Obviously, the people have nothing to do with sovereign power. It was very naive on my part to think that, without being able to exercise it themselves, the people were at the very least the ultimate holder of sovereignty. However, the recent political context proves to what extent this idea was erroneous. If the people…

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the notion of nation state can be defined as the following: A territorially bounded sovereign polity—i.e., a state—that is ruled in the name of a community of citizens who identify themselves as a nation. The legitimacy of a nation-state’s rule over a territory and over the population inhabiting it stems…

The Quebec independence movement, like most independence movements in the world since the 19th century, has been fueled by nationalist sentiments.  In other words, the desires of an independent country ​have been founded by people who feel they share the same culture, the same language, the same origins, etc.[1] Now as banal as this sentiment…

When asked about American nationalism, Hannah Arendt answered French writer Roger Errera, who was interviewing her in New York City, in 1973: “Would you be so kind as to tell me to which ethnical group immigrants should be assimilated to, the Italians, the Irish, the Germans, the French, etc.?”[1] Immigrants might have to learn English…

When asked by French political writer Roger Errera, in an interview carried out in 1973, to give her first impressions of America, philosopher and political thinker Hanna Arendt answered bluntly that America was not a nation state[1].  Contrary to Europeans Americans are not united by a common heritage, nor by memory, nor by a land,…

According to my own statements, peoples are subject to a clique having the recklessness to impose its particular will on the whole of the social body, and to act as if this will came from the social body itself [1]. However, it could be that, notwithstanding my Rousseauist quibbles, this reduction is not at all…

Dear M. Dean, Hopefully you have been spared from this terrible disease, which has taken the lives of so many people already. In case you were willing to discuss a lighter topic, I was wondering, as a political writer myself, if you gave any credit to the claim made by Richard Nixon to the Supreme…

Following the publication of my article Sovereignty and the people, it was pointed out to me that, contrary to what I suggested, it was not surprising the people should only exercise sovereign power once every four years in the polling booth, this ineffectiveness being a necessary consequence of the representative system. Unable to exercise power…

In Quebec, everybody is familiar, at least ostensibly, with the notion of sovereignty. In fact, the notion has been so widely used by independentists that it doesn’t seem to bear any semantic ambiguity, as if its meaning, as well as its conceptual implications, had become a no-brainer. By becoming a sovereign state, Quebec will at…

In my book Sovereignty with all its intricacies, I argued Quebec seperatists, failing to know where sovereignty comes from and where it goes, know at least its main attributes, which boil down to, at least according to French jurist and political philosopher, Jean Bodin, passing bills, making Justice, beating currency and determine the fate of…