Social Unrest, Social Class, and Quebec’s Bureaucratic Revolution

Abstract

Political structures in a mass society are fragile things. Since the Second World War, we have witnessed the collapse of age-old political régimes. The break-up of formal political empires, with the intellectual backing and sympathetic understanding of the majority of liberal intellectuals of the western world, is now nearly complete. Seldom was the use of force necessary to achieve this. Massive ideological agitation with wide popular support achieved what armed might would not have attained. In most cases, the two structural conditions prerequisite to national liberation were: 1) a newly created native élite, highly educated, politically conscious and through nationalist identification effectively engineering the revolt of expectations within 2) an awakened, restless native population whose aspirations are to be fulfilled by political independence. National independence has often been achieved though the heightened expectations usually have yet to be met.