Quebec Nationalism

Most advanced industrial democracies have been successful in controlling ethnic political conflicts peacefully. This book examines ethnoregional conflicts in seven ethnoregions--in Scotland, Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels, Quebec, Northern Ireland, and the Basque region of Spain--to explain what mactors determine electoral support for ethnoregional parties, why in some cases electoral conflict has co-existed with ethnic violence, and why there appears to be an inverse relationship between electoral success and policy success among many ethnoregional parties. As ethnic conflicts--peaceful and violent--continue to rage around the world, this important new study merits the attention of scholars and students in comparative politics and ethnic studies.

Since the 1960s, the author argues, de Gaulle and his followers have conspired to stimulate Quebec separation as part of their larger goal to revive France's role as a great power. He criticizes the Canadian government for its failure to respond.

One of the most hotly-contested debates in contemporary democracy revolves around issues of political presence, and whether the fair representation of disadvantaged groups requires their presence in elected assemblies. Representation as currently understood derives its legitimacy from a politics of ideas, which considers accountability in relation to declared policies and programs, and makes it a matter of relative indifference who articulates political preferences or beliefs. What happens to the meaning of representation and accountability when we make the gender or ethnic composition of elected assemblies an additional area of concern? In this innovative contribution to the theory of representation--which draws upon debates about gender quotas in Europe, minority voting rights in the USA, and the multi-layered politics of inclusion in Canada--the author argues that the politics of ideas is an inadequate vehicle for dealing with political exclusion. But eschewing any essentialist grounding to group identity or group interest, she also argues against either/or choice between ideas and political presence. The work then combines with contemporary explorations of deliberative democracy to establish a different balance between accountability and autonomy.