Être libre et sans roi ? Nationalisme et antimonarchisme au Québec et en Écosse

Abstract

Independence, as a political quest for nationhood, does not sit well with the existence of a monarch in whom such sovereignty resides. The Scottish reality, however, is more nuanced in this respect. This article analyses anti-monarchist arguments in the Quebec (1980 and 1995) and Scottish (2014) referendum campaigns, through the prism of the functions associated with the monarchy as a symbol of unity, as the embodiment of a national history, as the guardian of liberal democracy and a certain notion of equality, of a moral and religious order redefined as a collective ethos to better suit the course of modernity. The analysis shows every function of the monarchy is targeted by nationalists. This is true of its symbolic dimension, seen as a mere accessory, but also of its position in the institutional architecture, where its role as guardian of social unity in the face of the division inherent in democracy is turned against it. It is then described as fundamentally inegalitarian and responsible for the injustices perpetrated against Francophones in Canada. However, the monarchy is treated very differently in the two territories, ranging from indifference and disdain in Quebec to an intimate relationship that is difficult to question in Scotland.