Maurice Pinard

Ethnic Movements and the Competition Model: Some Missing Links

The competition model of ethnic resurgence and the relevant evidence are critically examined. We note the absence of direct measures of competition in the research on ethnic movements and the mixed nature of the evidence it produced. More important, the model does not specify the links between competition and conflict. We offer a partial reformulation that stresses the necessary conditions under which ethnic competition leads to ethnic conflict: (1) competition must be perceived as unfair and (2) competitive relations must be relatively free from interdependence. The reformulation also stresses that the main objects of competition in recent ethnic movements have not been individual goods like jobs, but larger collective goods. As amended, the model is compatible with the internal colonial and the split labor market models, as well as with the so-called contact hypothesis. Some hypotheses from the model are tested using data on Quebecs independence movement. Competition leads to mobilization only when competition is perceived as unfair and it occurs in a context of low ethnic interdependence. We then explore the relevance of thesefindings for other situations.

The Parti Québécois Comes to Power: An Analysis of the 1976 Quebec Election *

Never before has a federal or provincial election in Canada been as fraught with consequences as the election of November 1976 in Quebec. This paper tries to come to an understanding of this major event. The analysis we present is articulated around a set of five propositions. First, the creation and development of the Parti qudbecois, as a new political party, would not have taken place were it not for the prior emergence of the independence cause and the many movements it stimulated. Without that cause and the mobilized contingents devoted to it, the PQ would not have been created in the first place. Second, it was the cause of independence which, very early, provided the PQ with its core of militants and supporters. Since then it has added to that core, but the additions have been relatively small, given the slow growth of the independence forces proper. To be sure, from the beginning, other motivating elements were also involved, but independence was the key element. Third, it is also the independence issue which led to the particularly strong bipolarization ofthe electorate between the Liberals and the PQ in the election of 1973 and thus contributed to the shrinking of all other party forces to a mere 15 per cent of the popular vote. In so doing, this issue set the stage for the election of 1976 as a contest between two main contenders, the Liberals and the PQ. But, fourth, the growth of popular support for the PQ, as early as 1970 and 1973, but particularly so in 1976, cannot be accounted for by reference to the independence cause alone. In particular, what made the difference between the PQ victory in 1976 and its previous defeats rests on factors other than independence. Very succinctly, these factors can

Poverty and Political Movements

The analysis of the rise of the Social Credit party in Quebec in the federal election of 1962 revealed that there is a strong linear and positive relationship between short-term changes for the worse in one’s economic conditions and Social Credit support. Unemployment in the respondents’ family, for instance, bears a strong positive relationship to the support for this political movement.1 On the basis of this, one could be tempted to infer that the party got a disproportionate support from the lower classes and, more specifically, that the poor were the most likely supporters of the new party. Is this so? Were the poor particularly strong supporters of Social Credit? And, more generally, do the poor form the basis on which protest movements are built?

PROCESSES OF RECRUITMENT IN THE SIT-IN MOVEMENT

PROCESSES OF RECRUITM ENT IN THE SIT-IN MOVEMENT* B Y MAURICE P I NAR D, J EROME KIRK, AN D DONALD VON ESCHEN On tthe basis of data collected by questionnaire among paruc1pants in a freedom ride on U. S. Route 40 in 1961, the role of strains in the growth of an incipient social movement is analyzed. Although strains are positively re- lated to intense participation in the activities of the movement, the data indi- cate that the most deprived are strongly underrepresented in its ranks. This is explained by the fact that incipient movements do not attract people who are living under long-endured privations, unless they are moved at the same time by a radical ideology and rebellious alienation. T he authors argue that access to ideological beliefs is differentially distributed throughout the social struc- ture, with important consequences for early recruitment to movements de- signed to bring about social change. Maurice Pinard is Associate Professor of Sociology at McGill University; J erome Kirk is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Irvine; and Donald von Eschen is Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill. T H E PURPOSE of this paper is to examine the role of strain in the growth of social movemen ts. Though it is generally taken for granted that behind any episode of collective be- havior lie some form of strains, little is known about the processes through which these strains affect the recruitment of people into a social movement. STRAINS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT PARTICIPATI O N Since the argument of this paper contains some paradoxes, let us present it briefly at the beginning. Our central argumen t is that contrary to frequen t assumptions, one should not necessarily expect a monotonically positive relationship between strains 1 and the various • We are grateful to the organizers of the Route 40 Freedom Ride, and in particular to James Farmer, former president of CORE, who allowed us to change our role from that of participants to that of systematic observers. We are also in- debted to Raymond Breton, James Coleman, Robert Peabody, and Arthur Stinch- combe for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper, although, since they disagreed with some of our arguments, they cannot be held responsible for its contents. l The concept of strain is borrowed from Smelser, who devotes a full chapter to its elaboration in his Theory of Collective Behavior, New York, Free Press, 1963, ch. 3. We use this concept as the most satisfactory generic term to refer to any impairment in peoples life conditions. Though in Smelsers typology, the concept of deprivation refers to only one subtype of strains-in particular the loss of