather intense preference in favor of independence, and we conclude that this sociological reality renders it quite difficult for Spanish authorities to enforce the will of the Spanish majority without appearing to tyrannize the Catalan minority.

We ask why people play the lottery in syndicates. Sharing lottery tickets with co-workers, friends or relatives may create agency problems related to opportunism in addition to the fact that playing the lottery in general is tantamount to buying an asset with negative expected value. Although it might be argued that people share lottery tickets in order to maximize their chances of winning a prize, it is also plausible that they engage in this practice to enact, cement or reproduce social ties and interpersonal trust. Using survey data on representative samples of the adult population in Spain and the United States, we adjudicate between these two hypotheses, and show that people play the lottery in syndicates primarily for social reasons.