Terrorism and Political Parties: Why Ban Batasuna?

This article examines the 2003 ban of radical Basque nationalist parties Herri Batasuna, Euskal Herritarrok and Batasuna for their integration in the terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna. It does so by examining the political context in which proscription took place and testing two hypotheses developed from the broader literature on party bans addressing the question: Why do democracies ban political parties? Case study analysis on Spain supports the two hypotheses - that democracies ban anti-system parties when alternative forms of marginalization are not effective and that ‘intolerant democracies’ are more likely to ban political parties than ‘tolerant democracies’.