The relationship between material conditions, public opinion, and the violence of ETA, the Basque terrorist group (1959-2018)

Abstract

The terrorist campaign on Spanish soil of the armed Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom, hereafter referred to as ETA) lasted over 50 years, starting in 1959 and transcending Spain’s shift from dictatorship to democracy. The organisation finally announced its full ceasefire and disbandment in 2018. During their violent campaign to achieve full independence from Spain for the Basque Country, ETA was responsible for killing and injuring over 1,000 people and displacing hundreds more. In this thesis, I seek to understand the relationship between material conditions, public opinion, and the activity of ETA. My hypothesis is that public opinion on ETA stems from real, material phenomena at various jurisdictional levels and that ETA’s ability to act independently of broader grievances associated with deprivation and exclusion was limited. I test this by, first, creating the first apolitical database, with chronological and geographical sequencing, of those murdered, injured, and kidnapped by ETA. This database indicates that other databases have underestimated ETA’s number of victims by around 10%. I then present an historical narrative of the group’s activities throughout its 50-year history with analysis of the characteristics of ETA’s campaign as it relates to research in the field of terrorism. I then go on to use polling data from the 1978-1995 Euskobarómetro polls to conduct correlational analysis of the relationship between material economic and political conditions, public opinion, and ETA violence. of ETA’s campaign, using the. I conclude that, on the basis of the narrative presented, as well as findings elsewhere on the lag between shifts in material conditions and public opinion, ETA’s agency to act against material trends and resulting shifts in public opinion was limited. This is of significant importance to terrorism studies insofar as it suggests that the key means of addressing terrorism is by changing material circumstances.

Date of Award	26 Sept 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Northumbria University
Supervisor	Matthew Johnson (Supervisor) & Ian Robson (Supervisor)