Citizenship as a rhetorical tool of nation-building: discourse in Flanders and Quebec

ABSTRACT

Recognising that citizenship is an object of contention, this article studies how political actors mobilise the concept of citizenship at the subnational level. As immigrant integration policies define the ‘boundaries of citizenship’, I study the discourse on immigrant integration to trace political parties’ arguments supporting or opposing subnational citizenship. I conduct a qualitative content analysis of parliamentary debates between 1999 and 2014 in two subnational communities that express strong nationalist feelings: Flanders and Quebec. I find that citizenship is a rhetorical tool used by political actors, especially by sub-state nationalist parties, to promote their own political perspective (e.g. nation-building and identity). In Quebec, the Parti Québécois has monopolised the concept of citizenship, first to promote statehood and then to insist on values and identity. In Flanders, the notion of citizenship was not conceived in opposition to the central state, but in establishing citizenship trajectories and language requirements. In both cases, the discourses of sub-state nationalist parties have been marked by an ‘identity turn’, featuring a renewed insistence on identity, language and values. By focusing on the subnational level, this comparative study contributes to the rescaling of citizenship studies, while underlining the challenges presented when subnational actors in multinational settings mobilise around citizenship.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizenship discourse
• Flanders
• Quebec
• immigrant integration
• nation-building
• parliamentary debates

Acknowledgments

Previous versions of this paper were presented at the CAPCF 2018 First International Conference in Montreal and at the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops 2019 in Mons. Very helpful comments were given by Ilke Adam, Jane Jenson, James Kennedy, Mireille Paquet, Dagmar Soennecken, Verena Wisthaler, as well as by three anonymous referees.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The adjective ‘subnational’ or ‘sub-state’ refers to the multilevel structure of the state and to the fact that entities exist below the state (national) level. However, it does not imply a particular inferiority or a hierarchy between the governance levels (Barker 2015, 11).

2. While the selected debates mainly concern immigration and immigrant integration policies, the analysis has focused on the rhetorical use of ‘citizenship’ (i.e. citoyenneté and burgerschap, and their lexical fields).

3. Documents and quotations are referenced in square brackets in the main text. Each reference includes the following elements: [case (FL or QC), number of the quotation, political party, year]. The asterisk indicates that the quotation comes from the minister in charge of immigrant integration. For all the original quotations and full references, see the author’ s website at http://catherinexhardez.com/publications/.

4. The president of the Commission, Gérard Larose, argued: ‘Establishing, in a formal way, Quebec citizenship is above all saying to all Quebecers, regardless of their particularities, that they are a people (with) one of its fundamental characteristics (being) the French language’ (Authier and Dougherty 2001).

5. Bill 195, Loi sur l’identité québécoise, introduced by Pauline Marois, MNA of Charlevoix, 38^th legislative session, 2007; 18 October 2007, non-adopted.

6. Bill 191, Constitution québécoise, introduced by Daniel Turp, MNA of Mercier, 38^th legislative session, 2007; 18 October 2007, non-adopted.

7. Bill 60, Charte affirmant les valeurs de la laïcité et de neutralité religieuse de l’État ainsi que d’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes et encadrant les demandes d’accommodement, introduced by Bernard Drainville, 1^st session, 40^th legislative session, 2013. The bill (not adopted) was introduced in November 2013 and discussed in January–February 2014.

8. In 2001, the VU split into two political parties: Spirit and N-VA. Moreover, during the period analysed, several political parties changed their names: CVP (Christelijke Volkspartij) became CD&V (Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams) in 2001 (in a coalition with the N-VA from 2004 to 2008); VLD (Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten) became Open VLD in 2007; SP (Socialistiche Partij) became ‘sp.a’ (Socialistiche Partij anders) in 2001 (in a coalition with Spirit between 2002 and 2008); Agalev became Groen! in 2003; Vlaams Blok became Vlaams Belang in 2004.

9. It is worth noting that this difference of terms between ‘nationality’ and ‘citizenship’ was only present in the Flemish debates (for a discussion of the differences between the concepts from a socio-historic approach, see (Dufour 2019, 296–307)).

10. The original decree (regional law) regulating civic integration in Flanders was passed in 2003 and implemented in 2004, amended several times (2006, 2008, 2009) and finally replaced by a new decree in 2013. Decreet van 28 februari 2003 betreffende het Vlaamse inburgeringsbeleid; Decreet van 7 juni 2013 betreffende het Vlaamse integratie- en inburgeringsbeleid.

11. While it goes beyond the scope of this article, different institutional factors and balances of power could further explain this difference. Flemish elites did not develop a project of subnational citizenship; however, they committed to influence the federal level. On the contrary, Quebec does not possess the same political strength at the national level and cannot influence the Canadian citizenship debate.

12. In Flanders, the concept of citizenship is more central than ever to the Nationalist discourse. Indeed, in his last book entitled On Identity, the Flemish Nationalist leader Bart De Wever largely argues for the value of citizenship and suggests a ‘citizenship test’, while underlining the dominant culture (leidcultuur) that the newcomer should join (De Wever 2019).

Additional information

Funding

The author is thankful for funding received through a research fellowship (January-November 2019) from the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie (cridaq) as well as the granting of a WBI-World Excellence Fellowship (2019-2020) from Wallonia-Brussels International.

Notes on contributors

Catherine Xhardez

Catherine Xhardez is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). As a political scientist, she is conducting a comparative research agenda focusing on the subnational dynamics of immigration policymaking in federal states. More generally, Dr. Xhardez studies immigration, public policy, comparative politics, and federalism. She holds a dual PhD in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris and Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles.