Eighteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

While research exists that observes the nexus of social policy and nationalism (Béland and Lecours 2008), immigration in liberal states (Freeman 1995; Good 2009; Joppke 2005; Koopmans et al. 2005), and immigration in stateless nations (Barker 2015; Bilodeau and Turgeon 2015; Kymlicka 2001), there is a lacuna in the literature on nationalism regarding how immigrants integrate into substate nations. Where there is an explicit recognition that party ideology plays an important role in policy outputs (Castles and McKinlay 1979; Hartmann 2015; Hinnfors et al. 2012), this paper argues that this does not appear to be the case in Quebec. With the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) and Parti Québécois (PQ) offering different political ideologies (liberalism and social-democracy; federalism and sovereignty), this paper demonstrates that these parties largely propose converging immigration policies. Yet the main differences lie in how each party contextualizes their policies. Overall, the proposals are void of nativism and are, generally, open and plural in nature. While nationalism does play a role in their policy proposals, it appears that electoral competition is more important in the proposal of similar immigration policies than is nationalism thus brokerage politics has been applied to account for said convergence.