Unveiling Extra-Institutional Agency in Nationalist Contention: Transformative Events and Grassroots Mobilizations in Scotland and Catalonia (1980s-2000s)

. The literature on nationalist movements in Western democracies has almost exclusively focused on ethno-nationalist parties by attributing to them the key-role of “ethnic entrepreneurs”. Yet, non-institutional actors such as social movement organizations and grassroots groups can significantly impact the history of territorial contention and reshape movements. Their role is thus explored in the Scottish and Catalan struggles for selfdetermination between the 1980s and the 2000s. Firstly, the historical analysis of transformative events shows how the latter were set in motion by non-institutional actors. While Scottish organizations and groups operated to foster cross-party cooperation, the Catalan counterparts operated to mobilize society and popular support. Secondly, a thematic analysis of primary sources shows that the mobilizations fuelled by these events produced organizational and cultural changes in both national-ist movements. These changes left their legacy suggesting that former grassroots mobi-lizations made an important difference to resources mobilized in the current secession-ist movements.


INTRODUCTION
When studying nationalist mobilizations in Western democracies, scholarship has almost exclusively focused on ethno-nationalist parties by attributing to them the key-role of "ethnic entrepreneurs" -i.e., agents of nationalist mobilization (Winter and Türsan 1998).Yet, non-institutional actors such as social movement organizations (SMOs) and grassroots groups1 significantly contribute to the evolution of territorial contention.This article focuses on these non-institutional actors in nationalist movements.
The recent developments in Scotland and Catalonia -where the referendum campaigns rapidly grew into mass social movements -have effectively drawn academic attention to non-institutional actors (Crameri 2015;Della Porta et al. 2017;Keating 2015;Lynch 2015).By defining these referendums as being "from below", Della Porta and colleagues (2017) have brilliantly shown that civil society actors and social movement organizations (and not just the traditional political or judicial institutions) have initiated, appropriated or subverted the referendum campaigns.However, before these mass movements so manifestly burst upon the scene in the 2010s, social movement organizations and grassroots groups had already been mobilizing to support self-determination over the past decades.
The role of these non-institutional actors is hence investigated in the campaigns for self-determination that occurred between the 1980s and the 2000s.The concept of transformative events, turning points in collective action, is chosen to shed light on the agency of non-institutional actors (Bosi and Davis 2017), intended as their capacity to effect structural change2 .While attention is usually drawn to the creative manifestations of agency during transformative events, this article emphasizes the role of agency in the production of the events themselves.Non-institutional actors were indeed able to bring about some transformative events and the mobilization around these events catalysed change in the movements' organizational structures and cultural resources.The analysis also hints at the fact that these changes prepared the ground for the renewed territorial mobilizations in recent times as they persisted beyond the events themselves, making important differences to resources mobilized in contemporary episodes of contention.
The historical analysis of transformative events, based on scholarly work and events' accounts, shows that the initiatives of non-institutional actors produced momentous turning points in the history of nationalist movements.Their initiatives generated different reactions from their institutional interlocutors thus triggering new forms of interactions between SMOs and parties.The thematic analysis of original materials produced by SMOs and grassroots groups, instead, explores the transformative capacity of their mobilization, looking at the movements' organizational structures and cultural resources.
By adopting the concept of transformative events, this study develops a major theoretical argument that challenges overly structural models and emphasizes the processual nature of collective action.Processes of collective action are mutually constituted by continuities and transformations in which agency plays an important role.Actors can indeed "produce" transformative events that affect social movements and their trajectories.While events constitute sudden ruptures in a temporal process, at the same time they act on existing structures thus exhibiting both continuity and change.Events bring about new practices, discourses and relations but they are always transformations or rearticulations of preexisting ones.
The following section briefly reviews the literature and illustrates how an eventful approach to nationalist mobilization can help fill the identified gap.The methodological framework is then followed by the historical analysis of the selected transformative events taking place in Scotland and Catalonia.Finally, the article presents the analysis of the mobilizations' effects and discusses the findings in a comparative manner.

A SOCIAL MOVEMENT APPROACH TO NATIONALIST MOBILIZATIONS: AGENCY AND THE TEMPORALITY OF EVENTS
Minority nationalism is but one of the different types of nationalism and includes those nations within existing states that pursue territorial claims and/or civil and political rights (Johnston 2018).It however shares the core ideology of nationalism which is the principle of self-determination whose pursuit can take different forms such as mobilizing for greater autonomy or independence.
Nationalism has been defined in terms of different families of concepts, such as ideology, identity, discourse but also movement.It has only been relatively recently that nationalism has progressively been included in the study of social movements (Dufour and Traisnel 2009) as the analysis of nationalism has shifted the focus from its cultural and structural origins and development to its "political-contextual" dynamics (Goodman 2010).Since the study of nationalism has involved contributions from several disciplines, theoretical approaches are numerous but can be distinguished between those prioritizing either structuralist or agential perspectives.Traditionally, structuralist approaches are macro-analytic and tend to consider the rise of nationalist movements taking a long-term historical perspective.In this light, nationalist movements are either the result of deeply entrained historical identities (Delanty 2003) or a by-product of broader social forces, like industrialization (Beissinger 2002).Following the structuralist tradition in social movement studies, some scholars have adopted the Political Process model (McAdam 1982) arguing that political opportunity structures are important determinants in explaining the development of some nationalist movements (ex. Maiz 2003;Romano 2006;Pinard 2020).
More agential approaches, instead, have identified other types of determinants.Special attention has been traditionally paid to «the role of elites, political entrepreneurs, intellectuals and charismatic leaders in shaping and influencing nationalist discourses, objectives and political choices» (Sabanadze 2010: 48).In these accounts, the masses are viewed as passive actors reacting to the mobilizing strategies of the elites.Rational choice proponents (Hardin 1996;Laitin 2007) have tried to counterbalance this tendency explaining why people participate in nationalist movements focusing on the cost-benefit calculations of ordinary citizens.How the "masses" mobilize and the outcomes of their mobilization are dimensions that are not explored in rational choice works.However, these and other aspects have become central in other studies.Indeed, bottom-up processes3 and popular protests are brought to the fore in research focusing on nationalist movements in authoritarian regimes (ex.Beissinger 2002) or in colonized countries (ex.Schmidt 2005) but also nationalist movements resorting to armed conflict (ex.Bosi and De Fazio 2017).Instead, in Western democratic contexts where nationalist interests are predominantly aggregated by political parties (De Winter and Türsan 1998), forms of mobilization "from below" have usually been overlooked.Studies presenting a perspective on nationalism centred around actor agency tend to adopt national parties as units of analysis (ex.Lluch 2010).Even when it is acknowledged that nationalist movements are composed of party and non-party organizations (NGOs, pressure groups, citizen associations, etc.), the focus remains on "party nationalism" (Johnston 2018).The way I propose to address this gap in literature is by looking at transformative events 4 (McAdam and Sewell 2001; Sewell  1996) set in motion by those actors that have usually been neglected in nationalism studies.
Instead of treating all events as largely equivalent, McAdam and Sewell (2001) have argued that some of them are more important than others because they can produce radical tipping points in the trajectory of social movements.Transformative events are sequences of action that, even if brief and spatially concentrated, contribute to produce enduring effects on the evolution of a movement.This is because they are symbolically resonant as they are recognized as notable by con-temporaries who assign importance to them.And they produce a cascade of consequences able to transform structures and practices (Sewell 1996).In social movement literature, transformative events are said to dramatically increase the level of mobilization.Protests and campaigns fuelled by such events can have impacts on the very movements that carry them out.Through these mobilizations, networks develop, frames are bridged and tactics experimented.Some new practices and structures are transitory, while others "sediment" within the movements, persisting beyond the context in which they were created (Della Porta 2018).Mobilizations, particularly eventful ones, generate legacies in a movement thus shaping the organizational and cultural structure of its successors (Della Porta et al. 2018).On the organizational level, SMOs decide how to structure their networks, through internal and external processes, such as the development of membership criteria, the creation of functional and/or territorial subunits as well as their relation with the organizational environment (Kriesi 1996).They also need to opt for an action repertoire, that is the set of tactics and performances at the disposition of collective actors engaged in contentious dynamics (Tilly 1986).On the cultural level, social movements engage in the strategic efforts to create a shared understanding of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action (Snow et al. 2013).These efforts are also known as framing processes5 .Literature has categorized different types of frames and of framing strategies, although some are definitely more recurrent than others.The core component of collective action frames is the injustice frame and consists in evaluating a situation as unfair and morally unacceptable and placing the blame for it (Gamson 1992).Frame bridging, instead, is probably the most prevalent framing strategy used by social movements and it occurs when «two or more ideologically congruent but structurally unconnected frames regarding a particular issue or problem» are linked (Snow et al. 2013: 400).

METHODOLOGY AND CASE SELECTION
This study adopts a comparative research design that favours "thick description" over generalization and aims at discovering similarities, differences and patterns across the two selected cases.The comparison of Scotland and Catalonia is anything but new (Moreno 1988;Cetrà and Harvey 2017;Dalle Mulle and Serrano 2019) as they constitute two relatively coherent cases characterized by a strong sense of national identity as well as advanced levels of regional autonomy (Bremberg and Gillespie 2022).Historic nations within democratic EU states, Scotland and Catalonia present moderate forms of nationalism but despite these basic common traits, they vary in several aspects.One concerns their status of nation that has been recognized for a long time in the UK (Guibernau 2006) but not in Spain where a mono-national nation-state interpretation prevails (Dowling 2017).Moreover, the Catalan nation was threatened with extinction by Franco's dictatorship which persecuted Catalonia's culture and language and abolished the 1932 Catalan Parliament.Scotland, instead, has never gone through an analogous experience and obtained its regional government only in 1998 (Greer 2007).Despite its recognition as a nation, Scottish nationalism contains a relatively weak cultural/ linguistic dimension which is instead strong in Catalan nationalism as language and culture are deeply rooted in society (Keating 1996).
The chosen timespan is germane to the scope of the article.The analysis takes into account the mobilizations that occurred until the early 2000s which precede the emergence of the contemporary secessionist movements.The 1980s, instead, were chosen as the starting point of the analysis because they were characterized by a powerful resurgence of nationalism (Elliot 2018) following the 1979 watershed.In both regions, referendums on autonomy/devolution were held that very same year and did not lay the nationalist movements to rest.In this timespan, a total of six transformative events (three per region) have been selected for being salient cases of grassroots-led processes.
The analysis is divided into two parts.The first part is based on historical sociology methodology and hence employs narrative as mode to analyse events.Drawn upon academic scholarly work, journalistic and activist accounts, this analysis aims at contextualizing and exploring how non-institutional actors brought about the events and their impact on the development of the movements.The second part analyses the mobilizations surrounding the events, their effects and legacies and draws upon original campaigning material produced by SMOs and grassroots groups in the framework of those mobilizations.A total number of 103 documents (32 webpages, 32 leaflets, 35 advertisements in newspapers and 4 posters) has been collected.
For the Scottish case, I could use the online Scottish Political Archive (SPA) set up by the University of Stirling to cover the decades 1980s-1990s.I have focused on written documents6 such as leaflets and campaign posters, and selected information-rich material.For the Catalan case, I could not find a similar online archive of political material so I have relied on the online archive7 of one of the major Catalan-medium dailies, Avui, where SMOs published public statements, posters, manifestos, declarations and activity programmes.I went through the material published all along the unfolding of the campaigns (1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)) and I have selected informationrich items.In both cases, for the analysis of the mobilizations of the early 2000s, I have used the online archive Wayback Machine to retrieve the SMOs' websites created between 2005 and 2010 and I have selected the web pages providing information about their principles, aims and activities.
To analyse the collected original material, I have resorted to the qualitative technique of thematic analysis which focuses on identifying and describing prominent patterns in the data and makes it possible to compare them across different cases.Running the data through the software MaxQDA, it was possible to recognize emerging themes that became the categories for analysis (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2006).The coding was done inductively, marking similar sentences with a code to categorize them and at a later stage, combining the codes into clusters forming a theme.This process resulted in the elaboration of four themes that structure my analysis.In their final refinement, I was guided by social movement theories and in particular, those concepts regarding organizational development (SMOs' structuration and action repertoires) and cultural resources (injustice frame and frame bridging).

TRANSFORMATIVE EVENTS IN SCOTLAND AND CATALONIA
In this section, I will briefly outline the transformative events that I have selected, highlighting that they were all grassroots-led and showing their relevance and the ways they worked as catalysts for mobilization.

Scotland
For the Scottish case, I have analysed the following events: the publication of the report "A Claim of Right" in 1988; the "Scotland Demands Democracy" March in 1992; the launch of the Scottish Independence Convention in 2005.
In the 1980s, the cross-party, non-partisan Campaign for a Scottish Assembly (CSA) took up the devolution project after the failed 1979 referendum.Its main aim was to unite "parties and people" who were opposed to the status quo and wished for constitutional change (SPA: spa.758.3.2).With this in mind, in 1984, it produced a plan to establish a Constitutional Convention but it was only after another Tory victory in the 1987 election that the project began to take shape.A tipping point was reached in 1988 when the Constitutional Steering Committee formed precisely by the CSA issued the report "A Claim of Right for Scotland" that recommended the establishment of a constitutional convention to draw up a scheme for a Scottish Assembly.Steeped in historical significance, as will be shown, the report made the status quo untenable (The Herald 1998) and triggered a succession of events that eventually led to the establishment of the Scottish Parliament.Indeed, the recommendation in the Claim materialized in 1989 with the establishment of the Scottish Constitutional Convention (SCC), the broadest based devolution gathering of politicians and civic Scotland (Kellas 1992).Within this body, not only did the Labour Party officially commit to devolution but their devolution proposals merged with those of the Liberals thus paving the way to the blueprint of a Scottish Parliament in 1995 and the united coalition that won the 1997 referendum.
The Convention was momentarily eclipsed in 1992-93 by new political organizations committed to engaging the public and building grassroots support for constitutional renovation (Lynch 1996).Thatcher's reforms throughout the 1980s triggered widespread protests and this gave further impetus to change.In the wake of the fourth Conservative victory in the 1992 election, new campaigning groups emerged to express their discontent with Scotland's democratic deficit.Despite the Scottish electorate voting for the opposition parties in general elections, their influence in the UK arena could not match the level of support they had in Scotland (Ichijo 2004).Civic groups like Scotland United, Common Cause and Democracy for Scotland were formed precisely to campaign for democratic solutions to this problem and were able to organize the "Scotland Demands Democracy" March.Held concurrently with the 1992 EU summit in Edinburgh, this event was the largest ever pro-home rule demonstration that even to this day, is regarded as a «major staging point on the way to the creation of a Scottish Parliament» (Barnes & Peterkin, 2012).The demonstration attracted wide support and over 25.000 people turned up, generating political momentum and ensuring a remarkable media coverage also internationally.The Democracy Declaration, read at the rally and endorsed by civic organizations and the pro-devolution parties, represented a show of unity among the opposition parties (Cusick 1992).This unity would prove to be a crucial strength of the 1997 referendum campaign and marked the difference with the 1979 campaign (Dardanelli 2005).Once the Scottish Parliament was finally established, the constitutional debate was put to rest.
Discussions about independence emerged relatively soon though, as the perception about the effectiveness of the Scottish Parliament was rapidly deteriorating already in its earliest days.Dissatisfied with the lack of a debate about independence in the Scottish Parliament, a group of activists gathered with the feeling «they needed a voice» (Orr 2006: 22) and worked to prepare the way for a formal platform campaigning for independence.So, on St. Andrew's night in 2005, the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) was launched in Edinburgh's Dynamic Earth in a spirit of great enthusiasm as people who were not natural allies showed mutual support (Orr 2006).Leaders of the Scottish National Party (SNP), the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) shared the platform, together with academics and artists.Participants regarded the meeting as a sign that Scotland was «a nation on the verge of growing up» (Truman 2005) and spoke of a «phantom revolution» (Orr 2006: 23) because of poor media coverage, yet still a revolution.From that moment onwards, although public opinion did not shift towards support for independence, the pro-independence arguments made all the political running (Bradbury 2021).

Catalonia
For the Catalan case, I have analysed the following events: the establishment of La Crida a la Solidaritat in 1981; the protest at the inauguration of the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona in 1989; the first mass demonstration of the Plataforma pel Dret a Decidir in 2006.
In the late 1970s, the democratic transition after Franco's dictatorship entailed the reacquisition of Catalan autonomy and regional competences, engendering great resistances to it.The manifesto denouncing the discrimination of the Castilian language in Catalonia (known as "Manifesto of the 2.300") makes a good example.As a formal response to the Manifesto, a group of Catalan intellectuals and activists published a letter titled Crida a la Solidaritat en Defensa de la Llengua, la Cultura I la Naciò Catalanes [Call to Solidarity in Defense of the Catalan Language, Culture and Nation] inviting Catalans to gather at the University of Barcelona the day after.That meeting is remembered as a chaotic moment, the University's Paranymph was packed and no one expected such a high attendance (Safont 2021).It marked the birth of a movement, shortly named La Crida, that soon counted in its ranks around 1300 organizations and successfully mobilized thousands of people in defence of the consolidation of self-government and linguistic normalization.La Crida also tried to revitalize the left-wing party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya [ERC -Republic Left of Catalonia] and eventually succeeded but at its own expense as the movement lost two of its leading figures who joined the party and made it fully pro-independence (Lluch 2010).This consequently favoured the party's co-optation of pro-independence activists from different political organizations, often leading to their dissolution.
Before its collapse, however, La Crida was one of the main initiators of the mobilization that took place in 1989 on the occasion of the inauguration of the Stadium in Barcelona which had been chosen to host the upcoming Olympic Games.The stadium was filled with Catalan flags and leaflets with a slogan -"Freedom for Catalonia" -that ended up identifying the whole nationalist campaign during the Games.Highly symbolic, this protest is remembered as a clear "show of force" that proved that Catalans could think and act big (Bassas 2017).The campaign that followed this protest was successful in its aim, namely "Catalanizing" the Games but also in helping Catalans define, for themselves and others, «the role and place of Catalonia in the contexts of the Spanish state, the European Community and an emerging post-Cold War international system» (Pi-Sunyer 1995: 36).The protest at the inauguration of the stadium was the moment that marked the difference as not only did it prove a certain unity in the movement (Tomas 2017) but it was perceived as the beginning of a project that belonged to the people, and was not shared by the administration nor by political authorities (Masreal 2022).
During the rest of the 1990s, the consolidation of ERC as a party belonging to the Catalan parliamentary system went hand in hand with the marginalization of militant independentism (Gabriel 2002).However  (Álvarez 2006).Participants and observers agree that it was a moment of "great togetherness" and strong collective emotion, with a feeling that the demonstration was able to open up new future perspectives (Miró 2006), affecting the development of the debate on the Statute but more generally, Catalanism.And indeed, that demonstration was the seed from which other initiatives would soon blossom (Segura 2013), such as the 2009-2011 popular consultations about Catalan independence and finally, the establishment of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana [ANC -Catalan National Assembly] in 2012.

MOBILIZATIONS' EFFECTS AND LEGACIES IN ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES AND CULTURAL RESOURCES
As the main features of the transformative events have been outlined, I will now focus on the effects that eventful mobilizations had on the very same actors that set in motion the events.Effects are analysed in four areas characterizing SMOs: their structuration and action repertoires on one hand, the elaboration of injustice frames and the carrying out of frame bridging on the other.For each of these areas, I will also highlight the continuities and trends developed throughout different waves of mobilization, showing how some practices and frames became part of the nationalist movements' culture.

SMOs' structuration
One of the biggest transformations that the mobilizations surrounding transformative events brought about is the development of new networks of activists and organizations.This aspect has to do with the external structuration of SMOs, namely the way they interact with their organizational environment.In Scotland, it is possible to observe the creation of two umbrella organizations, the Conventions, which were both the result of bottom-up initiatives and both addressing the lack of inter-party cooperation (SPA: spa.758.3.1;Scottish Independence Convention 2007c).The Constitutional Convention was born from the efforts of the CSA, a grassroots organization launched by politicians, academics, trade unionists and activists (SPA: spa.769.9.1).All political parties took part in the Convention (except the Conservatives and the Nationalists) and so did churches, unions, women's forums, business and local councils Unveiling Extra-Institutional Agency in Nationalist Contention (Hearn 2019).Compared to previous conventions, this was the first with such a wide membership and such an extended series of meetings (Kellas 1992).The SNP actively participated in the CSA's preparatory meetings but in the end, withdrew from the Convention while the Labour, originally reluctant, joined it thus welcoming the CSA's proposals and moving to a position on Scottish self-government closer to that of the SNP than its traditional one.The Independence Convention too was originally conceived by a group of Scots with different profiles, some being members of political parties, some not, some from the Central Belt, some from the Borders (Orr 2006).Openly inspired by the previous Convention, the SIC was the first cross-party non-partisan platform for Scottish independence that united all proindependence parties (SNP, Scottish Greens and SSP)8 .The networks established by the two Conventions seem to be more oriented towards the participation of politicians and political parties and ended up initiating eliteled processes9 .Unlike the two Conventions, the 1993 Coalition for Scottish Democracy was an umbrella platform that did not include institutional actors and was instead made up of trade unions, the Campaign for a Scottish Parliament (previously, CSA) and the newly born Common Cause and Democracy for Scotland (SPA: spa.769.14.2).
The mobilizations around the events triggered the emergence or consolidation of new collective actors in Catalonia.The latter were characterized by a communitarian dimension that was reflected in wide and transversal networks able to mobilize massive popular support.La Crida, for instance, worked as an umbrella organization including hundreds of other organizations such as cultural and linguistic associations, neighbours associations, university faculties, youth groups, sport/ ludic clubs and leftist organizations (La Crida 1981: 10).La Crida was welcomed and supported by both regionalist parties CiU and ERC although CiU soon distanced itself from La Crida's actions due to the movement's radical discourse.After the 1989 protest at the Olympic Stadium, Òmnium Cultural decided to launch the unified platform Acció Olímpica [Olympic Action] that attracted an impressive number of sport clubs, municipalities, civil society associations (including La Crida) and individuals (Òmnium Cultural 1992; Acció Olímpica 1992a).Similarly, a glance at the lists of participants and sup-porters of the PDD makes it clear that this platform as well had a very high aggregating capacity (Plataforma pel Dret a Decidir 2006a).ERC got very involved in the Plataforma, being one of its members from the very beginning, while CiU participated in the preparatory meetings and joined only some of the PDD's activities.
Although most of these umbrella organizations and platforms do not exist anymore in Scotland and Catalonia, the networks of activists and organizations that they held together were activated and have participated in recent secessionist mobilizations.Examples of core activists and politicians in today's movements who were also leading figures in the campaigns of the 1980s and 1990s are countless 10 .
Each event brought about the emergence of new networks connecting both individual and collective actors.However, some trends can be observed and specifically in the internal structuration of the Scottish and Catalan SMOs.One concerns membership criteria.While individual-based membership tends to be the preferred option among Scottish SMOs (as in the case of the 1992 civic groups), in the Catalan context what stands out is the presence of long lists of all kinds of different organizations and associations that joined the umbrella platforms.Scottish SMOs were mainly constituted by individuals rather than collective actors even when membership was open to organizations and individuals, as in the CSA11 and the SIC.In Catalonia, instead, La Crida, Acció Olímpica and the PDD were characterized by a dense and complex web of cultural and civic associations that constitutes, now as in the past, the hard core of Catalan campaigns for self-determination.
The other trend concerns the SMOs' territorial and/ or functional differentiation.Scottish grassroots organizations tend to be organized in local branches based in the major cities, as was the case of the CSA and Democracy for Scotland (SPA: spa.moe.57.1).Organizations like Women for Independence and Radical Independence Campaign in the 2014 referendum campaign adopted exactly the same structure.This territorial differentiation is present also in the Catalan movement (for example, in the PDD) but some SMOs also encouraged sectorial activism by creating internal committees that carried out different campaigns.La Crida, for example, established internal sub-units fighting against war or environmental pollution but also mobilizing in solidarity with African post-colonial struggles (Safont 2021).Similarly, in 2012 the ANC created both territorial sub-units to ensure a strong presence at the municipal level and sectorial assemblies -this time based on sociodemographic variables -to reach and consolidate a social hegemony translatable in support for independence (Assemblea Nacional Catalana 2012).

Action repertoires
The mobilizations in the wake of the transformative events also fuelled some changes in the tactics adopted by SMOs, either setting the prevalence of some tactics or introducing new ones.In Scotland, the CSA organized some rallies and held conferences during the 1980s (SPA: spa.758.3.1) but what it managed to do was quite modest.However, with the creation of the Constitutional Convention in mind, the Campaign successfully lobbied a large number of delegates and politicians who were invited to the CSA's inter-party meetings.By doing so, the CSA re-adopted a pressure group approach to home rule that was abandoned some decades before (Finlay 2022).The SIC followed this very same path although it is worth mentioning that a member of the Convention, a grassroots association called Independence First, tried to encourage protest-oriented actions (specifically, demonstrations) thus complementing the elite-led initiatives of the Convention (Independence First 2006a).However, the real innovators in the Scottish context were the 1992 civic groups -Democracy for Scotland and Common Cause -which adopted a non-confrontational "social movement approach", as it is the case with the massive Democracy March in 1992.Sometimes they carried out symbolic actions such the 1993 mini-referendum in Falkirk and the famous Vigil for a Scottish Parliament, set up in Edinburgh with a pledge to keep it continuously occupied until a Scottish Parliament was achieved (SPA: spa.moe.46.1).What was also really innovative about their tactics was the adoption of a prefigurative strategy based on the principle of directly implementing the changes one seeks (Della Porta 2018).Their open fora and public meetings, characterized by inclusivity and horizontality, became spaces reflecting the kind of Parliament -and ultimately, the kind of society -they wished to create (SPA: spa.2994.).
The tendency for Scottish SMOs is therefore the adoption of micro-level, community-based initiatives similar to the modus operandi of political parties (leafleting, street stalls, conferences, etc.) while big demonstrations like the 1992 March are the exception rather than the rule.It is a tendency that is reflected also in the 2014 referendum campaign during which only two big demonstrations (March and Rally for Scottish Independence in 2012 and 2013) occurred and local campaigns did not depart significantly from those carried out by the CSA or Democracy for Scotland12 .In both pro-devolution and pro-independence campaigns, parties gave their support and participated in these massive demonstrations so they became important moments of collaboration and mutual support between institutional and non-institutional actors.
If Scottish SMOs opted for non-confrontational tactics, the Catalan repertoire tended to be protest-oriented and disruptive but without being violent.Until this date, La Crida, for example, is remembered for its "spectacular" direct actions and civil disobedience that aimed at strengthening the level of national consciousness in the Catalan society (Lluch 2010).For instance, to demand the use of Catalan in public services, some activists sprayed paint on the departure boards in Sants station or threw paper planes with "En catalá!" [In Catalan!] written on them in Barcelona airport (La Crida 1986).
La Crida was also involved in the "Freedom for Catalonia" campaign during the Olympic Games in Barcelona.The initiatives of this campaign were also highimpact actions but this time, mostly internationallyoriented to spread the issue of Catalonia's quest for recognition.So, the "Freedom for Catalonia" banners were deliberately showed in many sporting events and keymoments of the Olympics like the arrival of the Olympic flame (Acció Olímpica 1992b) and Catalan flags covered buildings and balconies in Barcelona (Acció Olímpica 1992c).ERC, led at that time by Angel Colom (former leader of La Crida), resorted to similar protest actions and for that, coordinated with La Crida and other noninstitutional actors.
In its repertoire, the PDD combined conventional actions (such as demonstrations) and more innovative ones such as the campaign "Decideixo Decidir" [I decide to decide], to demand the right to call referendums without Madrid's permission (Plataforma pel Dret a Decidir 2007).Also, despite not being an exclusive initiative of the PDD, the popular referendums about Catalan independence occurring between 2009 and 2011 could take place mainly thanks to the Plataforma.
Trends in the use of certain tactics are not only easily recognizable but, in some cases, the adoption of the same repertoire is even explicitly intended in today's movements, as in the case of the ANC that opted for peaceful and passive resistance in line with La Crida's ones (Assemblea Nacional Catalana 2013).In the foot-steps of La Crida and the PDD, the ANC has been also organizing mass-based initiatives and highly visible protest events deliberately staged for media dissemination13 .

Injustice frames and frame bridging
I now turn to another fundamental component of collective action, that is framing processes.Activists in any social movement resort to injustice frames to reach a shared understanding of some problematic condition that requires a collective effort in order to change it.SMOs also engage in bridging arguments to convince people with similar values and maybe involved in similar causes to join them.
In Scotland, the CSA (and later the SCC) put forward the argument that the needs, ambitions and hopes of the people of Scotland were unheeded and socioeconomic policies were thus unfairly imposed because Scottish representatives did not have control of Scottish affairs (SPA: spa.758.3.2). Thatcher's victory marked the beginning of the "democratic deficit" as Tories had no electoral and moral mandate in Scotland (SPA: spa.moe.57.1) and this represented a "cynical denial of the interests of a whole nation."(SPA: spa.769.4.2) To this idea, the 1992 civic groups added more complexity as they put emphasis on the unheard voices of Scottish citizens rather than Scottish representatives, rejecting the possibility of creating a replica of Westminster where power was not devolved down to the lowest practical level (SPA: spa.moe.50.1).The SIC framed Scotland's situation as one characterized by a general feeling of helplessness to improve the Scottish economic and social records and consequently, the living condition of the Scottish people (SPA: spa.265.1).The main problem was belonging to an "unequal union" which had always been at Scotland's disadvantage and had not allowed Scotland to take the most important decisions about its future (Independence First 2006a).
At the core of all these frames lies the condition of a nation that is not heard, not fairly represented in state institutions and that has been held back by the Union.It is a matter of limited powers.The debates on independence during the 2014 referendum are shaped by most of these arguments.
In Catalonia, instead, injustice has to do with the fact that national identity and all its expressions are contested and sovereignty repeatedly threatened by the central state.In this case, it is a matter of feeling mistreated.In La Crida's framing, Catalonia could not advance in the process of national restoration that had just begun with the democratic transition because of the centralizing attempts of the Spanish state (La Crida 1981).It is in this context and at the hands of La Crida that the slogan "Som una nació" [We are a nation] was used for the first time14 .The 1992 campaigners found it unfair that Catalonia was not allowed to be represented as a nation in the Olympic Games and this was seen as a sign of disrespect, particularly given that Catalonia was the host country of the Games (La Crida 1991).So, La Crida wanted to push for national recognition while the Olympic campaign added the international side of recognition.An even bigger sense of injustice was perceived when Catalans voted for a new version of its Statute of Autonomy and felt that their legitimate political aspirations were immediately hindered by the central state.It was not acceptable that what they had decided as a nation was heavily questioned (Plataforma pel Dret a Decidir 2006b) and feelings of humiliation fed the protests of those years.
Either in terms of more autonomy or independence, self-determination represents the ultimate solution to address these unjust conditions and unfair treatments.Over time, the campaigns for self-determination have been linked to frames that resonate with the broader cultural structure in order to reach a larger pool of supporters.This is what the process of frame bridging is about.
In Scotland, SMOs connected the demands for selfdetermination to the principles of popular sovereignty and popular participation.The 1988 Claim of Right represents a cornerstone in the history of modern Scottish nationalism specifically because it was in this document that the notion of popular sovereignty first emerged as a serious claim (Tierney 2005).Power rests with Scottish people Scotland who constitute the ultimate authority (SPA: spa.769.15).The 1992 civic groups interpreted this principle in a narrow sense, linking the demand for a Scottish Parliament with the demand for "real" or participatory democracy (SPA: spa.800.2). "Power to the citizen" (SPA: spa.770.1.1)both meant an active participation in the debate about the proposals for a Scottish Parliament and in political life through the Scottish Parliament.Their campaigns for a referendum called for a democratic renewal because "a cross periodically on a ballot paper is no substitute for genuine democracy" (SPA: spa.moe.50.1).
Independence Convention referred both to the principle of popular sovereignty and the argument of democratic enhancement but this time, combined with demands for an independence referendum.So, independence was needed because only the people of Scotland could be sovereign in determining their own future (Scottish Independence Convention 2007b) and independence would bring democracy closer to them.They framed their demand to hold a referendum not as a nationalist aspiration but rather as a democratic demand that could be supported by anyone who cherished the principle of democracy (Independence First 2006a).This bridging between independence and democratic values persisted also in the 2014 campaign in which terms like deliberative democracy, empowerment and inclusiveness played a central role (Della Porta et al. 2017).
This last point applies also to the Catalan case in which over time, different SMOs made many references to democratic principles and values to support their demands for self-determination.Probably the best example in this respect is the PDD's innovative frame shifting the focus from the right to self-determination to the right to decide thus linking national aspirations to the capacity to democratically take part in a decision. 15For this broad democratic dimension, the "right to decide" frame was soon incorporated into the discourse by both ERC and CiU.However, what emerges from the analysis of the Catalan material is the use of anti-totalitarian/ anti-colonial frames connected to demands for selfdetermination.Catalan nationalist campaigns engaged in resisting repressive aggressions and continuing abuse through the negation of rights.La Crida, for example, presented their campaigns as part of the struggle of "subject people" carrying out a project of "national liberation" from an intransigent and belligerent state (La Crida 1985).The perceived attempts of "Spanishization" of the Olympic Games intensified the narrative of a totalitarian state16 and this is clearly reflected in the slogans of the 1992 campaign "Catalonia is an oppressed nation" and "Freedom for Catalonia".Acció Olímpica explained that the adoption of the latter was justified by the fact that many Catalans, and not just pro-independence activists, believed that Catalonia needed more freedom (Acció Olímpica 1992d).
This bridging between liberation and independence can be found also in the contemporary secessionist movement that even readopted the same slogans by adapting them to the new context.It is the case with the "Freedom for Catalonia" slogan which was used by Òmnium Cultural in the 2013 Concert for Freedom and finally reappropriated by Catalan political prisoners following the 2017 referendum.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Research on nationalism has been interested in understanding the role of nationalist actors in mobilizing territorial differences.However, the focus has been predominantly on political parties thus overshadowing activity in the extra-institutional sphere and its potentially enduring impact on nationalist contention.This article set out to address the need to broaden the scope of analysis to reflect the broader range of actors engaged in territorial contention.Therefore, its focus has been on non-institutional actors and in particular, social movements organizations and grassroots groups.The comparison of the Scottish and Catalan campaigns for self-determination from the 1980s to the 2000s wanted to explore how these actors impacted the history of territorial contention and reshaped movements.To do so, the article has adopted the concepts of transformative events and eventful protests.In particular, these concepts have helped highlight the role of agency not only in the unfolding of key-events but also in the production of the events themselves.The historical analysis of transformative events has shown that the initiatives of noninstitutional actors led up to these events, turning points in their self-determination struggles.What distinguishes the initiatives of the Scottish actors from those of the Catalan counterparts is that while the former were generally more turned to support parties and foster their cooperation, the latter were more directed at mobilizing the Catalan society and popular support.Indeed, Scottish SMOs and grassroots groups took action whenever political parties "failed" or their room of manoeuvre was perceived as limited.This is the case of the CSA that emerged once the Scottish government could not deliver devolution in the 1979 referendum.In the unfolding of the "democratic deficit" phase at the turn of the 1990s, civic groups engaged in collective action out of frustration with the powerlessness of Scottish parties in the UK system.And once the Scottish Parliament was created, the SIC emerged in response to the lack of debate in the institutional arena about further constitutional change.Catalan civil society, instead, reacted en masse when Catalan culture and/or political autonomy were perceived under threat.La Crida, indeed, took action in the context of the 1981 failed coup and more specifi-cally, after the publication of the Manifesto of the 2.300.On the occasion of the 1992 Olympic Games, activists perceived the risk of "Spanishization" of the Games and immediately prepared to "strike back" to make sure Catalonia had its place in the international community.Finally, the PDD was formed precisely to counteract the hostile debate against the new Statute of Autonomy.
Despite its focus on non-institutional actors, the analysis has also observed how these moments of mobilization also affected the interaction between SMOs and parties.The initiative of the former behind each event incited different parties' reactions, ranging from formal support or active involvement in SMOs' actions (particularly, by parties outside government with a more radical nationalist stance -the SNP and ERC) to the incorporation of SMOs' demands and discursive innovations.The parties' decision to incorporate SMOs' demands played a key role in the electoral arena.The Claim of Right and the subsequent participation of the Labour party in the SCC, for example, were crucial steps in the party's "tartanisation" which moved Labour onto the SNP's territory (De Winter and Tursan 1998).Similarly, ERC's adoption of a pro-independence strategy under the influence of La Crida (with the incorporation of La Crida's keyfigures in the party leadership) allowed the party to successfully take the independence stance from the extraparliamentary sphere to the institutional arena.
Transformative events like these are said to precede the "take-off" of mobilization.The thematic analysis of original materials produced by SMOs and grassroots groups has focused on the transformative capacity of non-institutional mobilization, looking at organizational and cultural impacts that the mobilization had on the movements themselves (Della Porta 2018).At the organizational level, SMOs built new networks by providing structures that could bridge between different parties or generally, between moderate and radical nationalists.The difference that stands out by observing these networks is that Catalan platforms tended to include a massive amount of cultural and civic associations.This reflects the strength of the cultural dimension in the Catalan nationalism and refers to the Catalanist socialization that was "forced" to take place in sport clubs, hobby congregations and neighbourhood associations during Franco's dictatorship (Conversi 1997).
SMOs also expanded the action repertoires.In Scotland, they did so by combining different modes of action, in particular combining traditional campaigning practices (leafleting, street stalls, etc.) with other actions like lobbying, non-confrontational protests (vigils) or prefigurative practices.In Catalonia, they did so by experimenting with new tactics such as spectacular acts of civil disobedience or popular referendums.In both cases, large international events led non-institutional actors to adapt their tactics to internationalize their struggles -the Scots with a massive demonstration (an exception in the Scottish repertoire), the Catalans with disrupting acts and English slogans.The difference with the tactics adopted by Scottish SMOs is striking as most of the actions carried out by Catalan organizations are acts of national affirmation.Massive acts like those coordinated by the PDD are able to engender endogenous solidarity and a collective self-perception of strength (Della Porta et al. 2017).This is probably connected both to the lack of national recognition and the presence of historical resistance movements.These aspects do not characterize the Scottish movement as the existence of the Scottish nation has never been challenged or threatened (Duclos 2015) so there has been no need of particular consciousness raising efforts.
At the cultural level, SMOs also expanded the cultural repertoire as they reworked and bridged collective action frames.Both movements framed the relation with the central states as unjust: in the Scottish case, this relation is characterized by an imbalance of power between the UK and Scotland while in Catalonia, it generates a feeling of mistreatment among Catalans.To these injustice frames, each mobilization added further elements.In Scotland, for example, the Westminster system provided too limited powers not just to Scottish MPs but also to Scottish citizens.On the other hand, the Spanish state mistreated Catalonia not just by denying its status of nation but even by denying Catalans' fundamental rights and freedoms, like the right to decide.In both cases, injustice frames were bridged with democratic frames, suggesting that the central states were not, or not enough, democratic -with clear references to the past authoritarian experience only in the Catalan case.
Finally, the analysis hints at the fact that past mobilizations made important differences to the resources mobilized in contemporary episodes of contention thus raising a note of caution against the myopia of the present (Melucci 1994).Protests and campaigns, especially eventful ones, produce resources that continue and develop beyond their original contexts (Della Porta et al. 2018).This implies that, as "new" or unprecedented some movements can appear, they are shaped by past mobilizations.Considering the Scottish and Catalan independence referendums, some continuities have been observed both at the organizational and cultural levels.For example, the Scottish campaign pivoted around micro-level, community-based initiatives while the Catalan Procés was characterized by protest-oriented, disruptive but peaceful actions.Similarly, frame bridging consisted of bridging requests for secession with democratic-emancipatory and social justice frames (Della Porta et al. 2017).Adopting a processual approach to collective action pays particular attention to singling out key events that mark the emergence of new phases characterized by the transformation of preexisting structures.In this way, scholars may observe the coexistence of change and continuity in collective action processes as they see how events affect the evolution of contention and how much of those events persist over time in different rearticulations.
, a new phase began with the new Catalan Tripartite government which opened a dialogue with the Spanish Government about the reform of the Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia in 2003.Concerned with the way the debate on the Statute was carried out in Madrid (Cuadras-Morató 2016), representatives of civic, cultural and political organizations gathered in the Plataforma Pel Dret a Decidir [PDD -Platform for the Right to Decide] at the end of 2005 to give voice to Catalan national aspirations.The first large-scale demonstration organized by the Plataforma on 18 February 2006 saw over 200,000 people participating and it constituted a milestone in the history of Catalan nationalist mobilization