A Canadian national, Bernard Fournier was born in Drummondville, in Quebec. He graduated from the Université Laval, Quebec City, from which he received an M.A. in 1988 (social sciences - political sciences). He obtained an Advanced Study Diploma (DEA) and his doctorate from the Political Studies Institute in Paris ), after having presented, under the supervision of Professors Annick Percheron an Alain Lancelot, a thesis entitled 'Political interest and participation amongst French, Belgian and Quebecois secondary school students at the beginning of the 1990s: a multiple analysis based on the dynamics of constructing worlds of reference.'

He was a visiting researcher in the United States (University of Rochester, New York and University of California, Irvine) and in Belgium (Hoover Chair in Economic and Social Ethics, the Catholic University of Louvain, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel). From 2002 to 2005, he was Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at the Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada).

Since 2006 he has been a lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences (in the Law Faculty) at the University of Liège. His current work deals with political behaviour in Canada and Europe, especially the involvement of young people in politics, nationalism and identities, distributive justice and the role of the state, as well as, more globally, methodological and epistemological issues in social science.

Publications

FOURNIER B. et REUCHAMPS M. (dir.), Le fédéralisme en Belgique et au Canada : comparaison sociopolitique, Bruxelles, De Boeck Université, Coll. "Ouvertures sociologiques", 2009.

FOURNIER B. et REUCHAMPS M. (dir.), Représentation et participation politiques, Politique et Sociétés, vol. 27, n°3.

HUDON R. et FOURNIER B., A quel âge est-on prêt à voter ? La participation des jeunes à la vie collective, Perspectives électorales, Electoral Insight, vol. 5, n° 2, juillet 2003, pp. 36-41.

POTVIN M., FOURNIER B. et COUTURE Y., L’individu et le citoyen dans la société moderne, Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2000, coll. «Trajectoires sociales».

FOURNIER B, .et HUDON R., Appartenance nationale et cohérence des univers de référence. Etudes auprès d’étudiants québécois en 1992 et 1995, Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien, 15e année, vol. 28, n° 2, 1995, pp. 97-117.

HUDON R. et FOURNIER B. (dir.), Jeunesses et politique, tome I : Conceptions de la politique en Amérique du Nord et en Europe, tome II : Mouvements et engagements depuis les années trente, Québec/Paris, Presses de l’Université Laval/L’Harmattan, 1994, coll. «Sociétés et mutations»/ «Logiques politiques».