20040717 PUGACIAUSKAS Belgium

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Party System in a Divided Society: The Case of Belgium

Vykintas Pugaiauskas, 2000

Introduction

Belgium has sometimes been described as a unique example offederation (apart from the now non-existent Czechoslovakia) interms of two features. On the level of popular perception, thecountry has already been split into two ethnic parts and the bulkof political activity is directed toward regional governments not tothe distant center with few competencies left. However, contrary tothe always present fears of the final split-up, the national, orfederal, dimension of politics has not entirely vanished and thecentral institutions still reinforce themselves and the notion ofBelgium as the single entity on the European arena.

The existence of the, however limited, central government is

retained due to a number of reasons, but the influence of the partysystem on a federal level seems one of the most relevantexplanations. The main Belgian political parties, although split intoFlemish and Walloon organizations which are competing on aregional level, are still committed to the central government which,somewhat paradoxically, is the arena where regional politicalcoalitions are also forged. Centrally based party elites have a moreco-operative approach to national politics than the rank-and-file andthe general public. This trend is apparent even in the case ofregionalist parties, such as the Flemish Volksunie.

Thus it is possible to hypothesize that on a federal level, the Belgianparty system resembles the cartel type where the party elites aresuccessful in defending the pillarized format of the system fromthe challenges of ethnic centrifugalism. Stemming from this, onefurther suggestion would be that the rise of the anti-system parties(first and foremost, the Vlaams Blok) has to do with the protestagainst the established party system, not only with the radicalattitudes towards immigrants and claims of further regionaldevolution or complete independence. These propositions do notmean that regional or linguistic differences do not matter. However,the party elites prefer to pacify this cleavage in the day-to-daypolitics and, major crises withstanding, to pursue pillar-basedcompetition.

Exploring these hypotheses, I will attempt to explain not whyBelgium has moved towards federalization and a possible break-updown the road, but why, given the centrifugal trends, it has survivedas a single state. The explanations offered in this essay will beessentially institutional thus they do not pretend to be exhaustive orsufficient. I will proceed to define the cartel party and the cartelparty system. Then I will discuss the structural base, the pillars,and the features of the Belgian party system with special regard to

the party strategies of managing regionalist pressure on the centralgovernment and federal component of the party system. Finally, I


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will turn to the strongest case of Belgian anti-system party, theVlaams Blok, and try to present the evidence that its popularitymight be considered not so much as a sign of centrifugal dynamicsas a protest against the national cartel of the major parties. I willuse the terms community and region interchangeably

referring to the two major linguistic entities, the Flemish region ofFlanders and the Francophone region of Wallonia, unless notedotherwise.

1. The Cartel Party System

Drawing on the observation that almost all substantial partiesmay now be regarded as governing parties at one point in time oranother, Katz and Mair have proposed that there is a new stage inthe development of the party, characterized by theinterpenetration of party and state, and also by a pattern ofinterparty collusion1 where none of the major parties is ever

definitively out. Their findings challenged the existingnormative model of democracy since with the emergence of thecartel party the essence of democracy lies in the ability of votersto choose from a fixed menu of political parties2 which is providedby the party-populated state together with the provision ofcontested elections. Party survival hinges not so much on theelectoral competition than on the ability of the parties to collectivelyuse the state resources.

The features of the cartel party and the system are the pactsbetween the party elites, the diminishing importance of the

electoral competition, the managerialization of politicalcompetition and the imbalance between ever increasing role of theautonomous central party apparatus and the decreasing role of localorganizations. Drawing on the resources of the state they havebecome part of, cartel parties compete in a contained way,campaigning on the agreed goals and trying to minimize the effectsof the defeat, not maximize their victory: stability becomes moreimportant than triumph; politics becomes a job rather than avocation3. Thus the cartel parties weaken their links with thegeneral public and thus cannot prevent the emergence of outsidechallengers though they can effectively limit their appeal byinstitutional means.

Although Katz and Mair do not include Belgium in their list ofcountries where the emergence of cartel parties is most likely, theBelgian party system on a federal level exhibits many, if not most,features of their model. Drawing on this model, I will present thepeculiarities of the pillarized cartel party system in Belgium whichcountervail the centrifugal trends. Unfortunately, I will have to usearbitrarily the notion of the cartel party system since Katz andMair leave the very important concept of the system rather vague.4

2. The Structural Base of Belgian Party PoliticsAt the outset of its statehood, Belgium was once defined as a


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country where there are parties and provinces but no nation.5

Almost two centuries on, this definition still points out to the twomain divisions of Belgian society: horizontal, or linguistic, andvertical (which, to be sure, started to take shape only in the latenineteenth century). Both of them interact in the arena of party

politics and both deserve some special attention.Vertical integration, or pillarization, was both a product and adeterminant of some broad political pacts and the grand coalitiongovernment of late 1910s and early 1920s. With the nationalquestion still in the backstage, the two most important subculturesafter the enfranchizement of the majority of the voters wereCatholic and socialist, and the elite attempts to accommodate theirinterests prompted a process of internal integration. The Catholicpillar was a somewhat looser one, more an electoral alliance ofits main subgroups than the coherent organization of the Christian

labour movement with the four estates, the Christian farmers andthe Christian middle classes.6 The Catholic Party, later renamedChristian Peoples Party/Social Christian Party (CVP/PSC), was adominant but not a hegemonic player in the Catholic pillarespecially as it expanded with additional functions of the welfarestate.

The socialist pillar is less divided and, with no internal cleavagesexcept the linguistic one, the parties Social Democrats/theSocialist Party (BSP/PSB) play a more central role in it. Welfarestate has put its mark on the socialist pillar as well. The socialist

pillar has also become the instrument of provision of state servicesand the vehicle for expressing the unions demands in the neo-corporatist arena. Beside the Catholic and the socialist pillars, thereis the third pillar-like structure, namely the liberal pillar. Althoughthere are some interest groups and service organizations associatedwith this pillar, the liberal parties the Radical Liberals/FreedomProgress Party (conservative liberals) (PRL/PVV) are the mostimportant players since the pillar itself is not very strong both innumeric and political terms.

The study of vertical integration, or pillarization, is howeverinseparable from the horizontal, or linguistic, integration (ironically,both terms integration in the Belgian case might well besubstituted with separation). Ever since the establishment ofthe unitary Belgian state in 1830s the linguistic differences and,indeed, different cultures, Germanic and Latin, have survivedthough the linguistic divide was acknowledged in early 1930s andofficially recognized only in the mid-1960s with the constitutionalamendments which demarcated Dutch- and French-speakingregions. Since these developments, the centrifugal trends have everstrengthened and reinforced themselves, culminating in theconstitutional reform of 1993 which established the federal state

and redistributed the Senate seats.The pillarization has clearly been influenced by this horizontal


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divide. A 19th century industrial region, Wallonia has since declinedboth in terms of economic importance and relative share of itspopulation. Not only has it not been able to successfully manage itsreconversion from a heavy industrial past, but also the growthin the economic power of the Flanders area was no slower than this

areas demographic rise.7 The level of (post-)industrialdevelopment has arguably shaped the general political preferencesin the two linguistic regions. Although parties of all three pillarshave their supporters in the whole country, the Christian democratsare most widely supported in Flanders and the socialists in Wallonia.In addition, socialists in Wallonia are better organized than theFlemish Christian democrats, and accordingly there are differencesin the internal integration of the pillars: loose in the case of theCatholic pillar and rather party-centered in the case of the socialistone.8 Furthermore, the party elites tended to reflect thisasymmetry: the Christian democrats were never led by aFrancophone nor the socialists by a Flemish.9 Thus to some extentthe regional divide not cuts across but overlaps the pillar divide andthe salient cleavages.10 The liberal parties in both regions comesecond or third and this relative weakness might account for thefact that, as it will be discussed later, they have chosen to adopt asomewhat anti-systemic rhetoric.

Thus the Belgian society is both horizontally and vertically divided.Each of the pillars and each language community are almost self-sufficient entities in the modern welfare state. The Belgian partysystem is even more fragmented (in addition to six unilingual

parties representing the main pillars there are some regional andsome post-materialist or anti-system parties), yet on the federallevel it shows remarkable stability or at least ability to cope with thecrises (though, as some would argue, mostly delaying the inevitabledecisions). This is even more remarkable if we acknowledge that thelinguistic cleavage has not historically been the only one labourcapital and churchstate cleavages have been salient aswell while the new cleavages also emerge. I will argue that thisrelative stability of the Belgian party system might be explained interms of cartel arrangements among the major parties but first I

turn to the party behaviour during the most important changes ofthe cleavage system.

3. Crisis Consociationalism and Party Strategies

Consociational democracy is a model frequently used to describeBelgiums political arrangements. However, grand coalitiongovernments were rare and most of them were established duringthe two world wars. Otherwise, politics was rather majoritarian thanconsociational though until the language conflicts reemerged inthe early 1960s this was a majoritarianism more on socio-economicthan linguistic or regional matters. Still some of the most important

political decisions the establishment of neo-corporatist systemand the school pact which recognized the principle of segmental


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autonomy were the products of consociational style of politics.Thus, as Deschouwer notes, the adoption of consociationalstructures and techniques has historically occurred in the context ofcrisis management.11

The outcome of such crisis consociationalism has been theremoval of the major cleavage conflicts from the arena of popularpolitics and parliamentary debates to the more technical or,following the terminology of Katz and Mair, managerialist,spheres be it negotiations under neo-corporatist arrangements orthe complex system of guarantees of religious education wherethe parties could exercise their strength and employ their relationswith other pillar organizations. Yet these cartel effects were moredistant in time compared to the instant reemergence of anothersalient cleavage, namely the regional divide. The economic growthof Flanders was seen by the Walloon community as a sign of the

Flemish majority extending state support and investment to theFlemish regions. Growing Flemish economic power and Walloondissatisfaction have prompted the Centre Harmel, a special researchcenter, to propose granting cultural autonomy and imposingequivalence between cultural and territorial divisions. This was donein the linguistic laws of 19621963 and the revisions of 1970 whichintroduced the concepts of culturally-based Communautandterritorially-based Rgion.

This had new implications for the party politics. The most importantone was the emergence and growth of the regionalist parties. The

Flemish Volksunie (VU), although tracing its origins back to the late1910s, has reached its peak of popularity in the 1960s andespecially in the elections of 1971, when 11 of its candidates wereelected to the parliament. Two Walloon parties, the RassemblementWallon (RW) and the Brussels-based Front Dmocratique desFrancophones (FDF), were created in the mid-1960s out of smallpolitical parties and interest associations united by the aims ofWalloon autonomy and the protection of the French-speakinginhabitants of Brussels. Their popularity has also risen sharply inlate 1960s and early 1970s. Eventually, they were also included inthe system of crisis consociationalism and have participated in

the 19771978 and 19781979 governments that paved the wayfor the next round of constitutional revisions which awardedterritorial autonomy to the Rgions and extended theresponsibilities of the Communauts. Later some of the regionalparties have, although somewhat reluctantly, participated in thecoalition governments of 19871991 and indirectly in 1993.

However, the major impact of the regional division on the partysystem was not the emergence of the regionalist parties but thereaction of the pillar parties to this development. The Christiandemocrats, liberals and socialists have also split into regional

parties and organized themselves along the territorial cleavage. Tobe sure, the Christian democrats had two rather separate linguistic


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wings prior to their split in the 1969 which appointed two wing-presidents, but the developments in the late 1960s prompted amore radical approach if the party was to retain its electorate12. Theliberals followed suit in 1971, and on the same year the socialistshave changed their internal structure to have two national co-

presidents from the two linguistic regions instead of nationalpresident and vice-president belonging to different communities.However, this did not prevent the socialists from a full split intoindependent territorial parties in 1978. As Keman notes, thesedevelopments were typically a strategy to limit the electoral roomfor manuvre of territorially based parties in Flanders (VU) andWallonia (FDF/RW) in order to maintain their electoral share andthus uphold their own position within the changing party system.13

The success of this strategy might explain the persistence of thepillar parties.

4. The Persistence of the Pillar Parties: A CartelRecognizing the proposition of Keman that it is no exaggeration tosuggest that today two party systems exist in Belgium, representingthe party families in separate ideological blocs in Wallonia andFlanders14, this part of the essay will deal mostly with the thirdcomponent the interactions between these two party systems ona federal level, a party system of its own. To be sure, the concept ofa federal party system in Belgium is artificial since there are nomore federal parties. The salient issues of party competition and theneed for greater responsiveness on the regional level force Flemish

and Walloon parties to demand further regional competencies at theexpense of the center.

Still there is the constitutional commitment of power sharing on thefederal level, and the parties across the regional cleavage arepushed to finally arrive at the agreement and install a workingcoalition if there is to be a federal government at all. Thus the needfor agreement is externally enforced but the parties (or, rather,party elites) have accommodated themselves to this system.

Though the unity of the parties is reinforced by [c]asting conflicts in terms of a FlemishFrancophone confrontation,15 the partiesrecognize the need to campaign on the salient issues in the waythat would not preclude their later cooperation in the government.One other dimension of this game is the need to be responsive toelectoral demands on a regional level yet consensus-oriented on afederal one. Thus adversarial politics during the electioncampaigns renders its way to the coalescent behaviour when itcomes to coalition formation. The lack of collective responsibility bythe government members for the actions of the Council of Ministersand mutual checks and veto powers by the representatives of thelinguistic communities increase the need for consensus and partyaccommodation if the central governments are to survive.

Indeed, the language divide of the pillar parties has understandablybecome the burden on the coalition making but not something that


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parties have not managed to overcome. Ever since the split, thecoalition governments have been formed with every two pillarparties from both linguistic regions remaining together either in thegovernment or the opposition, producing the image of oversizedcoalitions.16 While the two pillar counterparts have not acted as

single entities, this has reinforced the relative importance ofpillarization as opposed to linguistic divide. True, most governmentshave fallen over the regional conflicts, but then again, they wereusually succeeded by the carefully crafted coalitions of the sameparties, sometimes even led by the same prime ministers. Sincesuch coalitions are constructed through a number of detailedarrangements, the party leadership and the government ministersexpect that their parliamentary parties will stick to thesearrangements and keep the consensus. This reinforces thedominant position of the party leadership and reduces that of theparliament. The analysis of the procedures of nomination andapproval of party presidents by De Winter further indicates that thewider party institutes are mere rubber-stamps on the choices of theparty elites.17

In other words, party elites those having to deal with the otherlanguage group on a daily basis and most aware of the need for thesurvival of the federal level of government have the upper handin the political process. There are more indications that the linguisticcleavage has not become a matter of popular mobilization orantagonism inside the two communities but rather a disputebetween elected and non-elected party officials, with some

interventions from the media and from interest-group leaders.18The elected members of the parliament feel most acutely thepressure towards further devolution since the members of thefederal parliament sit also in the regional councils. However theircentrifugal influence is somewhat pacified by the need of thefederal legislature to follow the executive pacts reached in thesubtle deliberations of the party elites. As noted by Keman, theparties are less likely (at least when compared to other Beneluxcountries) to give up coalitions than their policy objectives and oncethe coalition agreement has been reached the party leaders have

some room to manuvre and deviate from the governmentprogram.19 Thus in the conditions of the institutional structureallowing for the formal non-cooperation between therepresentatives of the linguistic regions, a way out of loomingparalysis depends on the mastery of the political leaders.

Although the relative weight of the pillar parties, especially theChristian democrats (and especially the Flemish Christiandemocrats), has been declining, and the party systemfragmentation increased, the two pillar party families haveremained the (almost) exclusive players as the governmentcoalitions were formed by the Christian democrats and socialists.20

This has produced consistent expectations which if nothing else


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further reinforce the established pattern of coalition formation. Theparties, especially the (Flemish) Christian democrats have thereforeretained their influence not on the electoral arena but inside thestructures of the pillarized provision of services (in the words ofDeschouwer, output-oriented rather than mobilization-oriented). The

pillar parties, constantly participating in the governments,guarantee that their pillar organizations survive. The maininstrument of this continuing integration is personnel recruitmentand promotion. In this area, the pillar parties act as a real cartel.

The parties that have reached a coalition agreement distributevarious patronage positions among themselves yet the parties thatare excluded from the particular coalition pact retain theopportunity to make up in the future governments.

Though all three party families have been engaged in this kind ofpatronage, the natural type of coalition has become the center-

left government whereas the third pillar party, the liberals, has beeneffectively pushed out of the federal executive. Not only the twomajor parties the Christian democrats and the socialists havebeen permanent partners in the coalition governments for the lastthree decades but they have also been the major parties in theirrespective linguistic regions, Flanders and Wallonia. Yet the mostimportant effect of this sidelining of the liberals has been thesymmetry of coalitions in both regions. Since there are noindependent legislatures in Flanders and Wallonia, the federalcoalitions are imposed on the regions. Thus the governingChristian-democratic and socialist coalitions in the center were

replicated in the regions by the regional Christian-democratic andsocialist coalitions. There are two related conclusions to be reachedfrom this. First, the real coalition building game still is theprerogative of the central party elites and second, the autonomy ofthe regional pillar parties and the regions themselves is reduced.

These features of the party system may also explain the relativeunimportance of the regionalist parties. In Flanders, the Volksunieeven in its most successful election in 1971 has surpassed only thethird party, the liberals. It has been declining since then, partly dueto the attempts to become a multi-issue party yet constant changes

on the leftright and other dimensions21, partly due to the fact thatit was not able to create its own pillar-like structure, partly due tofactional in-fighting, and partly due to the increase in theBelgicist, as opposed to nationalist, feelings.22 However, theexternal factor seems one of the most relevant explanations asthe rise of the VU might be related to its exclusiveness in defendingthe communal interests while its decline with the pillar partyresponse.

The fortunes of the Rassemblement Walloon have risen even moredramatically in the critical election of 1971 when in Wallonia it

overtook even the second pillar party, the Christian democrats. Yetin 1985 it was reduced to irrelevant party, which has gained only


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0.6 per cent of the votes.23 While the common anti-Flemishsentiment may have won the party most of its votes, the split andthe departure of its charismatic leader left the RW on the grounds ofmuch stronger Walloon socialists that were able to capture the RWelectorate after the split. The Front Dmocratique des

Francophones, a party of Brussels Francophones, by contrast, hasbeen more successful on the electoral arena, partly due to itsalliance with the liberals. It has adopted cooperative strategy andhas thus been able to push some of its requirements byparticipating in the governing coalitions both at regional and centrallevels. Yet these regional parties, no matter how irrelevant they are

judging by the present party system standards, have prompted thepillar parties to take the steps toward regionalization andfederalization of the state and therefore at least partly achievedtheir goals.

The Belgium party system, especially the interaction of parties on afederal level, has the main features of the cartel model. Though theparties (rarely!) alternate in the government, they are ratherirresponsive on the federal level to electoral preferences. The role ofthe party leadership is very important while that of the localorganizations is insignificant. The parties use the resources of thestate, mainly the government posts and financial assistance to theunderdeveloped regions, to reward their loyalists and enhance theirappeal. Their competition, rather adversarial on the electoral arena,is contained in the government coalitions with behind-the-scenesexecutive pacts reducing the relative importance of parliamentary

debates. This mode of the pillar partyparticratie could not remainunchallenged.

5. The Challengers: The Vlaams Blok

The cartel model of the Belgian partitocracy was first criticised bythe liberal parties. As the other two pillar parties had their ownregions (the socialists were established in Wallonia and the Christiandemocrats in Flanders) and have usually formed the naturalcoalitions, the liberal parties, coming second or third in bothregions, for the most of the time have been excluded fromparticipation in government and thus from its services. Having beenpushed out of the system and reduced again to the half partythey criticise the other two pillar party families for their cartelbehaviour. They were joined by the Volksunie, the post-materialistparties such as the Greens and the anti-immigrant parties such asthe Walloon Front National.

However, the most important challenge (at least in the electoralterms) to the party system came from the radical right wing party,the Vlaams Blok.24 As the Vlaams Blokwas formed after the split ofthe Volksunie in 1978 when the radical Flemish nationalists defectedto the newly established party, one would expect its appeal to bebased on the claims of regional independence as well as itslinguistic purity. Out of five major points of the 1991 campaign,


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one was complete independence of Flanders, one the return of non-European immigrants to their home countries and one thetraditional requirement for law and order. It has alsocampaigned on populist protest issues such as anti-monopolism ofestablished pillar organizations and punishing the political

Mafia.25Therefore it might be proposed that the VB has campaigned also onthe issues of anti-partyism. Yet there is conceptual ambiguity aboutthe classification of the Blokas a protest party or rather an anti-immigrant, racist or extreme-right one. Highlighting theoreticaldifferences between these types of radical parties, Fennemaclassifies the VB as a protest party which is described by its anti-party sentiment and claims that the political establishmentrepresents a sham democracy.26 Further conceptualizing theterm protest vote, Van Der Brug, Fennema and Tillie put the VB

into the anti-immigrant cell since the voter preference for thisparty is predicted by their negative attitude towards immigrantseven though its separatist claim is more advanced.27 Yet the mostextensive study of the electoral motives for voting for the VB byBilliet and De Witte has concluded that at least some part of theelectorate has voted for the Blokout of feelings of protest andpowerlessness.28 This, however, does not differentiate the electorateof the VB from the supporters of other radical or post materialistparties in Belgium. It might be concluded from their statisticalsurvey that it is the anti-immigrant issues that are appealing for thevoters and to some extent nationalist attitudes, not the radical right-

wing stance of the Blok. Yet one more analysis points out that[w]hereas Vlaams Blok can best be summarized as a culturallyracist, separatist and authoritarian party of the ultra-right, for itselectors it is at most a populist ethnocentric protest party.29 Thusit remains unclear whether it is correct to classify the VB as aprotest party, but the vote for the Blokshould be seen as an anti-system vote at least for a part of its electorate as is the case withthe electorate of other parties outside the cartel.

Conclusions

Many explanations might account for the persistence of Belgium asa single state despite strong demands for decentralization. Theimpact of the party system is among relevant explanations. It wasargued in this essay that the linguistic cleavage, although salientand even reinforcing other cleavages, has been pacified by theformat of the party system on a federal level. The interaction of twoparty systems Flemish and Walloon in the central institutionsresembles the cartel model where the major players are the pillarparties which use their networks to provide the resources of thestate to the members of various pillar organizations.

The parties have thus differing incentives on the electoral andgovernment arenas. In the former, they compete on the basis of thesalient issues but do this as to not preclude their future cooperation


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in the government. The mode of cooperation, or Belgianconsociationalism, is rather closed one where there is naturalcoalition of the Christian democrats and socialists expected. Oneimportant feature of these coalitions is their symmetry (as opposedto asymmetric strength and asymmetric decline of the two

major parties in the linguistic regions) where the two regionalparties of the same pillar join and leave the government together.

These coalitions are then imposed on the regions thus pushing thirdparties out of cartel. Coalition pacts are carefully crafted by thecentral party elites and once they are reached the parliamentaryparties are expected to follow them. The ministers still areconsidered as representatives of their respective regions and theparty leadership is allowed to deviate from the coalition programs.

The pattern of party organization and leadership selection furtherenhances the role of their central elites which are the most aware ofthe cooperation across the regional divide.

The main parties have in general successfully adopted thestrategies that induced the decline of the regional parties. After thepillar parties split into distinct regional organizations and radicalizedtheir regional appeal the main regional parties VU, FDF and RW have become irrelevant. Nevertheless it was their influence thatprompted the major parties to take the steps towards federalization.

Yet the party cartel was challenged by one of the pillar partyfamilies, the liberals, and, more drastically, by the largest anti-system party, the VB. Though its popularity might be explained firstand foremost by its anti-immigrant stance, the VB is regarded by a

part of its electorate as a protest party like other parties outsideof the pillar party cartel.

Thus it might be concluded that the pillar parties engage in the dualbehaviour. They pursue the regionalist agenda on the electoral leveland in the regional councils but have to participate in theconsociational arrangements on the central level. This makes themcentral actors with regard to federalism and increases thedependence of politics along the federalregional dependence onthe position of party elites. While until recently this has been adevice safeguarding against the split up of the state, this was

largely due to the fact that the vertical pillars that cut across thehorizontal linguistic divide remained important despite the relativedecline of the pillar parties. Yet further decline of the parties mightput the federal system at risk.

Notes

1 Katz R. S., Mair P. Changing models of party organization andparty democracy: The emergence of the cartel party // Partypolitics. 1995. Vol. 1. No. 1. P. 1617.

2 Ibid. P. 21.

3 Ibid. P. 23.


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4 See eruolis D. Rytai tampa Vakarais? Vakar Europoskonceptualini instrument taikymo problemos pokomunistinipartini sistem stabilizacijos bei kaitos analizei // Politologija.1996. Nr. 1. P. 1216.

5 Quoted in: Wagstaff P. Regionalism in Belgium // Europa:Regionalism in Europe / Ed. P. Wagstaff. 1994. Vol.1.No.2/3.P. 41.

6 See Deschouwer K. From consociation to federation: How theBelgan parties won // Party elites in divided societies / Eds. K. R.Luther, K. Deschouwer. London and New York, 1999. P. 8183.

7 Wagstaff P.Op. cit. P. 46.

8 See Deschouwer K.Op. cit. P. 81.

9 See De Winter L. The selection of the party presidents in

Belgium: Rubber stamping the nominee of the party elites //European journal of political research. 1993. Vol. 24. P. 250.

10 This was demonstrated in many areas not directly connectedwith linguistic matters such as fiscal policy of arms sales. Fordetails, see Murphy A. Belgiums regional divergence: Along theroad to federation // Federalism: The multiethnic challenge / Ed. G.Smith. London and New York, 1995. P. 9193.

11 Deschouwer K.Op. cit. P. 80.

12 This was followed by the disastrous showing in the 1971elections, where the new Wallon party, the PSC, has received only

20.1 per cent (see De Winter L.Op.cit. P. 253. Note 9) but laterhas managed to regain some of the lost votes notwithstanding thegeneral decline of the Christian democratic parties.

13 Keman H. The Low countries: Confrontation and coalition insegmented societies // P. 225.

14 Ibid. P. 221; emphasis in the original.

15 Covell M. Belgium: The variability of ethnic relations / Thepolitics of ethnic conflict regulation / Eds. J. McGarry and B.OLeary. London and New York, 1993. P. 294.

16 See Keman H. Op.cit. P. 227.

17 See De Winter L. Op. cit. P. 233256.

18 Covell M.Op. cit. P. 293.

19 See Keman H.Op.cit. P. 231234.

20 According to the 1999 data, the Christian democratic partieshave participated in all governments since 1958. Since the criticalelections of 1961, the socialist parties have participated in all butsix governments while their alternative the liberals have beenin power for only twelve years out of thirty-eight. See DeschouwerK.Op. cit. P. 99 and Table 4.6 in p. 92.


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21 See De Winter L. The Volksunie and the dilemma betweenpolicy success and the electoral survival in Flanders // Regionalistparties in Europe / Eds. L. De Winter, H. Trsan. London and New

York, 1997?. P. 3335.

22 Ibid. P. 42. See also Murphy A.Op. cit. P. 94.

23 See Buelens J., Van Dyck R. Regionalist parties in French-speaking Belgium: The Rassemblement Wallon an the FrontDmocratique des Francophones // Regionalist parties in Europe /Eds. L. De Winter, H. Trsan. London and New York, 1997?. P.52. Table 4.1.

24 In the 1995 elections to the House of Representatives, the VBhas gained 7.8 per cent and came fourth after the three pillar partyfamilies. See Deschouwer K.Op. cit. P. 94. Table 4.7.

25 See Billet J., De Witte H. Attitudinal dispositions to vote for a

new extreme right-wing party: The case of Vlaams Blok //European journal of political research. 1995. Vol. 27. No. 2.P. 186187.

26 Fennema M. Some conceptual issues and problems in thecomparison of anti-immigrant parties in Western Europe // Partypolitics. 1997. Vol. 3. No. 4. P. 477.

27 See Van Der Brug W., Fennema M., Tillie J. Anti-immigrantparties in Europe: Ideological or protest vote? // European journal ofpolitical research. 2000. Vol. 37. P. 77102.

28 See Billet J., De Witte H.Op. cit.29 Swyngedouw M., as quoted in Fennema M.Op. cit. P. 499.

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