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Constituency Homogeneity, Economic Risk and Support for Quebec Sovereignty: A Research Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2003

Erick Duchesne
Affiliation:
University at Buffalo--SUNY, New York
Munroe Eagles
Affiliation:
University at Buffalo--SUNY, New York
Stephen Erfle
Affiliation:
Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Extract

This article presents a test of the argument that vulnerability to economic dislocation, primarily as it is represented by economic homogeneity in communities, exercises a constraint on levels of support for Quebec nationalism. The guiding hypothesis is that residents of economically vulnerable ridings will be reluctant to accept the risks attached with political moves toward independence. The authors employ data on the level of support for the Bloc Québécois in the federal elections of 1993 and 1997, and the proportion voting "Yes" in the 1995 sovereignty referendum in Quebec, in the province's 75 federal electoral districts as their measures of support for sovereignty. Results suggest that there is a relationship between the geographies of potential economic vulnerability and the level of nationalist support, particularly evident in the 1995 referendum voting and the 1997 election. Calculations involving perceived economic vulnerability and risk remain as powerful defenders of the political status quo in Quebec.

Type
Note
Copyright
© The Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique

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