Judicial Decisions, Backlash and Secessionism: The Spanish Constitutional Court and Catalonia
The Economic Journal · 2024 · Agustín Casas、Federico Curci、Antoni-Italo De Moragas
中文摘要
我们利用一项独特的准实验，研究涉及敏感议题的司法裁决对政治态度的影响。2010年，西班牙宪法法院部分推翻了赋予加泰罗尼亚更多下放权力的新宪法——《自治条例》。我们的识别策略依赖于这一事实：该裁决作出时，一项民意调查正在进行。我们发现，该裁决使支持独立的比例增加了5个百分点。我们将这一结果解释为司法裁决对政治态度产生反弹效应的证据：一项限制进一步自治的司法裁决，引发了政治态度向追求更大程度自治的转变。此外，该裁决降低了人们对法院的信任和对民主的满意度。这种政治态度的反弹效应还延伸到了其他领域：加泰罗尼亚人对本地区的民族认同增强，对支持分权的政党的支持也有所增加。最后，我们表明，该裁决加剧了围绕党派分野和身份认同分野的两极分化。
Abstract
Abstract We exploit a unique quasi-experiment to study the effects of judicial decisions on sensitive issues on political attitudes. In 2010, the Spanish Constitutional Court partially overruled the new Catalan Constitution—the Estatut—that granted further decentralisation. Our identification strategy relies on the fact that this ruling occurred amid a public opinion survey. We find that the ruling increased support for independence by 5 percentage points. We interpret this result as evidence of judicial backlash on political attitudes: a judicial decision that limited further autonomy triggered a shift in attitudes towards even more autonomy. Moreover, the ruling decreased trust in the courts and satisfaction with democracy. This backlash of political attitudes extends to other spheres: Catalans increased their national identification with their region and the support for pro-decentralisation parties. Finally, we show that the ruling increased polarisation around the partisan and identity cleavages.