Welfare and ethnic boundary deactivation in left-wing nationalist mobilization

Why do left-wing substate nationalist parties increasingly prioritize welfare-centered over ethnonationalist appeals? While existing research has documented the growing prominence of socioeconomic issues in nationalist politics, the strategic advantages that welfare frames offer for nationalist mobilization remain overlooked. Drawing on scholarship on ethnic boundary-making and framing theory, this article addresses this gap through an analysis of Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG), one of Spain’s fastest-growing nationalist parties. Using a multi-source corpus, we employ the notion of ethnic boundary deactivation to analyze how nationalist elites strategically shift the political frontier away from ethnocultural distinctions and toward welfare-centered frames across different stages of political competition. The findings show that Galician nationalism continues to rely on a distinct ethnocultural conception of the nation, yet strategically prioritizes welfare-centered frames when seeking to mobilize support. First, welfare allows nationalist actors to articulate a positive, forward-looking national project that displaces the imagery of resistance and grievance commonly associated with ethnocultural claims. Second, welfare creates a new political frontier organized around the defense of national interests, subordinating ethnocultural markers to welfare goals. Third, it anchors mobilization in an emotional regime of hope and collective solidarity that reinforces collective action. Analyzed in their relational dimension, welfare-based framing strategies also prove more resistant to the counterframing efforts of non-nationalist political actors. By foregrounding the strategic, relational, and affective dimensions of nationalist discourse, the article offers a novel framework for understanding the welfare turn and provides new insights into how left-wing substate nationalist parties seek to broaden their electoral appeal.