Killing the Rituals: Animal Welfare and Identity Politics in Catalonia and the Netherlands

Abstract

Animal welfare issues are increasingly finding a receptive audience among politicians in national political debates in Europe. The recent ban on bullfighting in Catalonia and the Dutch ban on unstunned ritual slaughter by Jews and Muslims show that even long standing cultural and religious traditions are not immune to this development. In this paper I argue that the expression of animal welfare issues in national politics is indicative of the increased importance of the cultural cleavage as an important battleground in European politics, as has been outlined by Kriesi et al. By analyzing the parliamentary debate on these two bans I am able to show that these issues clearly belong to this new cultural dimension of politics and that the coalitions of parties in favor and against cross-cuts those we find when looking at economic issues. The analysis at the same time shows banning the practice of ritually killing animals is a measure with a fundamentally ambiguous nature. Because the ban advances animal rights it seems to be located on the integration side of the cultural spectrum. Because it signifies no tolerance towards cultural practices of minorities and outsiders however it also can be said to be located on the demarcation side of the cultural dimension. It is this fundamental ambiguity that explains why the bans were supported by such a heterogenous group of parties, in the case of Catalonia ranging from environmental parties to nationalists, and in the case of the Netherlands from the environmentalist Party for the Animals to the right wing populists of the Party for Freedom.

Keywords: animal rights, Catalonia, The Netherlands, political parties, ritual slaughter, bullfights