National Separatism

David E. Smith is a political science professor at the University of
Saskatchewan and author of Jimmy Gardiner: Relentless Liberal.

This interesting book, whose contributors often invoke centre-periphery analysis to explain separatist tendencies, is marked by a similar cleavage. An introduction, two theoretical chapters, and a conclusion provide the framework for six case studies that examine political strain in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Quebec, Spain, and Belgium. For Canadian readers, the Quebec chapter (by Richard Hamilton and Maurice Pinard) has immediate relevance; the findings may be familiar (e.g., the pivotal role of the Liberal and later P.Q. intelligentsia) but the crisp methodology (i.e., survey research) is distinctive alongside the historical digests of most other chapters.

The provocative insights in the theoretical papers are elicited in relation to Canadian experience. For instance, some states, like Italy and Germany, have the potential for refragmentation but remain undisturbed by intra-state challenges. The explanation offered by one contributor, A.W. Orridge, is that for these countries state formation, industrialization, and urbanization occurred in close sequence and that the mass of population identify with the new supra-regional state. How applicable this theory is to Canada may be debated, but recent federal appeals to maintain the Canadian Economic Union suggest an awareness of the benefits to be gained by promoting similar economic loyalties.

Again, the importance ascribed here to international relations and foreign and military policies in the birth and course of separatist movement is novel to new world thinking. And yet it was Canada’s membership in and disengagement from the British Empire that first fed Quebec nationalism and then kept the Liberal party (ironically strongest where the threat of separatism was greatest) in power for most of this century. The search for a non-inflammatory alternative continues and will succeed only if English-speaking Canadians remain immune to nationalism’s allure.