Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality – Chapter 11 – Political solidarity movements and humanitarianism: lessons from Catalonia, Spain (1975–2020)

Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.
This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 11 – Political solidarity movements and humanitarianism: lessons from Catalonia, Spain (1975–2020) – contributed by Salvador Martí i Puig and Alberto Martín Álvarez.

From the introduction
A solidarity movement is a collective political actor that, as in the case of parties and lobbies, relies on the voluntary participation of its members, has a relatively stable activity and a set of common objectives among its members, who share a coordinated and organised line of action, and the will to intervene in the political sphere, thus influencing the management of a social conflict. Nevertheless, these – and other – movements have some features that are specific to them, such as a flexible organisation, with traits of informality; a transversal discourse based on a specific thematic field (in this case international solidarity); a preferred space for non-institutional action; a conflictive relationship with power; and resources that are not usually of a material nature, but rather symbolic – such as emotional cohesion, discipline and the commitment of their members (Vallès and Martí i Puig, 2015: 351–2).
In this chapter, we understand political solidarity movements as a particular type of social movement, which, as Rucht (2000: 79) argued, is activated by ‘distant issues’. That is, movements whose origin and activity are not linked to the situation of the mobilised groups themselves in their countries of origin, but to problems affecting social or political groups or movements in other countries, often in the Global South. While providing support, political solidarity differs from humanitarianism. From our point of view and following Scholz (2015: 732), political solidarity could be defined as a ‘commitment to a common cause to end injustice or oppression’ and emerges from criticism of existing societies and structures. On the other hand, humanitarianism, at least in what Hilhorst (2018:3) calls its ‘classic paradigm’, is grounded on principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence and conceives helping other individuals as purely based on needs and not on political grounds. Although both agree on the desire to intervene to provide immediate help, in the case of political solidarity there is also an express intention to contribute to changing the political and social structures that produce these situations of injustice and oppression. These differences have not, however, prevented groups with humanitarian motivations and political solidarity organizations from joining forces on particular occasions, as the case study we analyse in this chapter shows.
After providing an overview over the research on political solidarity movements, this chapter focuses on the case of Catalonia from 1978 (with the establishment of a democratic political regime in Spain) to the present day, marked by the impact of both an economic crisis (2008) and a health crisis (2020). Through this history, we can analyse the birth of a solidarity movement from the advent of Spanish democracy against the international backdrop of the ‘Cold War’ to the current globalised, transnational environment. This chronological analysis also helps us deal with key aspects of solidarity movements.
It should be noted that our perspective of analysis is the product of both academic research carried out in Catalonia, as well as personal collaboration with some of the social movement organisations mentioned in this work. Our perspective recalls the experience, above all, of the movements which offered solidarity, so we do not aspire to reflect the position or experience of the groups that received this solidarity in the Global South.

Note on contributors
Salvador Martí i Puig is Professor of Political Science at Universitat de Girona and associate researcher at CIDOB-Barcelona and the Ibero-American Institute at the Universidad de Salamanca. He has been a visiting professor and researcher at different universities in Europe, Latin America, and the United States.
His field of research is comparative politics, mainly in Latin America. He has collaborated as a consultant and evaluator in international institutions such as UNDP. He has published books and articles in specialised magazines on collective action, social movements, and Latin American politics.

Alberto Martín Álvarez is Distinguished Professor at the Department of Public Law of the Universitat de Girona. He has been full researcher at the Instituto Mora (Mexico City) and visiting professor at several universities in Europe and Latin America.
His research focuses on social and political movements and political violence, mainly in Central America.
Among his latest publications are: Building the Radical Identity. The Diffusion of the Ideological Framework of the New Left (with Eduardo Rey) (Peter Lang, 2022) and Toward a Global History of Latin America's Revolutionary Left (with Tanya Harmer) (University Press of Florida, 2021).

Overviews are already available for the following chapters:
Introduction: humanitarianism and inequality – a re-orientation

Humanitarianism and colonialism

Humanitarianism and the global Cold War, 1945–1991

Humanitarianism and the new wars: humanitarianism, security, and securitisation

Humanitarianism, development and peace: a southern perspective

Localisation and the humanitarian sector

Human rights and humanitarianism

Humanitarian organisations: behemoths and butterflies

Faith actors in humanitarianism: dynamics and inequalities

Diaspora assistance