Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: Belgium is one of the classical cases of consociational democracy.In this chapter we show that Belgian consociationalism has always been partial.It has come in waves, pacifying cleavage after cleavage, while always allowing for a very competitive attitude to the remaining cleavages.We focus on the last remaining one, which has obliged the Belgian political elites to rely on prudent leadership in order to keep it under control: the linguistic-territorial divide.We show that the institutional reforms have changed Belgium into a very consociational federation.First this checked the decline in power of the Christian-Democratic and Socialist families, and now it is proving to be potentially very unstable.The splitting of the parties and the party system, in particular, puts the political elites in an awkward position, as they are pulled towards a more conflictuel attitude and majoritarian democracy at the regional level, but are obliged, at the same time, to play the consociational game at the federal level.
Author: Kris Deschouwer
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3012851837