The governance of Basque language revitalisation in the Basque Autonomous Community: from confrontation toward collaboration

Abstract

In recent decades, language revitalisation policies, programmes and initiatives have had to develop in an environment of major social, political, economic, or technological changes that have had an extraordinary impact on the governance of minority language revitalisation. In this context, we have studied the changes that have taken place in the governance of the revitalisation of the Basque language in the Basque Autonomous Community during the first two decades of the twenty-first century: from open antagonism to a common commitment to collaborative governance. We present an analysis of the models of governance confronted in the field of the revitalisation of the Basque language, of the rationalities that inform them or provide them with resources of meaning and legitimation, and of the process by which a model of collaborative governance has been arrived at.