In September 2014, the Scottish National Party (SNP)-led government reached an agreement with the United Kingdom (UK) Conservative government and held a referendum on independence from the UK. Despite the unionist win, a relevant 44.7% of Scots opted for secession. Catalan authorities, by contrast, strove to introduce an official referendum on secession, but faced outright opposition from the Spanish government and the Constitutional Court (Álvarez Pereira et al, 2017). Instead, with the collaboration of the Catalan regional government, almost 2.3 million people symbolically cast their votes in a massive – non-binding, unofficial – voting performance led by civil society organisations in November 2014.

In this chapter we will provide a comprehensive account of the context in which our main cases took place, presenting how the referendum campaigns were initiated and by whom. More specifically, we will argue that grievances were formed and opportunities opened up and were appropriated by relevant actors in relation to three (intertwined) crises: territorial, socioeconomic and political. These three latent dimensions, which concatenated and reinforced one another, lie beneath the emergence and development of the mobilisations for the referendums.

We contend throughout that two crucial mechanisms link these three crises to actions favouring holding a referendum: grievance formation and appropriation of opportunities. By grievances we refer to ‘troublesome matters or conditions’ that often push individuals to collectively challenge authorities via social movements, and the ‘feelings associated with them – such as dissatisfaction, fear, indignation, resentment, and moral shock’ (Snow, 2013). Appropriation of opportunities stresses the need for observing windows of opportunity – that is, opportunities do not invite launching and mobilising around referendum campaigns unless they are visible and are perceived as such. Also, as McAdam et al (2001; see also della Porta, 2014: ch. 6) suggest, appropriation emphasises the importance of challengers seizing political opportunities and acting upon them.

Both Scottish and Catalan campaigns took place in a moment of complex opening and closing of political opportunities. Although concessions from officeholders and institutional facilitation are often regarded as opportunities for mobilisation (Tarrow, 2011), the direction of the effect is contested. On the one hand, these might signal how likely the government is to hear the claims of challengers and incorporate them into policy making. If authorities’ feedback in light of mobilisation is positive, it may enhance rewards from involvement, inviting further actions.