The Rise and Fall of Quebecois Separatist Terrorism: A Qualitative Application of Factors from Two Models

Abstract

During the 1960s and early 1970s, there was a rise in oppositional political terrorism in Quebec committed by individuals and organizations that wanted the province to separate from the rest of Canada. This situation provides an excellent case study that demonstrates the phenomenon that many of the same factors that lead to the rise of terrorism also cause its decline.

Canada, compared to most Western countries, has experienced a rather low level of oppositional political terrorism. The most notable wave of domestic terrorism was connected to the activities of Quebecois separatists. Even though there were a handful of different organizations that claimed responsibility for terrorist actions, the most active was the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ). The FLQ operated primarily between 1962 and 1972 and was responsible for the death of seven people, the injury of several others, countless property damage, the theft of dynamite, and several bank robberies (Ross, 1988).

This article examines why this terrorist movement appeared and why it declined in its activities. More importantly, the article provides a qualitative test of the possibility that the structural causes for oppositional political terrorism can be related to those factors connected to its decline. In other words, there are many complementaries between the conditions leading to the rise and those affecting the decline of terrorism, but they have not been applied to a case study. In particular, variables responsible for decline are in many respects responsible or conceptually related to those important for causation.

Keywords: Canada, Quebec, history, oppositional political terrorism, Quebecois separatists, Front de Liberation du Quebec, FLQ, decline of terrorism, causation of terrorism

JEL Classification: N42, O51, K14, K39, K42, K49