Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Foreword by Charles Taylor
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Justice and stability in multinational democracies
- Part II Struggles over recognition and institutions of accommodation
- 5 Federalism, federation and collective identities in Canada and Belgium: different routes, similar fragmentation
- 6 Recognition claims, partisan politics and institutional constraints: Belgium, Spain and Canada in a comparative perspective
- 7 Ethnoterritorial concurrence in multinational societies: the Spanish comunidades autónomas
- 8 Mutual recognition and the accommodation of national diversity: constitutional justice in Northern Ireland
- 9 Federalist language policies: the cases of Canada and Spain
- 10 Competing national visions: Canada–Quebec relations in a comparative perspective
- Part III Modes of reconciliation and conflict management
- References
- Index
10 - Competing national visions: Canada–Quebec relations in a comparative perspective
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Foreword by Charles Taylor
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Justice and stability in multinational democracies
- Part II Struggles over recognition and institutions of accommodation
- 5 Federalism, federation and collective identities in Canada and Belgium: different routes, similar fragmentation
- 6 Recognition claims, partisan politics and institutional constraints: Belgium, Spain and Canada in a comparative perspective
- 7 Ethnoterritorial concurrence in multinational societies: the Spanish comunidades autónomas
- 8 Mutual recognition and the accommodation of national diversity: constitutional justice in Northern Ireland
- 9 Federalist language policies: the cases of Canada and Spain
- 10 Competing national visions: Canada–Quebec relations in a comparative perspective
- Part III Modes of reconciliation and conflict management
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction: strains and tensions in multinational federations
Towards the end of 1787 John Jay defended the new constitution of the United States in the following way:
Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs … who … have nobly established their general liberty and independence.
(Jay No. 2. 1961 [1788], p. 38)The long search for ‘republican remedies’ to the evident malaise of the Articles of Confederation led ultimately to federation, social pluralism and constitutionalism. But it is clear from a close analysis of the Federalist Papers that the enduring expression of the principles of constitutionalism which underpinned the new federal political system with such clarity and force were not constructed with a view to reconciling different nationalist demands. The constituent states of the young federation were not inhabited by people of different language, race and culture but by people of the same language, race and culture.
The first case in which the decision to create a modern federal rather than a unitary form of government was determined mainly by the desire successfully to accommodate distinct nationalist differences was the Canadian constitution established by the British North America Act (now the Constitution Act) in 1867.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Multinational Democracies , pp. 257 - 274Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
- 1
- Cited by