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Secessionism is one of the important challenges in many contemporary societies. Sovereignty, International and domestic law, and human rights are only three concepts that could be affected by the emergence of secessionist dynamics. This article investigates the evolution of Catalan secessionist movement after the 2017 independence referendum. It uses process tracing to analyze the events that coincide with the evolution of the Catalan secessionist movement. The main findings reveal that while the EU does not encourage these kinds of movements, it does not agree with the solutions adopted by the Spanish's Central Government to solve the Catalan situation, and condemns the violation of human rights. Also, the Catalan independence movement can stimulate similar dynamics across other countries, which are not favourable to the EU cohesion.

Thanks to theoretical advances in the natural sciences and the decreased cost of computer technology, computational modeling is becoming an increasingly popular tool in the social sciences. Due to its relative novelty and somewhat marginal position in most disciplines, however, research of this kind has primarily focused on methodological challenges posed by applications to social phenomena. By contrast, the method's theoretical foundations are still relatively poorly understood and many theoretical possibilities remain unexplored by computational scholars. At the same time, social theorists, following in the footsteps of Georg Simmel's pioneering contributions a century ago, have developed a process-based research tradition that anticipates the scientific practices of today's computer-based research. In short, if the sociological process theorists have been computational modelers avant la lettre, the latter can be seen as process theorists "après la lettre".

The implementation of the principles of local democracy has proven to be one of the most complicated tasks of the political and administrative reform in the Republic of Moldova. To overcome this situation, it is important to develop and substantiate theoretically such concepts as "local power", "the subject of local power", "local territorial collectivity". A clear scientific definition of those notions would serve as a foundation for developing an appropriate legal framework and public policy in the field. In order to elucidate the notions mentioned above, the existing essential approaches in the contemporary social sciences regarding the public territorial collectivities have been analyzed. The factors affecting the formation and existence of the local territorial collectivities have also been emphasized. Two types of authorities: private and public have been briefly considered. This paper analyzes the concept of "local authority" in contrast to the term "territorial administrative unit" with which the legislator operates in the Republic of Moldova. It was concluded that the concept "local collectivity" is more acceptable because it is the appropriate expression of the phenomenon of the territorial organization of public power in general, as opposed to the concept "administrative unit" which refers only to the territorial organization of state public power. So, from this point of view, the territorial administrative units and the local territorial collectivities are two different phenomena. In a strictly legal sense, the territorial-administrative unit is an inhabited territory which has no heritage (in the territory there is the state property or another kind of heritage) and it is administered by an official appointed by the state. The local collectivity has its own heritage that is managed on its own account and in order to solve local problems. The issues belonging to state power can be delegated to local authorities by sending financial and material resources needed to achieve them. A territorial community of the residents becomes local authority if it possesses and uses democratic institutions, creates bodies of self administration on the basis of the elective principle, takes binding decisions for the community, and has its own financial and material resources in order to regulate the internal life. These indicators make public territorial collectivities to be different from the territorial administrative units, in which only administrative methods of management are used. The defining elements of the identity of a local collectivity, such as: a) name, b) territory, c) population, d) the public authority of the eligible authorities, e) the Statute, f) the distinctive insignia of the local collectivity, have been identified. These elements make the local territorial collectivity to be distinguished from other similar collectivities.