Gilles Gagne et Simon Langlois, Les Raisons Fortes. Nature et Signification De L'appui a la Souverainete Du Quebec

Montreal: Les Presses de l'Universite de Montreal, 2002, 189 pp. This book constitutes an attempt to identify the social grouping which is the main of the sovereignty movement in Quebec and to develop a theory about the strong of its members to do so. The analysis is based on polls of Leger Marketing, carried out during the referendum campaign of 1995 and between 1999 and 2001. Four sociodemographic variables are used to describe the bearers, that is, age, mother tongue, labour market participation and family income. These variables are deemed to be good indicators of the reasons which motivate the bearers. The grouping identified as the bearer of the movement is comprised of Francophones, aged 18 to 54, active in the labour market (whether employed or not, and including students), with a family income above $20,000. They are opposed to five other groupings: Francophones of the same age, but inactive (retired or staying at home), or with lower income; older Francophones who are active, irrespective of their income; the same subgroup, but inactive; non-Francophones, 18 to 54; older non-Francophones. The basic theory about the prime bearing role of the first grouping is that its members have the ability to project themselves in the future. They can do this because, as active members of the labour force above the poverty level, they possess a sense of security and self-confidence and of confidence in the future. This makes them apt to develop projects and their autonomy allows them to consider the political change implied by sovereignty as less threatening. In addition, they can act collectively through their professional associations and unions. Age also plays a role. They belong to generations which have been politically socialized during or after the Quiet Revolution. Moreover young people easily develop the traits just described. Conversely inactive and/or older people tend to be risk-averse and to worry about change that could have adverse effects on their economic well-being. Only some of the findings are in line with the authors' expectations. They do find that members of the first grouping were in 1995 much more likely to intend to vote YES than those of the other ones, but they overlook the fact that more recently the first were barely more likely to do so than those of the second group, different only by being inactive. With regard to trends in sovereignty support, their data indicate little change in the overall electorate during the course of 1995 referendum campaign. But support within the bearing group did increase during that campaign, something the authors describe as their most important finding, while support of the third and fourth groupings, comprised of older persons, declined. Since 1995, there has been a decline in overall YES support, but only a small one, while the NO side has gained close to 10%, due to a decrease in the proportion of undecided. But surprisingly, the decline in sovereignty support this time has been entirely concentrated among the bearers of the movement, the only ones to have made gains during the 1995 campaign, this decline in addition taking place only among women. In all other groupings support increased somewhat. The authors also examine in detail the weaker support of women, of English-speaking Quebecers and immigrants, as well as regional variations. The strength of this book lies in its attempt to elaborate a theory of support for sovereignty and in its effort to test it empirically, although their claim to be the first to propose a theory only reveals their limited review of the literature. Their analysis also rests on a rather narrow set of data, limited in time and restricted to basic sociodemographic variables making it impossible to test the social-psychological underpinnings of the theory. Our main reservation concerns the importance which the theory attributes to being active in the labour force. …

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