"quiet Revolution" In Quebec's Political Modernization

The Quiet Revolution was a period of rapid change experienced in Quebec from 1960-1966, which had great influences on Quebec and Canada. It is of great significance to research into the relationship between the Quiet Revolution and the political modernization of Quebec, which can help us understand the history of Quebec deeply and obtain some experience of the development of the territorial political modernization. The thesis can be roughly divided into 4 parts.Part I, The necessity to initiate the process of political modernization. In the wake of the second World War, the society and economy developed rapidly in Quebec, which transformed the traditional nationalism into neo-nationalism and gave rise to new union leaders, new middle class and new business class. They all required to enlarge the scope of the activities of the provincial government in order to be involved more in political affaires and formed the Quiet Revolution Coalition. However, the administration of Duplessis advocated "laissez-faire" in economy so that the Anglophones who made up of only a smaller portion of the population in the province dominated the economy of Quebec. He deprived the political rights of the public by using patronage as well. Therefore, it was necessary for Quebec to start up the process of political modernization.Part II, The Quiet Revolution under the vision of the political modernization. On coming to power, the Lesage government took a lot of measures to reform: Firstly, it weakened the influence of Catholicism on Quebec and strengthened the rationality of a secular authority. Secondly, it expanded the scope and penetration of the government activities. Thirdly, it improved the popular participation in politics. All of these measures made Quebec begin striding forward to the political modernization.Part III, The Quiet Revolution was the starting point for the political modernization of Quebec. Embodying the principles of institutionalization of administration and democratization and according with the standards of the political modernization, the measures taken by Lesage government in Quiet Revolutionmotivated the process of political modernization of Quebec. It ruptured the relations to traditionalism and realized the secularization of the society and nationality of a secular authority. And it improved the ability of the provincial government and enlarged the scope of its jurisdictions. Meanwhile, it increased the popular participation and mobilization, which accelerated the social democratization.Part IV, Coming to a conclusion. The Quiet Revolution started up the process of political modernization of Quebec, which had great effects on the political life of Quebec and Canada and gave rise to some new political problems, such as politicalization of language, the transformation of nationalism into separatism and the appearance of provincialism and terrorism in Canada.