From Parkman to Pearson: Historical context and the transformation of Quebec’s strategic culture

Published date01 December 2020
Date01 December 2020
DOI10.1177/0020702020979297
Subject MatterScholarly Essay
Scholarly Essay
From Parkman to
Pearson: Historical
context and the
transformation of
Quebec’s strategic
culture
David G. Haglund
Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University,
Kingston (Ontario), Canada
St
ephane Roussel
Department of Political Studies, Ecole Nationale
d’Administration Publique, Montreal (Quebec), Canada
Abstract
“Strategic culture” is one of those conceptual bridges that link history with political
science because, among other reasons, it reminds us of the hold that memories of past
events can continue to exercise upon contemporary reality. But those memories are
always subjective, sometimes downplayed to the point of nearly being forgotten alto-
gether, at other times so overstated as to yield a highly distorted sense of the past and
of its relationship to the present. This article constitutes a revisitation of contemporary
Quebec strategic culture, from the perspective of historical memory. That strategic
culture has of late been so strongly stamped with the impress of a “Pearsonian inter-
nationalism” that it becomes easy for analysts to confuse it with “pacifism.” Yet it has
also been a strategic culture that stems from a great deal of historical amnesia. What
has been effaced from the collective memory is the long period in which war was
endemic in New France—the period that gives the lie to the notion of Quebeckers
somehow being a “pacifistic” folk. This was the sanguinary era upon which the historian
Corresponding author:
David G. Haglund, Mackintosh-Corry Hall C329, Queen’s University, 68 University Avenue, Kingston,
Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6.
Email: david.haglund@queensu.ca
International Journal
2020, Vol. 75(4) 563–575
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020702020979297
journals.sagepub.com/home/ijx

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