The study of autonomous legislatures is a relatively new field of scientific inquiry. On the one hand, these are often overlooked in systematic analysis of political regimes and constitutional law. On the other hand, whereas substate nationalism in Western societies has generated a vibrant literature, research concerning the legislative powers and parliaments of non-sovereign demoi have been largely ignored. In this short contribution, we aim at showing how the study of legislatures in territorial autonomies is connected both to the study of constitutionalism and state architectures, and nationalism and non-sovereign democratic projects.

The idea that philosophy should be at the front line is a challenging one. We owe it to the great Czech philosopher, Jan Patočka (1907–1977). Patočka thought that philosophical reflection should not hide itself from the moral and political perils of the surrounding environment. Ever since the mid-1950s, when he was a student at Oxford at the time of harsh Soviet repression in Hungary, Charles Taylor has maintained a keen interest for the history and intellectual life of Central and Eastern Europe, “the community of the unsettled” so dear to the heart of Patočka. It makes sense, in this context, to use one of Patočka’s famous expressions to characterize Taylor’s involvement in the politics of his own country. Indeed, ever since his return to Canada in 1960, Taylor has pursued a philosophical career while being present at the political front line.

This article proposes a critical analysis of the historical and ideological process that has led to the recently-defunct Parti quebecois' (PQ) Charte de la laicite. It shows that this legislative project, as an attempt to renew Quebec's nationalism, amplified the struggles and tensions that characterize the normative source of the national nexus. More specifically, this article reveals that two carrier groups - the liberal-pluralists, on the one hand, and the republican-conservatives, on the other - have actively fought to get access to that normative source, trying ultimately to spread their national nexus's representations as the legitimate ones. Hence, the former group suggests an individualist-civic view for Quebec's nationalism that embraces immigrant groups, Anglo-Quebecois's minority, native peoples, and the francophone majority, while the latter suggests a collectivist-civic view for it anchoring into French-Canadian nationalism. Therefore, two distinct integration models are confronted, where liberal-pluralists fought against PQ's Charter of Secularism continuing to sustain interculturalism and where republican-conservatives nevertheless support PQ's Charter.