The European Survey of Ethnopolitical Groups (ESEPG) is an expert survey which seeks to explore what have influenced domestic actors to advance their national self-determination causes through transnational collective action. It is part of my doctoral research at the Department of Politics and Management of the University of Konstanz, Germany.

The impetus of my research derives from a preliminary observation that many national self-determination activists seem to have not only initiated campaigns directed towards their home countries to express their aspirations, but also, interestingly, used direct or indirect cooperation with international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), external pressure groups, diasporas groups, kin states and others to advance their causes. In most cases, they take up the banner of human rights to justify their objectives and to facilitate their campaigns.

Take the Basque nationalist activists in Spain for instance. They have established contacts with other like-minded political groups within and outside Europe, such as those in the Corsican, Irish and Quebecois national self-determination movements, to undertake various political activities. Outside Europe, the East Timorese experience comes to mind. The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (USA), the Asia-Pacific Coalition for East Timor (Philippines) as well as a variety of INGOs and East Timorese diaspora groups had played vital roles in legitimizing the cause of the East Timorese and assisting them in moving towards the path of independence. The East Timorese achieved their political objective in 2002, while the Basque activists continue to strive for their separation from Spain.

Despite the “global” presence of self-determination activism, there is insufficient tangible evidence on the extent of transnational cooperation. Also, it is still contestable whether the seemingly cross-border cooperation among like-minded groups is really “transnational” in nature, or purely an extension of national politics to a wider international arena.

The crux of this research therefore lies in firstly, using survey analysis to identify each nationalist ethnic group’s international involvement (along a spectrum of degrees) in pushing forward the national self-determination agenda. The scope is confined to European ethnopolitical groups in this research. Secondly, I seek to explore the factors that have prompted certain ethnopolitical groups to resort to transnational cooperation to achieve their political agenda, and lastly I aim to shed light upon the strategies that these groups employ to further their causes in the international arena.

In the original survey sample, there were 100 European ethnopolitical groups. In order to avoid selection bias, both groups with and without salient self-determination agenda are chosen (Note that a detailed explanation of the selection criteria can be obtained upon request).

The respondents of the ESEPG are mostly scholars familiar with the operation of each ethnopolitical group for evaluation. Experts are requested to treat the ethnopolitical group in discussion as a collective group, and evaluate their political operation as a collective group. This is not an easy task for all the selected ethnopolitical groups in that in certain countries, the selected ethnopolitical group in fact has a heterogeneous nature, in terms of their political aspirations, historical backgrounds, and others. This ESEPG expert survey intends to find the operation of these groups in an aggregate level, but does not take into account all of individual differences inherent in a collective “group”. (A copy of the ESEPG survey: Basques in France)

After cleaning and cross-validating the original raw data, expert opinions of 57 ethnopolitical groups are gathered in the ESEPG Complete Dataset. Users may download it below.

Publications

Transnational Cooperation of Ethnopolitical Mobilization: A Survey Analysis of European Ethnopolitical Groups. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Chen, Yu-Wen (2011) A Comparative Qualitative Analysis of the International Activism of Ethnopolitical Groups in Europe, Ethnopolitics 1-23. DOI:10.1080/17449057.2010.548364.

Downloads

Data set and Do File (Ch. 5)

Codebook

ESEPG Complete Dataset (STATA)

Do File (Main Analysis in Chapter Five)

Data sets and Do File (Appendix 5)

Compare the ESEPG Complete Dataset with the MAR Dataset (Excel)

Compare the ESEPG Complete Dataset with the MAR Dataset (STATA)

Do File (Analysis in Appendix 5)