Performing Canadian State Nationalism through Federal Symmetry

Abstract

In the growing literature on the management of differences in multinational states, institutions (such as territorial autonomy or power-sharing) are typically understood as means through which various stakeholders achieve their goals. This scholarship is largely silent on the expressive and symbolic dimensions of those institutions. This is a major oversight, limiting our understanding of the politics of multinational states. I demonstrate the importance of institutional meaning by exploring the politics of federal a/symmetry in Canada, particularly in response to Quebec’s demands for greater recognition. The article’s central argument is that formal federal symmetry expresses and symbolically reproduces Canadian state nationalism. Attention to the symbolic dimension of state institutions—including federal ones—has the potential to open up new avenues of understanding of both the politics of institutional change in multinational states and the impact such change might have on the stability and inclusiveness of those states.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editors for the invite and feedback on the original versions of the paper, to the two anonymous reviewers, and, as usual, brother Oklopčić for unstinting support.

Notes

Notes

1 For rare exceptions, see Daniel Beland and André Lecours, “Does Nationalism Trigger Welfare-state Disintegration? Social Policy and Territorial Mobilization in Belgium and Canada,” Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 28, no. 3 (2010): 420–34, and Karlo Basta, “Imagined Institutions: The Symbolic Power of Formal Rules in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Slavic Review 75, no. 4 (2016): 944–969.

2 Zachary Elkins and John Sides, “Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States?” American Political Science Review 101, no. 4 (2007): 693–708.

3 Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977).

4 Nancy Bermeo, “A New Look at Federalism: The Import of Institutions,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (2002): 96–110; John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary, “Must Pluri-national Federations Fail?” Ethnopolitics 8, no. 1 (2009): 5–25.

5 Lars-Erik Cederman, Andreas Wimmer, and Brian Min, “Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis,” World Politics 62, no. 1 (2010): 87–119; Lars-Erik Cederman, Simon Hug, Andreas Schädel, and Julian Wucherpfennig, “Territorial Autonomy in the Shadow of Conflict: Too Little, Too Late?” American Political Science Review 109, no. 2 (2015): 354–70.

6 Cederman et al., “Territorial Autonomy in the Shadow of Conflict,” 357.

7 David S. Siroky and John Cuffe, “Lost Autonomy, Nationalism and Separatism,” Comparative Political Studies 48, no. 1 (2015): 3–34.

8 Caroline Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie, and Donald Rothchild, “Stabilizing the Peace after Civil War: An Investigation of Some Key Variables,” International Organization 55, no. 1 (2001): 183–208.

9 Philip Martin, “Coming Together: Power-sharing and the Durability of Negotiated Peace Settlements,” Civil Wars 15, no. 3 (2013): 332–58.

10 Philip G. Roeder, Where Nation-states Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

11 Ibid., 83–112.

12 Ibid., 19.

13 Svante E. Cornell, “Autonomy as a Source of Conflict: Caucasian Conflicts in Theoretical Perspective,” World Politics 54, no. 2 (2002): 245–76.

14 David Ciepley, “Dispersed Constituency Democracy: Deterritorializing Representation to Reduce Ethnic Conflict,” Politics and Society 41, no. 1 (2013): 135–62; Erin K. Jenne, “The Paradox of Ethnic Partition: Lessons from de facto Partition in Bosnia and Kosovo,” Regional and Federal Studies 19, no. 2 (2009): 273–89.

15 Cornell, “Autonomy as a Source of Conflict,” 254–55; Jenne, “The Paradox of Ethnic Partition,” 276.

16 Sven Gunnar Simonsen, “Addressing Ethnic Divisions in Post-conflict Institution-building: Lessons from Recent Cases,” Security Dialogue 36, no. 3 (2005): 297–318.

17 Matthijs Bogaards, “Ethnic Party Bans and Institutional Engineering in Nigeria,” Democratization 17, no. 4 (2010): 730–749; Ciepley, “Dispersed Constituency Democracy,” 146.

18 Simonsen, “Addressing Ethnic Divisions,” 313.

19 Henry E. Hale, “Divided we Stand: Institutional Sources of Ethnofederal State Survival and Collapse,” World Politics 56, no. 2 (2004): 165–93.

20 Ibid., 166.

21 Ibid., 175.

22 Kristin M. Bakke, Decentralization and Intrastate Struggles: Chechnya, Punjab, and Québec. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

23 Sven Steinmo and Kathleen Thelen, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” in Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, edited by Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Ann Thelen, and Frank Longstreth, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

24 Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance: The Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

25 Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas, “An Economic Theory of the Growth of the Western World,” The Economic History Review 23, no. 1 (1970): 1–17, 5; Elinor Ostrom, “An Agenda for the Study of Institutions.” Public Choice 48, no. 1 (1986): 3–25, 5.

26 This is of necessity an oversimplification of the way adherents of both schools understand their central concept. Some historical institutionalists, for instance, foreground ideas in accounting for institutional dynamics. Ideas stand in for institutions in moments of uncertainty; facilitate the interpretation of reality; infuse institutions with purpose; and foster institutional change along particular ideational lines (see, for instance, Mark Blyth, Oddny Helgadottir, and William Kring, “Ideas and Historical Institutionalism” in The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism, edited by Orfeo Fioretos, Tulia G. Falleti and Adam Sheingate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)). Yet, with few exceptions, these analytical innovations do not account for the expressive-emotive dimension of institutions, particularly when they concern identities. Even if they did, as Blyth et al. note, the ideational turn in historical institutionalism is far from the tradition’s mainstream.

27 An aspect of social reality is a symbol if it represents something other than itself. For the coverage of the way in which both classical and contemporary scholars conceive of symbols, see Rebecca Klatch, “Coalition and Conflict among Women of the New Right,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13, no. 4 (1988): 671–94; Jacques Janssen and Theo Verheggen. “The Double Center of Gravity in Durkheim's Symbol Theory: Bringing the Symbolism of the Body Back in,” Sociological Theory 15, no. 3 (1997): 294–306.

28 Roger Friedland and Robert R. Alford. “Bringing Society Back In: Symbols, Practices, and Institutional Contradictions,” in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by Walter W. Powell and Paul DiMaggio (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 241.

29 John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony,” American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (1977): 340–63.

30 W. Richard Scott, “The Adolescence of Institutional Theory,” Administrative Science Quarterly 32, no. 4 (1987): 493–511.

31 Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations,” 346.

32 Ibid.

33 Friedland and Alford, “Bringing Society Back In,” 250–51.

34 Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations,” 355.

35 Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations,” 357.

36 Friedland and Alford, “Bringing Society Back In,” 248–50.

37 Elisabeth S. Clemens and James M. Cook, “Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change.” Annual Review of Sociology 25, no. 1 (1999): 441–66, 454.

38 In addition to pensions and immigration policy that I mention below, a number of other examples come to mind, including labour policy and health care. For labour policy, see Alain-G. Gagnon and Jean-Denis Garon, “Constitutional and Non-constitutional Asymmetries in the Canada Federation: An Exploration into the Policy Fields of Immigration and Manpower Training. A Country Study on Constitutional Asymmetry in Canada,” in Constitutional Asymmetry in Multinational Federalism, edited by Patricia Popelier and Maja Sahadžić (New York: Springer, 2019), 77–104. For healthcare, see Kathy L. Brock, “The Politics of Asymmetrical Federalism: Reconsidering the Role and Responsibilities of Ottawa,” Canadian Public Policy 34, no. 2 (2008): 143–61. Note, however, that the 2004 Canada Health Accord of 2004 combined asymmetry with the “existence of specific arrangements for any province” (Brock 146, emphasis added).

39 Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, UK: B. Blackwell, 1986), 122.

40 Ibid., 214.

41 Ibid., 139.

42 Bart Bonikowski, “Nationalism in Settled Times,” Annual Review of Sociology 42 (2016): 427–49.

43 Alain-G. Gagnon. 2001. “The Moral Foundations of Asymmetrical Federalism: A Normative Exploration of the Case of Quebec and Canada.” In Multinational Democracies, edited by Alain Gagnon and James Tully. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press; Michael Keating. 2001. Plurinational Democracy: Stateless Nations in a Post-Sovereignty Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Ferran Requejo. 2001. “Political Liberalism in Multinational States: The Legitimacy of Plural and Asymmetrical Federalism.” In Multinational Democracies, edited by Alain Gagnon and James Tully. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

44 The distinct society clause of the Meech Lake Accord is in this sense also an institutional rule, as it may have altered the legislative and juridical interpretation of the Canadian Constitution.

45 James Bickerton, “Janus Faces, Rocks, and Hard Places: Majority Nationalism in Canada,” in Contemporary Majority Nationalism, edited by Alain-G. Gagnon, André Lecours, and Geneviève Nootens (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011), 149.

46 Dale C. Thomson, Jean Lesage and the Quiet Revolution (Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1994).

47 The statements can be found at: https://www.sqrc.gouv.qc.ca/relations-canadiennes/positions-historiques/positions-quebec-1936-2001-en.asp#2.

48 Kenneth McRoberts, Misconceiving Canada: The Struggle for National Unity.

(Toronto: Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), 34.

49 Gerard V. La Forest, The Allocation of Taxing Power under the Canadian constitution. No. 65. (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1981), 29.

50 Richard Simeon and Ian Robinson, State, Society, and the Development of Canadian Federalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 147.

51 La Forest, The Allocation of Taxing Power under the Canadian Constitution, 32.

52 Simeon and Robinson, State, Society, and the Development of Canadian Federalism, 201.

53 Robert A. Vineberg, “Federal‐Provincial Relations in Canadian Immigration,” Canadian Public Administration 30, no. 2 (1987): 299–317, 315.

54 Ibid., 311.

55 Joseph Garcea, Federal-Provincial Relations in Immigration 1971–1991: A Case Study of Asymmetrical Federalism (Ottawa: Carleton University, 1993), 237.

56 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 1968. “1968 Leaders’ Debate - CBC Archives.” 1968. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1968-leaders-debate.

57 Peter H. Russell, Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People?, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 109.

58 René Lévesque gave up an explicit veto during the negotiations, retaining only a so-called defensive veto – that is, the right to opt out of any transfer of powers to Ottawa, though initially with the right to fiscal compensation for the opt-out (Ibid., 116). In the final agreement, one that excluded Quebec, the other nine provincial leaders accepted the elimination of the fiscal compensation (Ibid., 120), meaning that Quebec ‘won’ a significantly reduced defensive veto power.

59 Russell, Constitutional Odyssey?, 111–12.

60 Ibid., 119–20.

61 https://www.sqrc.gouv.qc.ca/documents/positions-historiques/positions-du-qc/part1/1985RobertBourassa_en.pdf.

62 Constitutional Amendment, 1987.

63 Michael D. Behiels, “Mulroney and a Nationalist Quebec: Key to Political Realignment in Canada?” in Transforming the Nation: Canada and Brian Mulroney, edited by Raymond Benjamin Blake. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), 262.

64 Ibid., 264.

65 Reform Party of Canada, Platform and Statement of Principles (Ottawa: Reform Party of Canada, 1988), 3.

66 Ibid., 7.

67 Ibid., 8.

68 Ibid., 3.

69 Pierre Elliott Trudeau. “P.E. Trudeau: ‘Say Goodbye to the Dream’ of One Canada,” Toronto Star, page A1, 27 May 1987.

70 Brooke Jeffrey, Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984–2008 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 54.

71 Ibid., 55.

72 Liberal Party of Canada, Policy Resolutions Passed by the Plenary Session at the 1986 Convention (Ottawa: Liberal Party of Canada, 1986), 4.

73 Ibid., 4.

74 Behiels, “Mulroney and a Nationalist Quebec,” 269.

75 Ibid., 270.

76 Deborah Coyne, Roll of the Dice Working with Clyde Wells during the Meech Lake Negotiations. (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1992), 26–27.

77 André Blais and Jean Crête, “Porquoi l’opinion Publique Au Canada Anglais a-t-Elle Rejeté LÁccord Du Lac Meech?,” in L’Engagement Intellectuel: Mélanges En l’honneur de Léon Dion, edited by Raymond Hudon and Réjean Pelletier (Sante-Foy: Presses de l’Université Laval, 1990).

78 Lawrence LeDuc and Jon H. Pammett, “Referendum Voting: Attitudes and Behaviour in the 1992 Constitutional Referendum,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 28, no. 1 (1995): 3–33, 27.

79 Maclean’s, “Taking the Pulse,” 32–33. 25 December 1995.

80 Leslie Seidle and Gina Bishop, “Public Opinion on Asymmetrical Federalism: Growing Openness or Continuing Ambiguity?” in Asymmetry Series (Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen’s University, 2005), 8.

81 Seidle and Bishop, “Public Opinion on Asymmetrical Federalism,” 9.

82 Ian Peach, “Building or Severing the Bonds of Nationhood?: The Uncertain Legacy of Constitution Making in the Mulroney Years,” in Transforming the Nation: Canada and Brian Mulroney, edited by Raymond Benjamin Blake (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2007), 86.

83 Canada, Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. Report: Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences, 1949–1951. (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1951), 11–12.

84 McRoberts, “Coming Together,” 698.

85 Kyle Conway, Everyone Says No: Public Service Broadcasting and the Failure of Translation (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011).

86 Behiels, “Mulroney and a Nationalist Quebec,” 274–75.

87 Jeffery, Divided Loyalties, 273.

88 Ibid., 281.

89 Robert Andrew Young, The Struggle for Quebec: From Referendum to Referendum? (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 95.

90 Behiels, “Mulroney and a Nationalist Quebec,” 281.

91 https://www.exec.gov.nl.ca/currentevents/unity/unityr1.htm.

92 Ian MacDonald, “The ‘Quebec Nation’ Is Symbolic – but Symbols Matter,”

Montreal Gazette, 27 November 2006.

93 Susan Delacourt, “Rae Seeks Assurance from PM; Quebec Motion Can’t Change Constitution via ‘Back Door,’” Toronto Star, 24 November 2006.

94 Tom Flanagan, “Harper and the N-Word,” Maclean’s, 12 November 2006.

95 Jeffrey M. Ayres, “National No More: Defining English Canada,” American Review of Canadian Studies 25, no. 2–3 (1995): 181–201; Bickerton, “Janus Faces, Rocks, and Hard Places.”

96 Andreas Wimmer, Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 190.

97 Michael Skey, National Belonging and Everyday Life: The Significance of Nationhood in an Uncertain World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

98 Ted Hopf and Bentley Allan, eds. Making Identity Count: Building a National Identity Database (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

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Karlo Basta

Karlo Basta is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. His research covers the study of comparative nationalism (with emphasis on multinational states), institutional symbolism, political economy of secession, and the politics of time and events. He has published in Comparative Political Studies, Political Psychology, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Nations and Nationalism, and other journals. His current book project is titled A Theory of the Multinational State: Decentralization, Symbolic Recognition, and Secessionist Crises.