GDL

Public opinion polls from before and after 2001in Quebec (Canada) reveal a marked shift during that year in attitudes about the US. Que ´be ´cois opinions of the US fell to the least avorable rating they had had in 15 years. A ‘‘fair weather friend’’ phenomenon based on ear of association with a target state does not fully explain Quebec’s reaction. Consider- ation of Quebec’s historical geographical situation as a small nation without a sovereign state suggests deeper reasons for the shift in perspective, which are confirmed by quantitative and qualitative analysis of letters to the editor of daily newspapers. Que ´be ´cois letters about e attacks of September 11 were inclined to frame these attacks in terms of a battle between a large and powerful state and various small and weak nations, and subsequently to find common cause with the small nations. This particular framing of the 9-11 events according o a ‘‘small-nation’’ code reflected fundamental elements of the historical–geographical situ-ation of Quebec as constructed in Que ´be ´cois discourses. The activation of a set of key asso-ciations from the national past to understand international relations in the present is an example of what Gertjan Dijkink calls the ‘‘national reflex’’. The activation of the reflex byan attack on the US points out how a hegemonic state can be vulnerable, paradoxically, as aresult of its own supremacy.

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