Min Reuchamps

The Belgian Federation at a Crossroad

In the introduction, the editors present the special issue and, in particular, the issue at stake: the future of Belgian federalism. Despite the agreement on the sixth state reform, four key issues remain for Belgiums future: decision making, distribution of powers, intergovernmental relations and the role of the parties. Drawing on past and present investigations of this topic, they present the state of the federation and, in so doing, they set the stage for the remaining papers.

The Future of Belgian Federalism through the Eyes of the Citizens

How do Belgian citizens see the future of federalism? In the typical consociational Belgium citizens have not had much to say about the federalization process, which has been largely elite-driven. And actually not so much is known about the future of Belgian federalism through the eyes of the citizens. Survey research shows some differences in identity and in institutional preferences between the two language groups, but also a low salience of the issue when they cast a vote. This article, therefore, looks at alternative methods to capture the perceptions of the citizens: focus groups, deliberative experiments and mental maps.

Drawing Belgium: Using Mental Maps to Measure Territorial Conflict

Governing divided Belgium is not an easy affair. Traditional tools of political research have provided insights about the dynamics of Belgian federalism but they have fallen short in exploring the territorial dimension of the conflict and its political representations within the population. Mental maps, scarcely used hitherto by political scientists, offer an innovative research tool to dig into territorial conflict dynamics since they aim at capturing the mental representation an individual has of a given object or space through the materialization of their representation with a drawing. This article discusses drawings of Belgium made by over 5000 first year higher education students in this country. The drawings confirm the importance of the two most prominent—and thus symbolic—elements of the territorial conflict in Belgium: the internal language border and the position of Brussels. In triangulation with responses to a questionnaire collected simultaneously, the analyses show that differences between the two language groups in Belgium are not very high, but that opposed visions on the country are reflected by those who exclusively identify themselves with Belgium or with Flanders. We state that if used with caution to ensure both internal and external validity, mental maps can prove to be an innovative but robust research tool for the study of territorial conflict broadly speaking. Because of their flexibility and their openness, mental maps capture the shortcuts citizens use to forge their political and territorial representation of their country.

Combining Federalism with Consociationalism: Is Belgian Consociational Federalism Digging its Own Grave?

Abstract Belgian consociational federalism is often praised for its ability to deal peacefully with the countrys internal divisions. Nevertheless, recent political stalemates raise the question: Is Belgian consociational federalism digging its own grave? This article argues that granting segmental autonomy effectively accommodates political conflicts that are currently on the agenda, but renders the process of intersegmental conflict accommodation increasingly more difficult in the long run. More specifically, federalism undermines the problem-solving capacity of the other power-sharing mechanisms in three ways: (1) it increases demands for more autonomy, (2) it decreases the potential for package deals and (3) it lowers the costs of non-agreements which induce a political stalemate. These evolutions are often overlooked, but go to the heart of the impasse Belgian politics has recently experienced.

The Current Challenges on Belgian Federalism and the Sixth Reform of the State

Since 1993, Belgium is officially a federal state, composed of three communities and three regions, as the first—new at the time—article of the Constitution proclaims. The history of federalism in Belgium is therefore quite recent. Nevertheless, the story is—much—longer since it starts with the independence of Belgium from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830. The inception of a state and the underlying causes of its creation, as well as its place on the map, the timing of its creation and the characteristics of the elites who take the lead and define the new state’s nature are of crucial importance and these elements shape the country’s political development for centuries. Nonetheless, although the beginning of any state sets up a path of dependency, there are also critical junctures along its political development that in turn influences the course of history. This is especially true for Belgium. Here, history and politics are intrinsically interrelated. Indeed, the current challenges on the Belgian federalism find their roots in the country’s history.

Beyond linguistic and party homogeneity: Determinants of Belgian MPs’ preferences on federalism and state reform

Political parties are often thought of as unitary actors that have consistent preferences. This ‘hidden assumption’ means that heterogeneity within parties, and therefore intra-party dynamics, are overlooked in explaining attitudes. When it comes to devolution and federalisation, parties or MPs belonging to the same region are also often implicitly considered to have homogeneous viewpoints and attitudes. Relying on an original survey of MPs carried out during the Belgian political gridlock of 2010–2011, this article uncovers some of the key dimensions of the intra-party dynamics through analysis of MPs’ preferences towards institutional reform in Belgium. Far from being explained along party or community lines, our results demonstrate how MPs’ political and sociological background, national/regional identity, political career, and inter-community relations strongly shape their preferences.

Raising the threshold, fighting fragmentation? Mechanical and psychological effects of the legal electoral threshold in Belgium

Many proportional representation systems are characterised by a legal electoral threshold. Such a threshold reserves the allocation of seats for those parties that reach a minimum share of the votes. In order to fight fragmentation, a 5 per cent threshold has been introduced for both federal and regional elections in Belgium. This article seeks to explore the mechanical and psychological effects of this legal threshold after five elections. It is shown that the threshold has had limited mechanical and psychological effects on voters but some psychological effects on party elites. Moreover, while in the short term the average number of lists dropped and several pre-electoral coalitions formed, in the longer term the legal threshold has not prevented further fragmentation.

Deliberative stress in linguistically divided Belgium

Political disagreement is the basic democratic condition in most Western societies, and few will deny that a diversity of perspectives and opinions is the driving force behind any democracy. However, there is a point beyond which the diversity might become too great to allow for any meaningful public debate. When identities oppose and interests collide, democracies will have a hard time avoiding civil strife and political breakdown. This is often true in deeply divided societies, such as Belgium, where citizens and elites refuse to engage in a meaningful dialogue with members of the other side. ‘[S]uch societies’, Dryzek (2005, p. 230) contends, ‘are divided into blocs with dense within-bloc communication but little across-bloc communication’, and this leads more often than not to a situation where citizens and elites stand firm on their initial position even if it leads to a complete political and social deadlock (Caluwaerts, 2012).

Generating Democratic Legitimacy through Deliberative Innovations: The Role of Embeddedness and Disruptiveness

Democratic deliberation is claimed to improve the legitimacy of democratic decision making. However, deliberation’s beneficial effects do not come about easily. If deliberative innovations want to contribute to the legitimacy of political decision making, they have to reflect the principles of legitimacy in their own functioning. In this paper, we set out to assess the input and output legitimacy of four deliberative events, and determine which are the favourable conditions for their legitimacy. Based on a comparison of the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly, the Belgian G1000, the Dutch Burgerforum, and the Irish We The Citizens, we argue that the institutional embeddedness of deliberative innovations strongly affect their claims to legitimacy, but also that their disruptive potential is unrelated to legitimacy.

The success of the regionalist parties in the 2014 elections in Belgium

Abstract In May 2014, and for the second time in her political history, regional, federal and European elections were organized simultaneously in Belgium. In the direct follow-up of the sixth state reform, which increased the powers and autonomy of the Belgian Regions and Communities, these elections were crucial for the future of the country and for the multi-level coalition formation at the regional and federal levels. The political campaign was dominated by socioeconomic issues and demands for further autonomy, particularly in the Flemish region. Regional electoral results confirmed the success of the regionalist parties in Flanders, but also in Brussels and in the German-speaking Community. These successes allowed regionalist parties to enter all regional and federal governments—often as the dominant party—with the exception of the Walloon and the French-speaking Community cabinets.