Catalans and Scots: Same dreams, different history

Fired up by Scotland’s looming independence referendum, thousands of nationalists in Catalonia take to the streets for mass protests to demand their own vote on breaking away from Spain. But the two campaigns grew out of very different circumstances that could define their success The surge in support for Scottish independence ahead of next week's referendum has encouraged Catalans trying to break from Spain, but the two campaigns grew out of very different circumstances that could define their success.
      
Hundreds of thousands of Catalans are expected on the streets of Barcelona on Thursday to demand a referendum on independence -- exactly one week before the vote in Scotland that looks set to be painfully close.
      
The Scottish referendum has caused political tensions in Britain but no mass protests or violence -- a fact experts attribute to the political nature of the United Kingdom.
      
The 1707 Act of Union joined England and Scotland but preserved the latter's institutions, including the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which remains distinct from the Anglican Church of England.
      
The creation of the UK "was at least constitutional, not a conquest", said Professor David McCrone, a political expert at the University of Edinburgh.
      
"There was always the possibility for Scotland of seceding and that could be a political crisis but not a constitutional one."       

By contrast, Catalonia is seeking to break away from a single unified state, making it a much more troublesome constitutional question -- and one that Mariano Rajoy's government in Madrid has vowed to prevent.        

The dispute between Spain and Catalonia "gives the impression that the...