Antoine Bilodeau

Concordia University Montreal · Department of Political Science

Subnational variations in political culture and policy attitudes are a hallmark feature of multilevel systems of government, yet we know comparatively little about how and why citizens of these systems subjectively perceive regional differences in political values. Using data from a specially commissioned survey under the auspices of the Provincial...

Cultural criteria, like language skills and values, are salient features of nationalism discourse, reflecting imagined boundaries that separate ingroup from outgroup member when thinking about the nation. Despite their salience, the relationship between cultural membership criteria and other civic (attainable) or ethnic (ascriptive) national bounda...

Canadian immigration programs are increasingly emphasizing regionalization in order to contribute to the population base of smaller Canadian communities and to address local labour market needs. Despite frequent Canadian national surveys of public attitudes toward immigrants and immigration, however, little is known about the warmth of the welcome...

In a context of backlash against diversity in many countries, we know little about how ethnic minorities respond politically when they personally experience discrimination. Moving beyond the study of electoral participation, this research investigates whether experiences of discrimination push ethnic minorities toward an alternate political pathway...

Résumé Certaines études suggèrent que le projet de Charte des valeurs du PQ et la loi 21 ont nourri un sentiment d'exclusion chez les membres des religions minoritaires. Cependant, aucune étude ne permet à ce jour de comparer le sentiment d'appartenance des minorités religieuses avant et après la mise à l'agenda de ces projets législatifs. Ancrée d...

The study investigates the relationship between premigration experiences with autocracy and immigrants' participation in politics in the host country. Using a survey of about 2000 immigrants in Quebec (Canada) interviewed over telephone or with an online questionnaire, it assesses two possible pathways regarding the effect of premigration with auto...

This study assesses gender gaps in political participation within the host country and in transnational activities among immigrants, using a survey of more than 1000 immigrants in Quebec (Canada). More specifically, the study examines whether premigration experiences with gender equality shapes immigrants’ political participation. We find no eviden...

Numerous studies demonstrate that immigrant and ethnic minority populations’ sense of belonging to the political communities in which they reside depends in part on the welcoming context: the constellation of policies, discourses, identities and prevailing attitudes relating to ethnocultural diversity in those political communities. However, while...

Comment les résident·e·s de régions distinctes du Québec expriment-il·elle·s leurs opinions face à l’immigration ? Et quelles sont les sources de telles perceptions dans chacun de ces contextes territoriaux ? Cet article explore ces questions par l’entremise d’une analyse de huit groupes de discussion organisés à Montréal, sur la Rive-Nord de Montr...

It is well documented that the strength of national attachment relates to attitudes toward ethnocultural diversity, and that the direction of the relationship varies across national contexts. Yet, little attention has been given to the fact that attachments may not be expressed solely at the national level. In federal and multinational states, indi...

Drawing on the Canadian case, this study examines whether, in a multinational state, majority and minority nations emphasize different criteria when tracing the borders of their respective national community. It does so by comparing native‐born French speakers in Quebec and native‐born English speakers in the rest of Canada from three different per...

Debates over official languages are often intrinsically linked to questions of national identity, prejudice, and intergroup relations. However, official language legislation also has consequences for the day-to-day affairs of many citizens. As such, it also brings to the forefront considerations of costs and benefits, or the ways in which the mater...

Immigrants’ sense of belonging to their host communities is viewed as a core condition for their successful inclusion, but there is no consensus on which attributes of belonging are most relevant to understanding inclusion, nor is there agreement on how the sense of belonging ought to be measured empirically. This study examines how two related but...

Proponents of restrictions on the wearing of religious symbols in public institutions in Quebec have often framed their support in the language of liberalism, with references to “gender equality”, “state neutrality” and “freedom of conscience”. However, efforts to account for support for restrictions on minority religious symbols rarely mention lib...

In this study, we contend that distinguishing individuals who support bans on minority religious symbols from those who want to ban all religious symbols improves our understanding of the roots of opposition to minority religious symbols in the public sphere. We hypothesize that both groups are likely driven by markedly different motivations and th...

This study examines the relationship between perceived discrimination and political engagement among foreign-born and native-born visible minorities in Quebec; it investigates whether experiences of discrimination can help account for visible minorities’ weaker political engagement. The results indicate that the relationship between perceived discr...

Résumé Cette étude examine l'hypothèse qu'il existe un lien entre l'usage de la langue française chez les néo-Québécois et leurs relations aux communautés politiques québécoise et canadienne. L’étude examine séparément la première et la seconde génération de néo-Québécois appartenant à une minorité visible. Conformément aux autres études sur le suj...

Generalised trust promotes social interactions and may well be a crucial component of immigrant integration. Recent immigrants in particular are likely to be viewed by themselves and others as ‘outsiders’ who are unfamiliar with the expectations and norms that structure day-to-day social interactions in the host country. This study relies on a uniq...

This study examines the participation of immigrant women in political surveys in Canada as a form of political participation. Investigating immigrant women's participation in the various components of the Canadian Election Studies, this study highlights the structuring impact of pre-migration experiences with gender inequalities from two different...

The paper is divided in three parts. In the first part, we briefly offer an overview of the Canadian linguistic regime and different demographic data that are important to understand the intent and scope of our study. In the second part, we introduce different theoretical perspectives, inspired by a vast literature on attitudes toward immigration a...

Résumé La question de l'immigration a été au cœur des débats politiques québécois au cours des dix dernières années. Les controverses qu'elle a suscitées ont fait en outre ressortir l'insécurité culturelle des Québécois et la perception que l'immigration constituait, pour de nombreux citoyens, une menace à la culture québécoise. Ces débats donnent...

Growing international migration constitutes a tremendous challenge for contemporary democracies, no more so than for minority nations. An important challenge for the latter is one of acceptance of immigration from the native-born population, in a context in which immigrant can be seen as both a cultural and a political threat. In this article we as...

This article examines the factors that lie behind Canada's success at earning the support of its newcomers. It examines the extent to which feelings towards Canada are grounded in immigrants' experiences in the host country, predispositions inherited from their lives prior to migration, and their comparative assessments of the host country and the...

This article borrows from the literature on transitional democracies to examine levels of support for democracy and non-democratic alternatives among immigrants travelling from partly and non-democratic countries to Canada. It evaluates how immigrants who grew up under authoritarian rule come to adapt to democracy. The findings indicate that immigr...

Canadian provinces have long been considered as small worlds, each with its own cultural distinctiveness and province-building dynamics. This article examines whether these same provincial specificities are observed in terms of attitudes toward immigration intakes and racial diversity. Three questions are asked. First, are there important variation...

This paper examines the roots of attitudes toward immigration among Australians of English-speaking background using the 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2007 Australian Election Studies. The paper demonstrates that attitudes toward immigration in Australia have their roots in multiple sources, some of them relating to the local context in which individuals r...

The transformations in recent patterns of immigration have the potential to reshape the trajectory of Canada's regional political dynamics. Drawing on data from the 1993-2006 Canadian Election Studies, this analysis explores how immigrants adjust to the prevailing regional political norms in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Do newcome...

This article examines adaptation to democracy among immigrants who leave authoritarian regimes to settle in Australia. Two questions are addressed. First, do immigrants from authoritarian regimes successfully adapt to democracy, in terms of both supporting democracy and participating in the electoral process? And second, does the pre-migration soci...

This article examines adaptation to democracy among immigrants who leave authoritarian regimes to settle in Australia. Two questions are addressed. First, do immigrants from authoritarian regimes successfully adapt to democracy, in terms of both supporting democracy and participating in the electoral process? And second, does the pre-migration soci...

This paper investigates whether immigrants in Australia residing in situations of residential segregation (federal constituencies with high concentrations of immigrants) participate more in electoral politics than other immigrants. The results indicate that immigrants participate more when living in federal constituencies with high concentrations o...

This paper examines immigrant participation in protest politics in Canada and Australia. It focuses on the related impact of immigrants’ pre-migration experience of political repression. Three main findings emerge. First, immigrants from repressive regimes abstain more from protest politics than those from non-repressive regimes. Second, the higher...

This paper investigates democratic support and conceptions of democracy among immigrants from authoritarian regimes who settle in Canada using the 2000 and 2006 Canadian sections of the World Values Survey and their special sample of recent immigrants. The findings indicate that immigrants who experienced authoritarianism prior coming to Canada are...

One strategy used to increase response rates when using mail questionnaires is to prolong the period of data collection. This paper examines the consequences of such a strategy on the Australian Election Studies (1996–2004). The findings suggest that such a strategy has both positive and negative consequences on the overall quality of the survey. O...

There is a longstanding tradition of identifying the differences and similarities of the political cultures of Canada and the United States, and comparisons of their respective ideological landscapes have been a prominent part of that larger discourse. These comparisons have been approached from a variety of vantage points. Some rely on historical...

Whlch Party Will Win? Advantages and Weaknesses of a Numerical Question. This article evaluates the numerical question used in the 1997 Canadian Election Study which measures electors' perceptions of parties' chances of winning the election. At first, this question appears inappropriate for reliable research. At least three important weaknesses are...

Discussions over the debate on the electoral system in Canada typically contrast the actual distribution of legislative seats held by the parties resulting from the first-past-the-post system with what the outcome would have been with proportional representation. But the debate could consider another option, namely, the alternative vote. What would...

Discussions over the debate on the electoral system in Canada typically contrast the actual distribution of legislative seats held by the parties resulting from the first-past-the-post system with what the outcome would have been with proportional representation. But the debate could consider another option, namely, the alternative vote. What would...

Introduction Regionalism, the presence of systematic variations in regional political cul-tures and the existence of regional cleavages, is a central feature of Cana-dian politics. At the heart of regionalism lie tensions between popular loyalties to federal and provincial governments. As Clarke and colleagues explain ~1980: 35!, loyalty to the reg...

This paper examines the potential impact of contemporary immigration to transform regional political cultures in Canada. We rely on 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2006 Canadian Election Studies to explore whether immigrants integrate into regional political norms in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia and develop political orientations (feeli...

This paper investigates whether immigrants in Australia residing in ethnic enclaves, electoral constituencies with high concentrations of ethnic minorities, participate more in electoral politics than other immigrants. The results indicate that not only immigrants participate more when living in ethnic enclaves, but also feel politically more effic...

Abstract will be provided by author.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. Includes bibliographical references.