Contemporary Majority Nationalism

244 Pages·2011·0.707 MB·English

by  Alain Gagnon, Geneviève Nootens, André Lecours

Contemporary Majority Nationalism
studies in nationalism and ethnic conflict
General Editors: Sid Noel, Richard Vernon
Studies in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict examines the political dimensions
of nationality in the contemporary world. The series includes both scholarly
monographs and edited volumes that consider the varied sources and political
expressions of national identities, the politics of multiple loyalty, the domestic
and international effects of competing identities within a single state, and the
causes of – and political responses to – conflict between ethnic and religious
groups. The books are designed for use by university students, scholars, and
interested general readers.
The editors welcome inquiries from authors. If you are in the process of
completing a manuscript that you think might fit into the series, you are invited
to contact them.
1 Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies
Edited by Maya Shatzmiller
2 From Power Sharing to Democracy
Post-conflict Institutions in Ethnically Divided Societies
Edited by Sid Noel
3 Bringing Power to Justice?
The Prospects of the International Criminal Court
Edited by Joanna Harrington, Michael Milde, Richard Vernon
4 National Identity and the Varieties of Capitalism
The Experience of Denmark
Edited by John L. Campbell, John A. Hall, Ove K. Pedersen
5 Parallel Paths
The Development of Nationalism in Ireland and Quebec
Garth Stevenson
6 Reconciliation(s)
Transitional Justice in Postconflict Societies
Edited by Joanna R. Quinn
7 Contemporary Majority Nationalism
Edited by Alain-G. Gagnon, André Lecours, and Geneviève Nootens
Contemporary Majority Nationalism
Edited by
Alain-G. Gagnon, André Lecours,
and Geneviève Nootens
McGill-Queen’s University Press
Montreal & Kingston London Ithaca
• •
© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2011
isbn 978-0-7735-3825-2 (cloth)
isbn 978-0-7735-3826-9 (paper)
Legal deposit second quarter 2011
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest
free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free
This book has been published with the help of a grant from
the Université du Québec à Montréal.
McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also
acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Contemporary majority nationalism / edited by Alain-G. Gagnon,
André Lecours, and Geneviève Nootens.
(Studies in nationalism and ethnic conflict)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7735-3825-2 (bound). – ISBN 978-0-7735-3826-9 (pbk.)
1. Nationalism. 2. Ethnicity. I. Gagnon, Alain-G. (Alain-Gustave),
1954– II. Lecours, André, 1972– III. Nootens, Geneviève, 1967–
IV. Series: Studies in nationalism and ethnic conflict
HM753.C67 2011 302.4 C2010-907744-X
This book was typeset by Interscript in 10.5/13 Sabon.
Contents
Preliminary Notes vii
Alain-G. Gagnon
1 Understanding Majority Nationalism 3
André Lecours and Geneviève Nootens
Part one Theoretical Considerations
2 The Paradoxes of Contemporary Nationalism 21
Alain Dieckhoff
3 Imagined Nations: Personal Identity, National Identity,
and the Places of Memory 43
Àngel Castiñera
4 Cultural Diversity and Modernity: The Conditions
of the Vivre Ensemble 80
Louis Dupont
5 National Majorities in New States: Managing the Challenge
of Diversity 101
John Coakley
Part two Case Studies
6 British and French Nationalisms Facing the Challenges
of European Integration and Globalization 127
John Loughlin
vi Contents
7 Janus Faces, Rocks, and Hard Places: Majority Nationalism
in Canada 144
James Bickerton
8 The Reality of American Multiculturalism: American
Nationalism at Work 181
Liah Greenfeld
9 Autonomy and Multinationality in Spain: Twenty-Five Years
of Constitutional Experience 197
Enric Fossas
References 211
Contributors 231
Preliminary Notes
Since the eighteenth century nationalism has been approached in
many different ways. A liberating phenomenon when the first nation-
states emerged and in the springtime of peoples, nationalism subse-
quently came to be seen as both progressive and reactionary and as
both conservative and liberal. Clearly, nationalism’s borders have not
always been well defined. Is it a social movement, a historical con-
struction, a class struggle, a decolonization phenomenon, or a polit-
ical ideology? The meanings we give to nationalism and its forms of
expression have varied depending on the period and the context. In
liberal democracies today it is useful to study nationalism from the
angle of power relations among communities and their relationship to
the state. Thus, we can speak of majority nationalism in Canada,
Spain, and France, and minority nationalism in Catalonia, Scotland,
and Québec. The protagonists of majority nationalism most often
drape themselves in patriotic discourse to protect existing nation-
states and to oppose all other expressions of nationalism. Defenders
of minority nationalism challenge the very existence of established
states in so far as the latter do not recognize them as full cultural and
sociological nations. Each side feeds off the other, while at the same
time trying to base its nation-building process on universal founda-
tions inspired by the humanist values inherited from the Enlightenment.
For more than a decade and a half, the members of the Groupe de
recherche sur les sociétés plurinationales (GRSP) have been trying to
gain a better understanding of the conditions underlying the relations
among nations within contemporary Western states. GRSP members
have produced a number of academic works in keeping with a multi-
disciplinary approach inspired by law, philosophy, and political science.
First, there have been theoretical explorations of the advent of the
viii Preliminary Notes
multination, which has been intended to meet the needs of national
communities living within nation-states, communities that have
been profoundly different from one another on the societal level.
Publications in this vein include Multinational Democracies (Gagnon
and Tully 2001) and The Conditions of Diversity in Multinational
Democracies (Gagnon, Guibernau, and Rocher 2003). Major work
has also been done on identity construction by national communities.
Publications along these lines include Quebec Identity: The Challenge
of Pluralism (Maclure 2003) and Repères en mutation: Identité et
citoyenneté dans le Québec contemporain (Maclure and Gagnon
2001). In addition to these studies, there have been in-depth analyses
of the whys and wherefores of transformations of democracy in states
where there is deep diversity. Two of the many publications on this
topic are Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity
(Tully 1995) and Désenclaver la démocratie: Des huguenots à la paix
des Braves (Nootens 2004). While their approach has its roots in pol-
itical philosophy, these works have benefited greatly from the contri-
butions of legal theorists, who have explored the origins of central
political authorities’ attempts to standardize norms, as can be seen in
Appartenances, institutions, et citoyenneté (Noreau and Woehrling
2005). Moreover, team members have often compared the cases of
Catalonia, Scotland, and Québec so as to gain a better understanding
of the issues concerning political representation, federal citizenship,
and deep diversity. Some of the books published by researchers who
have been participating in the GRSP since 1994 include Pour la liberté
d’une société distincte (Laforest 2004),1 Basque Nationalism (Lecours
2007), and The Case for Multinational Federalism (Gagnon 2010).
The present project is in continuity with those just mentioned,
although it also differs in that its purpose is to deepen our understanding
of the links between majority nationalism and minority n ationalism. The
analyses gathered here shed completely new light on the foundations of
majority nationalism by simultaneously exploring identity issues, places
of memory, and power relations in states where there is deep diversity.
Contributors include theorists from the United States, Britain, Canada,
France, and Spain who have dedicated much of their academic work to
the study of majority nationalism in their own countries and to the re-
sulting experiences with it. The analyses by James Bickerton, Àngel
Castiñeira, Alain Dieckhoff, Louis Dupont, Enric Fossas, Liah Greenfeld,
and John Loughlin, and by my colleagues André Lecours and Geneviève
Nootens are both penetrating and unindulgent towards established
Preliminary Notes ix
powers. I would like to express my great gratitude to all the authors for
agreeing to present their work to the public and for revising their contri-
butions in accordance with the comments expressed during forums and
by anonymous assessors of this project.
The academic contribution of our GRSP colleagues to the present in-
itiative should be given special notice because they commented on the
texts and verified the translations for the French and English editions.
Many thanks to André Lecours and François Rocher (University of
Ottawa), Guy Laforest and Jocelyn Maclure (Laval University), Pierre
Noreau and José Woehrling (Université de Montréal), Geneviève
Nootens (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi), and James Tully (Uni-
ver sity of Victoria) for their support in producing this work. Before
crossing the border separating policy from politics by joining the Action
démocratique du Québec (ADQ) in February 2000, Guy Laforest act-
ively participated in the GRSP’s work and explored the ideas underlying
communitarian liberalism and liberal nationalism. Fortunately for us,
Laforest came back to the research team in full spirit in 2009.
Since the mid-1990s, the GRSP’s work has received financial support
from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
and the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture
(FQRSC, formerly the Fonds de chercheurs et aide à la recherche). Our
thanks go to these two funding agencies and, for the present publica-
tion, to the Canada Research Chair in Québec and Canadian Studies
(CREQC), which helped to organize the series of public conferences
that preceded the writing of this book. We would also like to use this
opportunity to thank the Québec Delegations in Paris and London,
the Spanish Consulate in Canada, and the International Association of
Québec Studies (AIEQ) for their financial support for public events.
Furthermore, we also express our thanks to Olivier De Champlain
and Arjun Tremblay for all their hard work in preparing this edition
and to Mary Baker for her long-term complicity in assisting the CREQC
in its various projects.
Our thanks go as well to Ron Curtis for copy-editing and to
Susanne McAdam for seeing the work through production. Finally,
we would like to thank Philip Cercone, as well as Sid Noel and
Richard Vernon, the editors of this series specializing in Nationalism
and Ethic Conflict, for their belief in this project.
Alain-G. Gagnon
Director, Groupe de recherche sur les sociétés plurinationales