The Political and Electoral Geography of Quebec: A Critical Analysis of the 1998 Quebec Provincial Election

The author contends that the results of the 1998 provincial election in Quebec reveal the existence of six distinct "electoral regions" in the province. He notes that the concentration of the vote for the three major political parties in the election, the Parti Québécois led by Lucien Bouchard, the Parti liberal du Québec led by Jean Charest, and the Action démocratique du Québec led by Mario Dumont, defines these regions, in conjunction with information provided by a geographical and statistical database of indicators representing spaces, actors and rationales of action. The portrait of Quebec drawn by the author's analysis from his research database suggests strongly that there are "many Quebecs" rather than a unitary Quebec. He argues that a Quebec seeking to remain a political unity must culturally recognise the existence of six distinct regions within it, a number of which differ on basic matters with the majority culture of the province. The author also explains the historical background of the political geography cleavages in Quebec, namely the Anglophone/Francophone cleavage; the Cosmopolitan/Traditional cleavage; the Founder/Immigrant cleavage; the Suburban/Nonsuburban cleavage; the Federal Employment/No Federal Employment cleavage; the Aboriginal/Nonaboriginal cleavage; and the "Bilingual Zone"/Non"Bilingual Zone" cleavage.

PhD dissertation

University of Ottawa

Ottawa, ON

2003

xii-385p.

en