Neither nor Walloon, but Belgian…again? The Role of Multiculturalism in Upending the Discussion on Belgian National Identity

Master's Thesis Fedi Mejri 12653551 Graduate School of Social sciences Political Science: International Relations University of Amsterdam Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Mike Medeiros Second Reader: Dr. Floris Vermeulen June 2020

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Abstract:

The successive political impasses which characterize political life in serve as a constant reminder of the intricacies surrounding the country’s national identity and the continued specter of the end of Belgium as a national entity. The transformation of -based regional identities in and into sub-state nationalist movements has been a dynamic process, subject to various political and cultural forces and informed by shifting goals that range from outright secessionism to . Language, being the single most important marker of regional identity in Belgium, has long been regarded as the sole raison d’être for Belgian sub-nationalist movements. This began to change by the 1960s with the advent of immigration as a new element in the discussion about national identities in the country. Despite the increasing relevance of immigration-related social change to the discussion of sub-national identity in Belgium, the literatures on both topics have largely tended to ignore each other. This thesis attempts to bring the relationship between these two topics into perspective by asking the question how has sub-state nationalism evolved in Belgium. To answer this question, this paper performed a qualitative content analysis on a collection of Flemish and Walloon programs from five key electoral years to see whether the status of language as the main theme of discussion to both sub-nationalist movements declined in favor of the topic of immigration and the policy of multiculturalism. Further, the analysis attempted to test the hypothesis that as a result of the focus on immigration and multiculturalism issues, the Flemish and Walloon sub-nationalist movements are converging around the same discourse and the same goals after a long period of political and ideological differentiation. The process of coding, in combination with insight from the framework of political discourse analysis (PDA), indicate that while the issues of multiculturalism are indeed rising in relevance within political discourse in both regions, language has not been rendered irrelevant; rather, the theme of language has been incorporated into the discussion about immigration and integration. Besides, the analysis also shows that discourse in both regions is indeed converging around a harder line regarding immigration and the focus on promoting integration.

Key words: Nationalism, sub-state nationalism, identity, Immigration, Multiculturalism, language, Belgium.

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Table of Contents:

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….2 Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………….4 Chapter 2: Literature Review: ……………………………………………………..9 2.1: Theories of nationalism…………………………………………………...9 2.2: Ethnic and civic nationalisms…………………………………………...10 2.3: Linguistic nationalism and language-based conflict…………………….12 2.4: Nationalism, migration, and the policies of multiculturalism…………...13 2.5: Presentation of the case study: Belgium………………………………...14 2.6: The Genesis of Belgian national identity: an abortive project?...... 14 2.7: The vicissitudes of Belgium's political system………………………….16 2.8: The emergence of sub-state nationalism in Belgium……………………18 2.9: State reform and its implications………………………………………..20 2.10: From the Flemish-Walloon duality to the centrifugal effects of modern multiculturalism: a new model for Belgian identity?...... 22 Chapter 3: Theoretical framework and methodology…………………………… 25 3.1: Sociological theories of immigration…………………………………....25 3.2: Methodology of content analysis………………………………………..28 3.4: Operationalization……………………………………………………….32 Chapter 4: Results………………………………………………………………...37 Chapter 5: Political Discourse analysis and discussion…………………………..50 Chapter 6: Conclusion…………………………………………………………….60 Bibliography:…………………………………………………………………...... 64

3 Chapter one: Introduction

On May 3rd, 2018, during a debate in the EU parliament in , the leader of UKIP Nigel Farage gave a short speech that contained the following:

"Belgium is not a . It is an artificial creation… the truth is there are two different parts of Belgium. They speak two different , they dislike each other intensely, there is no national TV station, there is no national newspaper. Belgium is not a nation! And maybe that is why you are happy to sign up to a higher European level." Beyond the immediate dismissal of this statement by many MEP's present that day as nothing but another publicity stunt by the staunchly Euro-sceptic and Brexit-supporting UKIP leader, Nigel Farage's verdict on Belgian nationhood is not entirely unusual. Ever since 1830, the year in which the modern Belgian state was established, similar statements that highlighted the lack of Belgian nationhood and cast doubts about the future unity of the country have been commonplace. Even more significant is the fact that some of these statements have come from key Belgian figures sometimes. Jules Destrée, a prominent French-speaking politician and cultural critic in Belgium, once famously penned a letter to the King of the Albert I, in 1912. Bluntly titled "Letter to the King on the Separation of Wallonia and Flanders", the letter is remembered for unequivocally declaring that "in Belgium, there are and Flemings. There are no Belgians." (van de Craen 2002: 25). Fast more than a century later, Destrée's words seem to be ever more relevant. Amid the successive constitutional crises Belgium has witnessed, the most intense of which was in 2007-2011 when the country set a world record with the most prolonged government formation period in modern times, Belgium earned the label of "the most successful failed state" by international media (The New York Times 2008), (Der Spiegel 2008). The fractious nature of Belgian politics was also visible following the most recent federal elections in 2019 when the government formation process was on course to beat Belgium's own record of 541 days, had the Coronavirus spread not urged Belgian politicians to get behind the of Sophie Wilmès.

4 The persistent gridlock that has marked Belgium's political life to such an extent that came to be synonymous to it, is widely explained by the nature of Belgium itself as a political entity built on a compromise between disparate identities steeped in mainly two different languages and the associated cultural traditions that come with them (Dujardin 2015: 26). Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia were brought together as the result of a diplomatic maneuver from the great powers in the 19th century to maintain the balance of power in Europe and create a buffer state to contain then 's expansionist plans (Deprez and Vos 1998: 6). This compromise has existed ever since in the form of a state without nationhood. Notwithstanding the early efforts of forging nationhood for the newly established Belgian state, and the successive political reforms that incrementally transformed Belgium from a unitary state to a federal state with significant devolution of power to the constituent regions, the wedge between the two linguistic communities proved to be difficult to bridge, resulting in a country plagued by a so-called "problème communautaire" (Dunn 1974: 163). The tensions between the regions in Belgium finds its roots in the linguistic difference between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, with the city of Brussels caught in between the interests of both regions (Dunn 1974:144). The end of the Second World War in Belgium marked the start of an ongoing change in Belgian society that added a new dimension to the "older" conflict, which has up to that moment mostly followed linguistic lines. The advent of an era of post-war reconstruction and economic boom necessitated labor, which was recruited from outside of Europe in a series of labor-treaties. The arrival of guest workers from countries like Turkey and Morocco, although initially perceived as a temporary event aimed at aiding the efforts of post-war reconstruction and filling in labor shortages, eventually became a permanent process of social change and migration that left its mark on Belgian society (Castles 1986:786). Starting from the 1960s onwards, guest workers settled permanently in Belgium, and although politics initially struggled to make sense of the change towards a multi-ethnic, multicultural, and highly diverse society, the reality of multiculturalism was largely accepted by the 1990s. Thus, by the turn of the 21st century, Belgium has accumulated a plethora of elements that continue to influence its politics and feed the discussion about Belgian identity. The question of forging a national identity for the Belgian state is, as a result, far from being settled. In this context, a significant number of studies attempted to make sense of the vicissitudes of Belgian nationhood (Deprez and Vos 1998; Grosaru 2018), cultural identity (

5 Erk 2005; Lecours 2001; Béland and Lecours 2007) and linguistic situation (Blommaert 1996; Blommaert 2011) on the one hand, and to understand Belgium's transition towards a multiculturalist society and the history of immigration in the country on the other hand (Jacobs and Swyngedouw 2002; Jacobs 2004; O'Neill 1998; Loobuyck and Franken 2009; Martiniello 2012). However, the number of studies that that focus on the interaction between the two themes of (sub-state) nationalism and immigration in Belgian politics has remained surprisingly limited, and even the few that did address the topic (Xhardez 2019; Xhardez 2020), did so from the perspective of studying the effects of sub-state nationalism on immigration and integration policies. This thesis aims to explore the relatively understudied relationship between sub-state nationalism and immigration in Belgium by approaching the topic from a different perspective. Instead of studying the effects of nationalism on the integration of immigrants and policy choices regarding multiculturalism, the other side of the discussion will be highlighted. Namely, the effects of immigration-related social change on sub-state nationalism will be studied. To do so, the following research question will guide this study: How has sub-state nationalism evolved in Belgium? This research question is further broken down into the following sub-questions: Has the change in Belgian society resulting from multiculturalism led to a shift in the priorities and goals of the sub-nationalist movements, from focusing on language to broader identarian issues? This first sub-question raises the topic of policy strategy within Belgium's regionalist and sub-nationalist movements. For long, the linguistic divide between French and Dutch speakers galvanized the respective communities and shaped their political demands, defining, in the process, the nature of sub-state nationalisms in Belgium. However, with the advent of multicultural society, new policy issues like integration, identity, religion, and asylum emerged to challenge the dominance of the theme of linguistic conflict on Belgium's political discussion. This question thus aims to explore whether this development has led to a decline in the status of the linguistic conflict in favor of immigration-related themes within sub-nationalist political discourse.

The second sub-question addressed in this thesis will be what role does the context of immigration and integration play in the inter-Belgian identitarian divide? As such, it follows from the main research question and the first sub-question, and looks at whether the ongoing social change resulting from immigration and the transition

6 towards a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multilingual society offers a way out of Belgium's Flemish-Walloon language conflict, or if it reinforces these sub-nationalist attitudes?

By trying to answer the questions mentioned above, this thesis hopes to contribute to the study of nationalism and multiculturalism. Using Belgium as a case study, the thesis will investigate the effects of multicultural society on sub-state nationalism, to arrive at conclusions possibly applicable to other western countries presenting the same circumstances and facing the same social challenges. To this end, this thesis will draw on the qualitative content analysis in the form of coding to study the messages, trends, and changes in political discourse across parties in Flanders and Wallonia. The method of coding, which according to Will Lowe et al., consists of "estimating policy positions from political texts [by coding] words and sentences and then build[ing] policy scales based on the relative frequencies of coded text units" (Lowe et al. 2011: 123), lends itself particularly well to the topic at hand. Studying a topic such as the changing nature of Belgium's sub-state nationalism requires a closer look at the political attitudes of these sub-nationalist movements, and that can best be captured by analyzing their discourse with the help of coding. In this analysis, qualitative data was sourced from the electoral programs of various political parties in Flanders and Wallonia, and selected based on five electoral years that were particularly significant to the discussion on Belgium's national identity and the topic of immigration accordingly: 1968, just after the establishment of dual bilingualism through the adoption of language legislation in 1963, and around the start of labor migration to Belgium. 1981, in the aftermath of the oil shock and the socio-economic transformation in Belgium. 1991, in the lead up to the adoption of official as the significant step in the process of state reform and the emergence of issues around multiculturalism, Islam, and integration in the west. 2007, following the government formation crisis, which was the most serious in Belgium's modern history, and the intensifying discussion about immigration and multiculturalism in the west triggered by the 9/11 attacks. And lastly, from the 2019 election, following the most recent political impasse and the ramifications of the 2015-2016 European "refugee crisis".

7 The results of the qualitative analysis indicate that despite the increasing relevance of the themes of multiculturalism and immigration to the sub-nationalist movements, the concern with language issues remains important. Language has been re-integrated in political discourse about multiculturalism, being drawn upon by parties from Flanders in Wallonia in various ways to inform their approach to multiculturalism and integration.

Further, the analysis reveals that following a period of policy and ideological divergence between the two sub-state nationalist movements in Belgium, Flanders and Wallonia are incrementally coalescing again around the same discourse on immigration, with Wallonia adopting various elements of the harder line on immigration long associated with Flanders. It appears that multiculturalism has presented both linguistic entities with a new, common challenge that they set out to face with the same approach and in the same way.

This thesis is divided into six chapters. After this introductory chapter, chapter two provides a literature review that will lay the theoretical framework for key concepts necessary to understand the research question like theories of nationalism and language-based nationalism. Once the key concepts are explained, the literature review presents the case study, with a political and historical background about the evolution of Belgian nationhood. The second chapter culminates in presenting the effects of immigration and multiculturalism on sub-state nationalism as the gap in the literature this thesis seeks to fill. The third chapter is devoted to laying out the theoretical framework, namely the sociological theories of migration, and the research design of content analysis and coding. The fourth chapter contains a presentation of the findings. Chapter five will present a discussion of these findings by putting them in context with the help of political discourse analysis. Finally, chapter six will serve as a conclusion by reflecting on the limitations of this thesis and postulating future directions for research in the field.

8 Chapter two: Literature review

Theories of nationalism:

Sub-state nationalism is a compound term. It cannot be understood without explaining the concept of nationalism. Despite the omnipresence of this concept within the broader framework of political theory, nationalism as a distinct field of study remained relatively understudied until the mid-1980s, when the writings of Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner, among others, began to cast a new light on the ideology of nationalism that has exerted a more substantial impact on political theory than is previously acknowledged (Hall 1993: 3). The only consensus that could so far be concluded from the writings on the topic of nationalism is the fact that no single universal theory of nationalism exists (Hall 1993: 2). The study of nationalism is a complex task, within which competing theories have vied for a place. Ernest Gellner advanced one of the most influential theories of nationalism. In it he postulated that nationalism is a byproduct of modernity, that is to say, that any deterministic ideas about nationalism do not hold much water in the face of the fact that the awakening of some form a national sentiment was only made possible due to industrialization, economic progress and the advent of modernity. And that this has been the case even in the core societies of northwestern Europe. Based on this statement, Gellner's definition of nationalism is that "nationalism is a primarily political principle that holds that the political and the national should be congruent." (Gellner 1983: 1). Gellner explains the advent of nationalism as an outcome of industrialization and the rise of modern society. He argues that industrial society necessitated an increase in the scale of communication, which in turn facilitated the homogenization of culture and language (Gellner 1983: 2). Modernity, in itself, is a context in which the evolution of nationalism takes place. More importantly, Gellner considers nationalism to be a reaction to specific forces that violate the nationalist principle that the political and national should be congruent. The forces that can elicit a national sentiment are mainly three: the first is when the political boundary of a state fails to include all the members of a designated nation. The second is when this boundary includes all members of a designated nation but also some foreigners. In both of

9 these cases, the unsettled question of minorities raises issues with the conceptualization of nationalism. The third and perhaps most significant factor that could enable the expression of national sentiment is when the rulers of a political unit and the majority of the ruled do not belong to the same nation. This raises the crucial question of political legitimacy, upon which Max Weber's definition of the state crucially rests, namely that only a state retains the monopoly of the use of legitimate violence, and only a nation-state can exercise that right on its nationals (Weber 1919: 2). Writing almost simultaneously to Gellner, and in his seminal work on nationalism, widely considered one of the most comprehensive accounts on the nature and evolution of nationalism, Benedict Anderson stresses that "nation-ness is the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time" (Anderson 2006: 3). By putting forward this idea, both Gellner and Anderson agree on the Weberian conception of nationalism: that legitimacy occurs when the rulers and the ruled belong to the same nationality. However, this is hardly an exhaustive definition of nationalism. Such definition remains challenging to arrive at and has primarily depended on auxiliary concepts: the state and the nation. Eric Hobsbawm defines the state as a coherent territorial unit, bounded by clear frontiers and exercising sovereign, exclusive rule over its citizens, While the definition of the state rests on the concept of legitimacy in the writings of Max Weber (Hobsbawm 1996: 1065). The question of what constitutes a "nation" is much more debated. Gellner argues that both "nations" and "states" are a contingency, resting on each other to gain theoretical traction. However, Gellner treads carefully by emphasizing that by being contingent upon each other, that does not deny the fact that the two concepts emerge separately, to the extent that states emerge without a nation and nations exist without a state (Gellner 1983: 4). The concept of “nation” itself is hotly debated. Nevertheless, the literature has broadly established two ways of defining nationalism: the civic and the ethnic.

Ethnic and civic nationalisms:

Ernst Gellner advances two major ideas about nationalism: the first postulates that people belong to the same nation when they share a "system of ideas, signs, and ways of behaving and communicating", that is to say-a culture. This culture-based conception of nationalism is primordial and rests on ethnicity and language as cornerstones for the nation- state.

10 The second view takes a more voluntarist approach, contending that people are of the same nation in so far as they recognize each other as belonging to the same nation (Gellner 1983: 5). The cultural and voluntarist aspects of the concept of "nation" came to be considered as the groundwork for the distinction between two types of nationalism: ethnic and civic. This distinction is further elaborated in the writings of John Myhill. He built on Gellner's theoretical embedding to distinguish ethnic nationalism, which has a deterministic nature, anchoring it in culture and ethnicity, both pre-determined categories, from civic-based nationalism. For the latter, the voluntary subscription to a set of norms, values, and beliefs is what binds individuals together within a state (Myhill 2006:21). John A. Hall also corroborates the importance of the dichotomy of ethnic versus civic within the concept of nationalism. He does, however, take issue with the deterministic nature of Myhill's ethnic nationalism. Hall refutes the culturally deterministic interpretations of ethnic nationalism because the influence of nationalist thought, namely that "people should share a culture and be ruled only by someone co-cultural with themselves", seems like a historically established given, while it is not. He finds the force of nationalism, even in its most rigid ethnic form, to be a relatively novel political invention. In reaching this conclusion, Hall agrees with Anderson's conception of the nation as an "imagined community". In fact, Hall's statement that "there is no firm sociological mooring to the nation, not in language, not in religion and not in ethnicity" (Hall 1993: 4) refutes the major theoretical underpinnings of ethnic nationalism. Both Hall and Anderson are joined in their dismissal of ethnic nationalism by Hobsbawm, who argues that "humans are multi- dimensional" and that national identity cannot be essentialized according to one category as ethnicity or language (Hobbsbawn 1996: 1067). André Lecours provides an alternative distinction between the two variants of nationalism. Building on Gellner's argument that nationalism is the outcome of modernity, Lecours develops the premise that the transition from ethnic to occurs as a consequence of the change in socio-economic structure from pre-industrialism to post- industrialism. However, Lecours departs from Gellner's idea by emphasizing that the socio- economic context is not the only determinant of the nature of nationalism, but that the goals of nationalism also play a role in explaining its nature. And so, it follows that nationalist movements with a secessionist orientation often resort to a definition of nationalism based more on cultural markers, as opposed to autonomist movements that often do not (Lecours 2012: 273).

11 Sue Wright approaches the dichotomy of ethnic and civic nationalism differently. According to her, there exist two political models of nationalism. The first model could be designated as the "state nation" model. The state as a bureaucratic and institutional apparatus "moulds the population into a cohesive national group." The second model is the nation-state model, which Wright defines as a group whose elites saw themselves as a "cultural and linguistic entity" with a fixed territory (Wright 2004:19). Despite the differences in the theoretical approaches to the concept of nationalism, the literature agrees that nationalism does not exist in a conceptual vacuum, and that it is always predicated on other elements. Language is one the strongest defining elements of nationalist movements.

Linguistic nationalism and language based-conflict:

The concept of nationalism is always predicated on identity markers, most notably language (Gellner 1983: 74). As the advent of modernity in the form of industrialization and capitalist economy brought about the rapid process of communication and travel, this, in turn, facilitated the reduction of linguistic and dialectal differences between various communities, easing the way for language-based nationalism to take hold in Europe first. In fact, language was taken to be the crucial constitutive element of nationhood (Wright 2004: 8). It has even been argued that "language is not just a marker of identity; it is the marker of identity" (H. Liu 2011: 126). The premise that nation-states that are built on principles other than linguistic and ethnic unity were bound to suffer from structural weakness (Greene 1978 :183), has been the guiding premise in linguistic nationalism theory. John Myhill argues that linguistic nationalist theory mostly follows two models that have dominated the discussion: The first model stresses the idea of "big" language groups, also defined as the "dachsprachen" model of linguistic nationalism. This model is the driving force behind the efforts to standardize various related into one standard language that is conceived to help create a sense of broader national identity. The most prominent example of this form of linguistic nationalism based on "big" languages is the standardization of the , which brought together various dialects that were often unintelligible, in order to create a uniform German language and hence lend credence to the idea of a unified German nation (Myhill 2006 :3). Myhill argues that the model of Dachsprachen of linguistic nationalism and the associated belief in "big" national identities have been historically less successful, as the attempt to impose uniformity and deny linguistic-and, by extension, cultural, difference

12 results in stronger sub-nationalist feelings. He considers the relationship between the "constituent groups" of a nationalist project the single most crucial factor in the success or lack thereof of that project. As such, the suppression of minority languages or dialects within the big language, "dachsprachen" model often results in the emergence of communitarian tensions and sub-state nationalism (Myhill 2006 :3). As an alternative, Myhill pushes forward the model of "small" linguistic nationalism, which he calls "Ausbausprachen". This alternative model, first formulated in the writings of the linguist Heinz Kloss, seeks to replace the homogenizing nature of "big" linguistic nationalism with a smaller scale project of linguistic, national consolidation, more in connection with a much smaller national aspiration. A prominent example of this model is the various Scandinavian nationalist movements, which, despite the mutual intelligibility between the Scandinavian languages, focused on fostering a smaller sense of national identity in each of the Scandinavian countries rather than promoting a "big" language-based Scandinavian nationality. Myhill stresses that the model of "Ausbausprachen", by virtue of historical records, have had relatively more success in informing projects of national consolidation than other models of language-based nationalism (Myhill 2006: 3). The discussion about nationalism and the significant role language plays in theoretical conceptions of nationalism is complicated by the question of minorities. The process of immigration has contributed to a renewed debate within the theory of nationalism about belonging and national identification.

Nationalism, migration, and the policies of multiculturalism:

The discussion of nationalist theories is further complicated by the realities of modern societies, where migration has gained an increasing role within the debate on identity and nationalism, particularly in western societies. While the phenomenon of international migration itself is far from being novel, the scale of human movement brought forth by modernity and the fundamental changes in the form of globalization has made international migration weigh heavily on nationalist theory, in as far as it accentuated the problematic aspect of minorities, diasporas and belonging within the nation-state theory. As such, migration presents challenges to nationalist theories on the one hand, and creates new conceptual frameworks for dealing with these unresolved challenges, on the other hand (Swain 2019: 1). Two of the most critical conceptual frames derived from modern international migration are the policy of multiculturalism and integration policies.

13 Vijay Mishra defines multiculturalism as a portmanteau term initially referring to the response to changes in migration patterns in former settler-colonial societies, which then evolved into a conscious policy choice in western countries based on promoting the integration of new arrivals while persevering cultural diversity (Mishra 2012: 226). The literature on the topic has established a significant premise on the relationship between multiculturalist policies and nationalism, namely that nationalism is the result of a defensive and restrictive reaction against migration and the associated multiculturalist policies (Loobuyck and Jacobs 2010: 29). This premise feeds the assumption that nationalists are against multicultural societies and insist instead on cultural assimilation to bypass the challenges posed by minorities and diversity to the fundamental beliefs of nationalist theory. It becomes evident from this assumption that there exists a strong tension between nationalism and the model of multiculturalist society, which poses several challenges to the homogenizing forces of nationalism. Factoring in Sue Wright's argument about the role of elites in constructing national consciousness and her concept of the "state nation" (Wright 2004: 19), the relationship between nationalism and immigration still offers ample space for investigation, particularly in countries where immigration combines with already existing cleavages in national identity like Belgium. The following section presents Belgium as an illustrative case study of the intersection of the questions of sub-state national identity, language and immigration.

Case Study: Belgium:

The genesis of Belgium's national identity: an abortive project?

The development of Belgian national sentiments during the short-lived United Kingdom of the Netherlands was a gradual yet accelerating process. Kas Deprez and Louis Vos explain that up until 1817, demands for Belgian autonomy came mostly from the Belgian clergy, which was preoccupied with reforming the union between Holland and the southern Netherlands to create a looser, personal union instead of a unitary state (Deprez and Vos 1998: 83). The demands of the clergy sought the recognition of the individuality of the Catholic southern provinces in the face of the Dutch protestant tradition of staatskirchentum. Initially, they did not go as far as calling for a break with the north, given the economic interest of the southern provinces in maintaining access to the markets in the Dutch colonies (Deprez and Vos 1998: 36). This economic interest, and however influential, did not prevent

14 the continuation of sperate identity formation in the two parts of the United Netherlands. In fact, by this stage, the Dutch and Belgians were politically and culturally living apart, and Belgium had all the hallmarks of a proto-nation (Deprez and Vos 1998: 36). The schism between Belgium and the Netherlands bore all the markings of a religious conflict of interests and seems to be in line with Myhill's view on the evolution of national identity in Europe (Myhill 2006: 183). Myhill stresses that despite the promotion of language as the single most marker of national identity in 19th century Europe, the role of religious affiliation and the older ancestral ideas persisted. He explains that during that era, various national consolidation projects sought to overcome the denominational difference by promoting a common language as a factor of unity. He compares the United Kingdom of the Netherlands with the German confederation, which also included protestant and Catholic populations and yet managed to maintain its unity through promoting a common German language. The same rationale was hoped to be successful in the . Nevertheless, the union collapsed by 1830 with the start of the Belgian revolution, which resulted in the secession of Belgium and left the Netherlands a rump state. Myhill argues that the Belgian revolution was not only the result of religious tensions that plagued the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, but also the result of the intersection of class interests with language ideology. He explains that the Flemish elite, which thoroughly absorbed French culture and language, used the as means to maintain their privileged position vis-à-vis the rest of society, and as such, they resisted the Dutch-led attempts to impose Dutch against the "gallicization of public life", which they perceived as a threat to their status. Accordingly, class interests joined with religious affiliation to lay the groundwork for Belgian nationhood (Myhill 2006: 184). By the mid-nineteenth century, the establishment of Belgium as a nation-state seemed to be accomplished. The period from the start of the Belgian revolution in 1830, to the late nineteenth century, was marked by cooperation between the two major linguistic communities, Dutch and French speakers, to establish Belgium as an independent nation, gain its recognition from other countries and consolidate its political, social, economic and cultural institutions. This relatively brief period came to be known as the "unionist" era and was marked by the significant progress in nation-building efforts, to the extent that Belgium's liberal democracy came to be perceived as a model for other European countries to follow (Deprez and Vos 1998: 36). This period came to a gradual end by the turn of the 20th century, when significant issues surrounding the essence of Belgian nationhood began to emerge. These issues initially

15 stemmed from the linguistic situation of the country, yet they gradually morphed into regionalist and sub-nationalist movements due to a of factors.

Figure one: a map of the ethnic and linguistic composition of Belgium.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica 2020

The vicissitudes of Belgium's political system:

Understanding the effects of social change and multiculturalism on Belgium's regionalist and sub-state nationalist movements starts with a discussion of its political system, which sets it apart from other western nations that are witnessing the same process. Belgium's modern political system is often qualified as a multilayered, complex, federal system (Beaufays 1988: 63) whereby the country is mainly divided along linguistic lines into various regions and communities which oversee different areas of policy. Regions possess the

16 legislative and executive power, represented in regional parliaments, while communities have competences in the area of culture, language, and social services (website of the Belgian government 2020). The vicissitudes of modern Belgium's identity and political evolution could be traced back to the time of the country's independence. The country initially adopted a unitary system marked by the centralization of power in Brussels. The development of Belgium's complex, multilayered federal system is the culmination of a long process of state reform and decentralization, and this process is still far from being complete, as discussions about further devolution, confederalization, and looser ties still inform the country's politics. Accordingly, there exists a and community that have been merged, a Brussels-capital region, and a Walloon region. Within the Walloon region, there exists a French-speaking community and a small community for Belgium's German-speaking minority. Brussels-capital falls within the French-speaking community.

Figure two: Administrative divisions in Belgium (Federal, Regions and Communities). Source: 2011

17

The emergence of sub-state nationalism in Belgium: The Consolidation of different Flemish and Walloon identities:

The bifurcation of Belgian "nationhood" along linguistic lines was established through the codification of language legislation and a process of state reform, which made sub-state nationalism and in Belgium almost irrevocable forces (Stephenson 1972: 508). This was the result of language-based nationalism, particularly the advent of the . The Flemish movement traces back to the cultural awakening of some Flemish nationalists by the late 19th century, who were pejoratively referred to as the "flamingants' by the Francophone elites. These Flemish activists decried the perceived second-class citizenship of Dutch speakers in Belgium, promoted literary and artistic production, and pushed for representation in academic and social life, to foster a culturally aware middle class upon which the nationalist cause can rest. Deprez and Vos explain that the Flemish movement had a foundational role for Flemish nationalism, claiming that Belgium's Dutch speakers formed a cohesive "volk" not just with a cultural identity but also with political aspirations (Deprez and Vos 1998: 212).

Karen Shelby argues that the country's period of linguistic peace came to an end by the end of World War One, as the result of the intensification of the Flemish movement and its increased role in Belgian politics (Shelby 2014: 83). The advent of the Flemish movement was to usher in the start of the state reform process, albeit slowly. By the end of World War One, the demands of the Flemish movement crystallized from demanding more language rights towards greater political autonomy for the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, and the first step towards the dismantling of the unitary system was taken by the limited recognition of Dutch language use in Flanders in certain public domains like the lower courts and education (Nielsen 1980: 80). Belgium's linguistic divide was exacerbated during both world wars by the German Flamenpolitik, which sought to exploit the existing cultural and linguistic divide and win Flemish support. Despite the failure of Flamenpolitik and its determinantal effect on the more activist, collaborationist radical wing of the Flemish movement, the end of WWI was a turning point for the Flemish movement and Belgium's political system at large. The front

18 movement (frontbeweging) was a Flemish grassroots political movement led by WWI veterans who demanded greater recognition of the Dutch language in Belgium, not only in the army but also in other sectors of public life (Deprez and Vos 1998: 216).The movement quickly became the nucleus of a new Flemish political party, the , whose central message was that the unitary, French-dominated political system in Belgium was untenable and that reform was necessary (Shelby 2014: 84). Although the process of regional autonomy was set in motion mainly as the result of Flemish activism, the French-speaking community also played a role in state reform. Initially reluctant to accept greater autonomy, the Walloon regional movement focused on economic autonomy, combining socialism with regionalism to gain popular support (van Ginderachter and Leerssen 2012: 238).

Both regionalist movements in Belgium stemmed initially from concerns about language. Prior to the Great War in 1914, Wallonia and Flanders drifted in different directions in the way they dealt with language policy. Wallonia's linguistic situation witnessed the gradual decline of its various romance dialects and convergence around as a marker of Belgian national identity, and by extension, a marker of Belgium's belonging to the influential, international Francophone sphere. The adoption of standard French by Walloons and Francophone Brussels residents was not so much an expression of regional identity or a sign of a Walloon linguistic nationalism, as much as a reflection of a variety of the big language Dachsprachen theory of nationalism (Myhill 2006 :3), whereby a Francophone-led Belgium subscribes to a broader, more influential French-led cultural and political sphere, without adopting an ethnic nationalist element, in keeping with the French civic-based nationalism. The situation in Flanders was more complicated, as the debate about Flemish identity and the associated linguistic situation was more intense. The Flemish movement's push to assert Dutch language rights in Belgium was accompanied by the task of choosing between "big" or "small" linguistic nationalism. The leaders of the Flemish movements initially could not agree on the question whether Dutch, as spoken in Belgium, should be fostered separately from Dutch spoken in the Netherlands as the primary marker of a distinct Flemish identity, a form of "small," ausbausprachen language nationalism, or whether a unified language should be maintained with the Netherlands. The debate was eventually settled in favor of a linguistic unity with the Netherlands, a form of "big" language nationalism. But just as in Wallonia, the choice for this course of linguistic nationalism was not reflective of collective ethnic identity

19 with the Dutch as much as a choice motivated by the need to counterbalance the influence of Francophone speakers in Belgium who have an extended cultural sphere against which a distinct, Flemish language would be able to resist (Deprez and Vos 1998: 212). .

State reform in Belgium and its implications for national identity:

The discussion which ensued highlighted Belgium's cultural and linguistic tensions. Through a process of incremental language legislation, Belgium sought to solve these linguistic tensions. A major step in this direction was taken in 1921 with the adoption of the most radical piece of language legislation: the law on official bilingualism, which effectively transformed Belgium into a bilingual country based on the concept of territoriality, whereby each language would be recognized as the official language in the territory where it is spoken as the majority language. This created a so-called taalgrens (language boundary) between the Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. The taalgrens established the cultural regions but did not solve issues relating to the status of Brussels, a predominantly French-speaking city within Flanders, or some municipalities across this new language boundary which contain significant linguistic minorities. The process of resolving linguistic and cultural tension through language policy continued, with the adoption of provisions on language facilities in the early 1960s, which guaranteed language rights in municipalities where a significant minority is present (Stephenson 1972: 501). Hence, Linguistic difference in Belgium was dealt with by instituting dual bilingualism instead of nation-wide bilingualism. This system cannot be divorced from the simultaneous process of state reform, which transformed Belgium from a unitary state to a federal entity with an increasing degree of autonomy for the cultural-linguistic regions. Historians thus consider Belgium's political development a direct result of the language legislation which necessitated political instruments to ensure the effective management of Belgium's complex, language-based issues. The literature points out that the decline in national cohesion is an outcome of the incremental yet steady rise of regional identity thanks to language legislation (Stephenson 1972: 501). In this context, Stephenson explains that the state initially fostered Belgian identity at a time when cultural difference based on language was secondary to other identity markers such as religion, which was the case not just in Belgium but in Europe as a whole. However, the situation in Belgium during the unitary state period was not just marked by Francophone

20 hegemony in language matters only. In fact, and in keeping in line with Wright's theory that language is not merely a marker of identity but is also the single most important instrument in social life, the French-speaking elites in Belgium attempted to ensure that French would remain the social prestige variety. This would guarantee economic, social, and political advantage for French speakers over the majority Dutch-speaking population (Deprez and Vos 1998: 64). The link between language and socio-economic and political dimensions became evident when the language legislation of the early 1960s was followed by political reform in the 1970s. This reform officially recognized cultural communities based on language, fulfilling the demand of the Flemish movement for more cultural autonomy, and provided for the establishment of regions, in order to satisfy the demands of the Francophone communities of Wallonia and Brussels and ensure they maintained a form of control over economic affairs.

One of the major ramifications of the process of state reform is the absence of nation- wide political parties in Belgium. The older parties ceased to exist, and the party system split into two unilingual party systems with the first state reform in the 1970s. The dissolution of nation-wide parties has de-facto rendered all political parties in Belgium regionalist parties catering to territorially and linguistically determined electorate (Deschouwer 2009: 562). In their capacity as representatives of two separate linguistic and cultural communities, political parties in Flanders and Wallonia formulate policies that stem from the regional context, yet at the same time, they are tasked with cooperation at the Federal level. This situation provides for a complex system of governance, as reconciling different regional interests to form coherent Federal policy is often a challenging task. Policies relating to immigration and multiculturalism are an example of the complexity of policymaking in Belgium. As of the latest federal elections in 2019, the major political parties in Belgium can be classified according to the linguistic affiliation and political orientation as follows: On the Flemish side, the Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V) is matched by the Christian Humanist center in Wallonia. On the leftist side of the spectrum, there are two socialist parties: the Sp.a in Flanders and the SP in Wallonia, and two environmentally inclined parties in the form of in Flanders and in Wallonia.

21 Two liberal parties represent both regions: Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Ovl) and the (MR) in Wallonia. The two regions are equally represented by conservative, and autonomous, right-wing parties in the form of the conservative N-VA (New Flemish Alliance) and the secessionist, far-right (VB) on the Flemish side, and the far-right Front National in Wallonia.

Figure three: The outcome of the Belgian Federal election of 2019. Source: Website of the Belgian government

From the Flemish-Walloon duality to the centrifugal effects of modern multiculturalism: a new model for Belgian identity?

The complexity of the question of Belgian identity, which is split along linguistic community lines, is further accentuated by social change that has taken place in Europe since the end of World War Two. Belgium, just like several western European countries, witnessed an increase in foreign immigration that has gradually left its mark on Belgian society and the divisions that already exist within it. The study of the impact of immigration on Belgian society must take into account the multi-level aspect of policymaking in Belgium (Adam 2013, Xhardez 2019, Xhardez 2020). The literature establishes the view that in Belgium,

22 Flanders and Wallonia have both pursued different approaches to the question of immigrant integration, resulting in two different conceptions of multiculturalism (Adam 2013). The literature on the impact of immigration since the 1960s on European societies is rife (Ackleson 2005), (Bertossi 2011), (Burgoon 2014), (Feld 2005), (Sandovici et al. 2012). Nevertheless, similar studies are bound to factor in additional aspects when it comes to the case of Belgium (Xhardez 2016: 2). Due to its linguistic division, the debate about immigration in Belgium cannot be studied in single terms, instead, it should be studied in aggregate terms to reflect the separate policy choices and public debates in the Flemish and Walloon regions, and the Brussels capital region (Vangoidsenhoven and Pilet 2015). Hence, the link between immigration and sub-state identity in Belgium is evident. To understand the workings of the immigration debate on sub-state nationalisms, a discussion of the history of immigration to Belgium is first in due order. It is worth noting that this process of immigration was tightly linked to the trajectory of economic development of the country's regions: already by the end of the 19th century, Wallonia was the economic heartland and suffered labor shortages, which were solved by attracting Italian workers (Barker 2015: 85). By the turn of the 20th century, Wallonia was home to a plethora of migrant organizations like the Italian Societa Dante Alghieri which was founded in 1905 as an interest group defending the right of migrant miners (Barker 2015: 86). By 1946, the signing of the Migration Protocol between Belgium and Italy was achieved mainly by building on the experience of migration from Italy to Wallonia and Brussels. Thus, Wallonia became a host region to an increasing number of migrants much earlier than Flanders.

Historians distinguish between two significant waves of foreign migration to Belgium: "old" pre-World War two migration which had been almost exclusively European and Catholic, and concentrated mainly in Wallonia, in contrast to the "new" post-War immigration which has been much more diverse, including migrants from Morocco and Turkey (Phalet and Swyngdouw 2003: 2). In addition to the general shift in the composition of immigrant flows, the reversal of economic fortunes since the 1960s resulted in a change in migration patterns inter-regionally. Phalet and Swyngdouw argue that between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, a brutal transition to a post-industrial economy occurred in Belgium. With the closure of coal mines, the mining and heavy-industry regions of Wallonia declined, precipitating a wave of socio- economic restructuring that was most felt among immigrant communities (Phalet and

23 Swyngdouw 2003: 5). Owing to the far-reaching consequences of economic change in Belgium, the settlement of immigrants spread north from the old industrial belt to urban industrial regions in Brussels and Flanders. Moreover, the loss of former heavy industry jobs in Wallonia conditioned the start of immigrant integration in new employment sectors and industries. The authors conclude that the preceding transition from predominantly European immigration to more diverse, non-western flows, combined with the abrupt economic restructuring which resulted in the economic decline of Wallonia and the loss of jobs in the heavy industry sector, resulted in the overall slowing down of the process of integration (Phalet and Swyngdouw 2003: 5). From the late 1990s onward, the debate on Belgian identity has gained the added dimension of immigration and integration issues, as part of the transition from a national to multicultural state. The fact that the demographics of major cities have changed radically since the 1960s, with 's population being 38% of foreign background and that of Brussels being of around 62% of foreign background, demonstrated to Belgian politicians, on both sides of the linguistic divide, that Belgium's new reality is no longer one of regional dualism but also of permanent diversity (Petrovic 2012: 6 ). Immigration policy is further complicated in Belgium by the multi-level character of Belgian politics, which reserves competence on migration policy to the federal level despite immigration and integration being inextricably linked to the broader questions of the local language and sub-national/regional identities within Belgium, and Belgium's two-tier political system. Régis Danody argues that Belgium's fractured political system, which provides for two separate party systems instead of nation-wide parties, and the absence of a national political culture due to the local nature of media, have led to general inertia in policymaking. The consequences of this inertia are most felt in the topic of immigration and integration. Since the 1980s, the rise of far-right parties like Vlaams Belang in Flanders and the Front National in Wallonia, has come as a radical reaction to the perceived failure of federal politics, not just in the field of immigration but also in questions of decentralization and language issues (Danody 2014: 202). What sets Belgium apart from several European countries is that pre-existing issues of sub-state nationalism have exacerbated the debate on immigration. Régis Danody sees that far-right regionalist parties combine hard ideology towards immigration with party interests on decentralization and cultural autonomy (Danody 2014: 202).

24 The literature concurs that the divided nature of Belgian politics has had the effect of rendering immigration and integration policies responsive rather than proactive (Petrovic 2012: 6 ) and this ad-hoc immigration approach (Petrovic 2012: 7 ) has, in turn, fueled the rise of far-right nationalist parties which adopted identarian and negative standpoints towards minorities and the federal system. This represents the negative effect of Belgium's linguistic and cultural divide on its migration policy. The literature has established that Belgium's sub-state nationalism and its cultural and linguistic tensions have negatively impacted the integration of immigrants and the creation of a successful multiculturalist model. However, there remains another side to this conclusion that has received much less attention. The effects of immigration and the advent of the policy of multiculturalism on Belgian sub-nationalist identity remains relatively understudied. Therefore, to remedy this gap in the literature, this thesis will investigate the impact of multiculturalism on the classic Flemish and Walloon sub-nationalist movements in order to reach a different perspective on the ongoing discussion of Belgian identity. In this regard, the central research question of "how has sub-state nationalism evolved in Belgium?" will take into consideration the role of increasing social diversity in making Belgium redefine its (sub)national identities.

Chapter Three: Theoretical framework and methodology

Theoretical framework: The sociological theories of immigration

The literature yields several major arguments on the relationship between (sub-state) nationalism and immigration in Belgium. The first and most crucial argument is the absence of a single Belgian model of integration (Martiniello 2003: 230). The codification of federalism in the Belgian constitution of 1993 has created a devolved, multi-level policymaking process in Belgium, whereby the communities, regions, and federal government share tasks that often overlap. In the area of immigration and integration policy, this has led to an ad-hoc approach and the absence of coordination between Belgium's constitutive parts (Martiniello 2003: 231). A second premise that relates to the topic of nationalism and immigration in Belgium is that the fractious nature of immigration and integration policy is also a reflection of more profound division between Flanders and

25 Wallonia that is not only administrative but also ideological in nature. Building on the discussion as mentioned earlier of the strands of ethnic and civic nationalism, the narrative that Flanders subscribes to culturalist, ethnic nationalism while Wallonia adopts a voluntarist, civic nationalism has become a leitmotiv in studies of immigration and nationalism in a Belgian context. Flanders and Wallonia represent divergent "philosophies of immigration and integration" (Favell 2011: 3). The discourse of Kulturnation in Flanders departs from the focus on linguistic homogeneity to become an expression of the rejection of multiculturalist policy and ethnic diversity as threats to Flemish nationalism. The equivalent discourse of staatsnation in Wallonia is largely a reaction to the Flemish viewpoint and portrays the relationship between immigration and nationalism as one of ideological difference in the conception of national identity across Flanders and Wallonia (Blomaert and Verscheuren 1991, 2). The ideological difference translates to a policy differentiation in the area of integration policy, between the Flemish insistence on language, culture, norms and values versus the Walloon interest in "social cohesion, inclusion, and the welcoming character of the region." (Xhardez 2019: 9). Scholars have argued that the difference in policy positions between the Francophone and Flemish political parties can be classified under a "liberal- restrictive" binary, whereby, Francophone parties, not involved in a nation-building project, are generally more receptive towards immigration and immigrant integration compared to the restrictive Flemish attitudes (Adam and Jacobs 2014:72 ). These statements contribute to a widely accepted premise in the literature that the difference between Flanders and Wallonia transcends the linguistic difference to include a difference in the sub-national character. The different conceptions of national identity and immigrant inclusion between Flanders and Wallonia could be explained within the framework of the sociological theories of immigration (Lee 2009: 730). These theories were elaborated to provide an explanatory niche for the rapid social change resulting from immigration, especially in western countries. In this context, one of the earliest sociological theories of immigration is the assimilation theory, which conceives of immigration as a linear process, irrespective of immigrant group characteristics. Within this theory, the responsibility of adjustment and assimilation falls squarely on the immigrants themselves as they choose to join and participate in a new nation (Lee 2009: 731). In this sense, the theory of assimilation conceives of the nation in terms of a homogenous, ethnolinguistic kulturnation. This theory has shaped the official discourse of immigration and integration in Flanders since the start of Flemish nation-building efforts. The Flemish

26 discourse of assimilation stemmed initially from concerns about the linguistic situation. Immigration, particularly from francophone countries, was seen as a threat to the delicate balance between Flemish and French-speaking communities in Belgium, and not necessarily as a threat on ethnic grounds. However, the adoption of the theory of assimilation in Flemish political discourse is still one of the major arguments used to advance the idea that Flemings are more right-wing and xenophobic compared to French-speakers in Belgium (Billiet et al. 2006: 913). The conception of national identity in Wallonia has fostered a different outlook on immigrant integration, shaped most notably by the social capital theory. Walloon "nationalism" has existed in as far as it is a reaction to Flemish nationalism (Brett-Crowther 2013: 168). By this token, it has come to be defined not by what it is, but by what it is not. Michael Brett-Crowther contends that "Walloon identity has never been anything other than work in progress, even in the eyes of those who sought to champion it." (Brett-Crowther 2013: 168). Wallonia's tradition of social democratic governance equally has a bearing on how the region conceives of the place of immigrants in society (van Ginderachter and Leerssen 2012: 239). The social capital theory of migration, which predominates in Wallonia, postulates that immigrants are to be seen as an added value to the host society, which can make use of their skills to replenish its workforce, and that would reflect positively on society as a whole. Within this theory, cultural assimilation is not the goal; rather, the gradual integration of immigrants to the values of the host communities occurs with the help of work and social solidarity (Lee 2009: 740). The adoption of these two different sociological theories of immigration in Flanders and Wallonia is in line with the consensus in the literature that both regions are representative of two variants of nationalist theory (Blommaert and Martiniello 1996: 52).The assimilationist Flemish approach is reflective of a "closed, ethnic-based definition of belonging, whereas the "open," value-based Walloon approach fits within the tradition of civic nationalism, which largely dismisses language and ethnicity as fixed markers of national identity in favor of shared values and voluntary participation. This opposition has become a "heuristic device" commonly used to understand immigrant integration policies in Belgium (Adam 2013: 521). Nevertheless, there are indications that the salience of this opposition is coming under increasing pressure with the advent of a new discourse on nationalism and immigration in Belgium. The most recent scholarship on the topic uncovers that Belgian entities, which "have traditionally taken opposing views on immigrant integration policy converged over a

27 similar instrument." (Xhardez 2019: 1). This lays the groundwork for the analysis, which will be conducted in this thesis. In order to answer the research question of how has sub-state nationalism evolved in Belgium, as a result of social change brought forth by immigration and multiculturalist policies, two main hypotheses will be put forward and tested. The first hypothesis is that the advent of multiculturalism led sub-state nationalisms in Belgium to focus more on immigration issues and less on language conflict. This hypothesis draws into scrutiny the change in the concerns and goals of sub-state nationalist movements in Flanders and Wallonia from purely linguistic issues to broader, identarian, and social concerns. The second hypothesis follows from the first one and postulates that immigration and the associated social change has led to the convergence of nationalist discourse in Flanders and Wallonia and the reduction of differences between the two movements. A closer inspection of the data at hand will help establish whether this hypothesis is correct and, if so, establish the direction of convergence. A particular area of focus will be to check whether increasing multiculturalism is helping Belgium redefine its national identity beyond the classic linguistic divide and the preoccupation with language issues, or if it is entrenching the older divisions and increasing the scale of Belgium's existing problème communautaire.

The methodology of content analysis:

In order to study the effects of multiculturalism on nationalism and regional identity in Belgium, the thesis will focus on how this topic is reflected in political discourse. Deconstructing electoral programs into codes and matching them with a codebook is the first step towards studying the meaning of these codes and the context of their production. That can be done with the help of Political discourse analysis (PDA) theory, which builds on the belief that meaning production is classified, organized, and interpreted by individuals using pre-existing "schemata of interpretation." In this view, individuals possess frames of reference as devices of interpretation towards which the production of political discourse is addressed. Therefore, Public policy discourse, and in the case of Belgium discourse about nationalism and multiculturalism, is carefully constructed to amplify whatever existing frames of reference and thus inform public opinion (Zhongdang and Kosicki 2010: 56).

28 Political discourse, especially in democratic societies, is generally taken as a good representation of public opinion and the relevant social themes. This is because political activity and the political process involves not just politicians but also citizens as voters, forces of pressure, demonstrators, and dissidents. This results in political discourse being a reflection of the various participants in the political process and the issues highlighted in this discourse being salient social issues (van Dijk 1998: 19 ). However, it remains important to point out that political discourse is equally a significant vehicle for the reproduction of policy issues and not just a reflection of them. With this caveat in mind, the theoretical underpinning of this thesis will be in the field of framing analysis, namely, how politicians frame the topics of migration, multiculturalism, nationalism, and identity in Belgium order to influence citizens and inform their attitudes and voting behavior. Political discourse theory is generally defined by the belief that any political issue is open to interpretation from a variety of perspectives, all dependent on the way the issue is represented. According to the form of representation, individuals can reorient their understanding of the topic at hand and form their opinion (Chong and Drukman 2007: 105). In the context of political science, discourse rests on several key concepts, one of these concepts is "frames." Holli A. Semetko and Patti M. Valkenburg define "frames" as "conceptual tools which individuals rely on to convey, interpret, and evaluate information." Their definition focuses mainly on the processes of "selection, emphasis and exclusion" of concepts and ideas so as to generate issues, and direct public opinion (Semetko and Valkenburg 2000: 96). The social science scholarship has established two primary uses for the concept of "frames" in political contexts: the first is referred to as the "frames in communication," which refer to words, phrases, and representations that politicians use to relay information about policy issues to their audience. The second is described as the "frames of thought," or the "individual frames" whereby the audience develops its own understanding of policy issues. This understanding serves as the basis for public attitudes towards policy. Having established political discourse analysis as the theoretical framework to study the evolution of sub-state nationalism in relation to multiculturalism in Belgium, the next step is to study the political party programs at hand in order to establish the link between theory and data. That will be done using the method of coding.

29 In order to study the possible effects of the shift towards multiculturalism on the sub- state nationalist and regionalist movements in Belgium, this thesis relies on the method of content analysis. For this purpose, Election programs from a selection of political parties in Flanders and Wallonia will be coded, focusing on key electoral years, in order to gauge out possible trends in the political goals, discourse, and positions regarding the topic of multiculturalism and stub-state nationalism of the aforementioned parties. Content analysis as a method of social science research descends initially from a tradition of journalistic analysis that traces back to the 1930s and 1940s, especially in the United States. At the time, the shifting socio-political climate birthed new forms of mass media, and that, in turn, laid the groundwork for the emergence of new frameworks of inquiry to capture both the ongoing social change and its portrayal in the mass media. In this regard, content analysis was described by Berelson in the 1950s as "a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication." (Berelson 1952: 18) The focus on communication in content analysis is paramount, given its early links to journalism and mass media in general. Over the subsequent decades, the method of content analysis was elaborated, and its use further expanded to include other areas of social research. Klaus Krippendorff describes content analysis as a repertoire of methods of research that seek to collect inferences from various forms of communication data, be it verbal, visual, or symbolic. He defines the method as "a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts (or other meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use" (Krippendorff 2006: 16). This definition is reflective of the essence of content analysis which is two-fold: Connect the data/text/matter that is subject to analysis to its context of production, to understand the matter at first stage better, and then extrapolate this understanding to wider settings and social phenomena to reach a bigger picture. According to Krippendorff, the scientific method of content analysis is preoccupied with five key concepts: Understanding messages and the predictable effects of (verbal) discourse, surveying the channels of communications and the constraints they may impose on messages, studying the nature of communication itself in as far as the relationship between the sender and receiver is concerned, understanding the nature of systems of communication and moving beyond the limited system of mass media to the interactive systems of internet and social media and lastly, documenting the ongoing shift towards computation which has

30 revolutionized content analysis, capitalizing on the digitalizing capabilities of computational systems to expand and supplement data analysis (Krippendorff 2006: 16). The method of content analysis is, therefore, a useful tool to deconstruct the layers of meaning embedded within communication forms and lends itself particularly well to political text analysis. The application of content analysis to political text is exemplified by Andrea Volkens and Andreas M. Wurst's Euromanifesto coding project, which had as a goal the measurement of election programs across several European countries "to measure policy positions within a common framework." This approach subjects election programs to qualitative content analysis. According to Wurst and Volkens, there are three major advantages to coding electoral programs. Namely, that election programs are a good representation of the range of political standpoints and policy themes, qualifying as the summary of the central statements of each party. Further, electoral programs like party manifestos are the result of internal party agreements and, as such, serve authoritative documents standing for the position of the entire party. Additionally, these documents are made public prior to each election cycle, which allows for the investigation of the change in party positions over time and a salient comparison across parties.

In order to measure the effect of multiculturalism as a significant force for social change on sub-state national and regional identity in Belgium, this thesis will take political party positions, both in Flanders and Wallonia, as an approximate for public opinion and official policy. In order not to have a skewed analysis, this thesis will look at party programs not just from nationalist and secessionist parties, but will also include programs from 'traditional' parties. Having insight from the programs of both categories of parties will help contribute to a balanced discussion that meets the essential requirements of validity and reliability in coding. This is because no conclusive statement can be made about the evolution of sub-state identity in Belgium if one only focused on secessionist parties, which would overlook a significant section of the and the views it represents. Simultaneously, including party programs from various parties boosts the reliability of the outcome, and allows for its replication in other case studies. Additionally, despite the widely accepted view that a distinction exists between parties that are avowedly secessionist and anti-Belgian like Vlaams Belang, and mainstream parties like the Liberals in Flanders and Wallonia (Ovl), Deschouwer argues that Belgium's

31 political system, with its separation of party politics into two major linguistically-determined territorial and electoral units, has de-facto rendered all Belgian political parties regionalist parties, answerable to the respective linguistic communities.

Operationalization:

Social science methods generally distinguish between two forms of content analysis: manual coding and computer-based coding. While manual coding is labor-intensive, coding with the help of software like Atlas.ti has made the method easier and more effective (Elliot 2018: 2857). For this reason, the analysis conducted in this thesis will be done with the help of the specialized coding software Atlas. ti, except for some pieces of text which come in a format that is not suitable for software coding. In this case, the software analysis will be supplemented by manual coding. The literature on social science research presents the case for coding data on the ground that the process of coding helps simplify dense textual material that would otherwise require a lot of effort to understand. Coding does that by selects the key themes relevant to meaning formation within a text. In qualitative studies like the one conducted in this thesis, a code is defined as "a word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data." (Elliott 2018: 2855). An important question arises in this context, which is what constitutes a piece of data suitable for coding. The fact remains that "the larger the chunk of data, the more likely the researcher is to need to assign it more than one code" (Elliot 2018: 2856). For the purpose of simplicity in this thesis, I chose to use snippets or "quasi- sentences," which are a set of words that contain a single political idea (Volkens et al. 2009: 238) as the data suitable for coding. The choice for snippets or "quasi-sentences" as the basic unit of analysis keeps the scale of coding manageable without jeopardizing textual sophistication, which would otherwise be lost if single words are used. For example, instead of using the software Atlas.ti just to tally the incidence the stem "lang." or the word "language," this thesis takes snippets like "linguistic peace" (la paix linguistique), and "the

32 question of " ( Leuven Vlaams) as the basic data to be coded under the code "linguistic problems." This approach yields more insight into the context. The coding process is conducted along three major steps.The first step is the selection of the material that will be coded. The raw data initially at hand is a collection of electoral programs from various political parties in Flanders and Wallonia, spanning the period from 1946 up until 2019. One of the significant challenges that come with analyzing data from political parties in Belgium over time is the fact that Belgium's fractious politics has led to a situation where political parties emerge and dissolve quite regularly. Owing to the separation of national politics along language lines in the 1970s, all political parties started to represent regional constituencies, and the older, nation-wide parties ceased to exist. This is coupled with the fact that Belgium's political system is fractured and includes a large number of parties. As a result, it is a challenging task to maintain continuity of political parties in analysis over time. However, I attempted as much as possible to have a wide selection of parties from various political leanings. Whenever possible, I tried to select the same party from different electoral cycles. The content of the electoral programs is extensive and wide-ranging. Given the sheer number of political parties representing each region in Belgium, it would have been a tall order to try and code content from all party programs in each electoral year. Therefore, a balance between concise analysis and representative data was necessary. To achieve this, I selected political programs that were produced in the lead up to five key national elections in Belgium. The choice for this approach is for the following reasons. To start, while the history of immigration to Belgium is long and stretches as far back as the nineteenth century, the focus of this thesis is on the impact of the shift towards multiculturalism and particularly, the immigration of non-European guest workers to Belgium, which started in the 1960s. This makes political party programs from preceding electoral cycles less relevant to the discussion. The choice of party programs subject to coding is tightly linked to the political process of state reform in Belgium. This would ensure that that the material would be reflective of the broader social and political discussion about Belgian identity, which is sustained in Belgium but tends to especially flare up during electoral cycles that have state reform as an essential policy topic. Accordingly, I selected party programs from five key elections that had the issue of Belgian identity and sub-state nationalism at the heart of the discussion. The First sample is from the elections of 1968, which took place before the introduction of the first state reform in Belgium in 1970. This first wave of state reform

33 would introduce the cultural community system and establish the constitutional provisions for territorial devolution. These two significant policy developments were instrumental to the regionalist movements in Flanders and Wallonia. The second sample is taken from the 1981 election, which came on the heels of the second state reform. Among the most important effects of this wave is the recognition of the Brussels capital region, with its official bilingualism and increasingly diverse population, as a separate legal and cultural entity, besides further devolution in the area of education. The third sample comes from political party programs published in the lead up to the 1991election, which represents a juncture point in Belgium's political history, as it paves the way for the effective and full federalization of Belgium and the end of unitary state system with the third wave of state reform in 1993. The 1991 election and the policy discussion that surrounded it is hence important to understand the general discourse about Belgian identity and the relationship between Belgium's constituent regions and the federal state on the one hand, and the interaction between the sub-state movements in Wallonia and Flanders and the immigration-related social transformation in Belgium on the other hand. The fourth data sample will be taken from party programs presented at the 2007 federal election. The 2007 election is important since it initiated the 2007-2011 Belgian political crisis. This crisis precipitated more far-reaching devolution and highlighted the continued role sub-state nationalism still plays in Belgian politics, despite federalization, demonstrating that the process of state-reform in Belgium is still ongoing. Further, the 2007 election came in the context of an intensifying discussion about the policies of multiculturalism in Europe in general, and in Belgium, in particular. While immigration and the associated issues surrounding the integration of immigrants and national culture began to register in Belgian political discourse starting in the 1990s, they became even more relevant policy themes in the 2010s. Lastly, the fifth sample comes from the most recent federal election, which took place in May 2019. This election is important in the discussion of the relationship between sub- national identities and multiculturalism in Belgium given the fact that it follows the significant influx of asylum seekers to Europe in 2015 and 2016, and as such, can be considered as representative of the most recent political trends and attitudes regarding the research topic. Once the data is selected, the second step in the coding process consists of the elaboration of a coding scheme. Following the conventional content analysis model (Hsieh

34 and Shannon 2005, 1279), I started by reading the selected political party programs, and as I went through the content, I took notes on fragments of text (quasi-sentences) that are related to the main hypotheses of this thesis. According to Hsieh and Shannon, the coding scheme should be derived from text fragments that appear to capture the key thoughts and concepts connected to the goals of the research (Hsieh and Shannon 2005, 1279). I then came up with labels for the fragments of text I identified as of interest to the topic. These labels represent the initial coding scheme that is further refined into specific categories for which definitions were set. Codebook:

Code Sub-codes Definition

Federalism Regions, Walloon Part of the state regionalism, reform process to address Communities, territory. the linguistic problems,

devolution of power and oversight to the regions, dismantling of the unitary state structure Belgium State (État), The Belgian state Belgians, national, as a binding force, a Brussels (in reference to national framework the Federal/ central government) Linguistic conflict Culture, The division of Francophones, Taal, Belgium into French- Leuven Vlaams/Affaire de speaking and Dutch Louvain, Linguistic peace speaking parts along the (La paix linguistique), taalgrens and the

35 Halle-Veelvoorde, tensions resulting from education this linguistic situation Flemish Vlamingen, Vlaams, References to the nationalism Volk, Flemish movement, Independence, secession from Belgium, separation, sovereignty. Flanders as a nation. Multiculturalism Immigration, The transformation integration, values, of Belgian society through Brussels (in reference to immigration into a linguistic and cultural diverse, multi-ethnic, diversity), Europe, multi-lingual and multi- refugees, guest-workers, cultural society that Islam, Muslims. transcends the traditional Flemish/Walloon divide.

The choice for these five major codes and the associated number of sub-codes is consistent with the widely accepted approach in content analysis of keeping the number of codes limited. In fact, while the number of codes in any research project can vary arbitrarily, Creswell recommends collapsing the initial labels into about five codes that guide the findings section of the qualitative report (Creswell 2015: 156). The third step in the coding process is counting the number of references under each code. Although counting as a method of interpreting the results of coding remains controversial within the qualitative approach, due to its pronounced quantitative character, counting can be a useful indicator of the relevance of specific codes (Elliott 2018: 2857). In this regard, it is not necessarily the number of times a code appears in the data that is indicative of the importance of that code. Instead, it is how widespread it is across the sample that matters more (Elliott 2018: 2857). The outcome of the coding process with the various steps I mentioned is reported in the following section.

36

Chapter four: Results

Figure four: graph with the coded data from the 1968 election manifestos

The selection of parties from the 1968 election includes the Socialist Party of Belgium (PSB), The Volksunie (VU), the (Parti de la Liberte et du progress PLP), and the Rassemblement Wallon (RW). In the lead up to the 1968 election, Belgium was still a unitary state with nation-wide parties. However, a pattern of region-based party discourse was already beginning to emerge by the late 1960s. For instance, the socialist party has had a more substantial presence in the French-speaking part of Belgium. In contrast, parties like

37 the Volksunie derived its support exclusively from the Dutch-speaking population. Hence, despite the unitary system the parties had to compete in, differences in discourse existed not just along ideological but also regional lines. References to multiculturalism, immigration, and the associated social change were already present in the discourse of various political parties in Flanders and Wallonia, although to varying degrees. The electoral program of the Socialist Party in Wallonia devoted slightly more attention to the topic, in relation to the ongoing economic-reconstruction of the country following the second world war and the crucial role guest workers played in that process. In line with the Social party's emphasis on economic recovery and a more equitable national economy, references to immigration were part of a broader economic argument. They did not have particular significance in relation to an official discourse of social diversity or multiculturalism policy. References to other topics were much more pronounced in the electoral programs of parties across Flanders and Wallonia. The theme of language policy and the associated linguistic-communities problems feature prominently in the discourse of all selected parties from 1968, interestingly, especially in the discourse of Francophone parties. This could be seen as a reaction to Flemish demands for cultural and political autonomy in the form of federalism. Form the 1968 party programs, two parties devote a significant amount of attention to the Flemish demand for autonomy. The Volksunie leads with the most references to Flemish nationalism, followed by the Rassemblement Wallon. Overall, based on the data, the topic of Flemish nationalism and the push for autonomy and a federal system was far more prominent than any other issue. This is logical since the 1968 election was conducted just before the onset of the state reform process, which would eventually introduce the federal system. This also explains the significant presence of the code on federalism and state reform which registers a strong presence in the discourse in three out the of the four selected political parties Linguistic conflict is also perceptible through the political party programs, especially in the agenda of the Socialist Party and the Rassemblement Walloon. This is telling about the political dynamics of the first state reform, as the Flemish demanded cultural and political autonomy, the Francophones emphasized the French language as a factor of national unity and opposition to a "Belgo-flamand" state, a Federal Belgium dominated by Dutch speakers (Deschouwer 2009: 561). Therefore, the data from the 1968 electoral cycle yields several insights. While the question of state reform and the transition towards more devolution for the respective linguistic communities occupied the central position in the programs of parties in Flanders

38 and Wallonia, the topic of social change resulting from immigration and the formulation of multicultural policy started to claim a degree of attention within the programs of some parties, albeit initially from an economic perspective. At this stage, both nationalist and sub- nationalist political attitudes towards the social change brought about by immigration are overall positive, reflecting an understanding of immigrants as social capital within the framework of the sociological theories of migration (Lee 2009: 730). Immigrants bring added value to the host societies, and immigration and integration are largely uncontroversial topics.

Figure five: graph with the coded data from the 1981 election manifestos

From the 1981 election, a larger sample was taken, to account for the split of the traditional nation-wide parties into regional parties in the 1970s and the emergence of new parties with a different political orientation like the Greens. The data was selected from the electoral programs of Vlaamse Bloc (VB), the far- right Flemish secessionist party that split off the Volksunie, the Christian People's Party (Christelijke Volkspartij CVP ), which descended from the split of the Christian social party along linguistic lines, the Rassemblement Wallon (RW), the Socialist Party of Wallonia (PS),

39 the Flemish Liberal Party for freedom and progress (PVV), the Volksunie, and the Flemish Green Party (Groen). The 1981 election followed the second state reform, which took place in 1980 and transformed the earlier established cultural communities into communities with oversight over more matters of policy. The second wave of state reform is thus reflected in the data. As more devolution occurred and the dismantling of the unitary state structure continued, references to the code "Belgium," which represents the state and central government, were dwarfed by references to codes relating to sub-state nationalism, regional identity and language issues. This pattern in the data reflects the continued decline of Belgian national identity and the associated rise in sub-national identities. It is noteworthy that the electoral program of a traditional party like the Liberal party for freedom and Progress (PVV) contained almost as many references to the code "Belgium" as parties that are more avowedly regionalist and secessionist like the Volksunie and the Vlaams Bloc. References to the code "Federalism" constitute a significant portion of the electoral programs across all parties with the Christian Democrats and Flemish (CD&V) and the Socialist Party (PS), both leading in numerical terms. This reveals a pattern of change in Belgian politics, whereby the traditional parties that had hitherto primarily subscribed to the unitary state idea converged in discourse with the more regionalist and sub-nationalist parties as a result of the separation of politics into two distinct linguistically-determined constituencies. Remarkably, references to the code "linguistic conflict," which encompasses all topics relating to the question of language and linguistic policy, state bilingualism and the taalgrens, were not the only recurrent theme in the electoral programs of Flemish sub- nationalist parties that built their case on language-based nationalism like the Volksunie and Vlaams Bloc. The code "Multiculturalism" with all of its associated references equally registers a strong presence in the discourse of secessionist parties. The political party that laid the most emphasis on the code "linguistic conflict" from the 1981 election data sample is the Christian People's Party (CVP). This could be explained by a realignment in the political demands, and goals of parties in Belgium as the process of state reform progressed. The more regionalist and secessionist Flemish parties, which initially laid strong emphasis on language issues to inform the political discussion about state reform, began to see their demands for more linguistic and cultural devolution achieved. As a result, they hardened their demands from a purely linguistic and cultural basis towards regional autonomy that includes economic and political considerations (This explains why by the

40 1981 election the code "Flemish nationalism" features more prominently in the electoral program of VB than the strictly language-related code). The traditional parties like the socialist party in Wallonia and The Christian People's Party (CVP) accordingly readjusted their approach to the topic of state reform, from maintaining a solution to Belgium's divisions within the framework of a compromise in a Belgian unitary state to focusing on language rights as a means of counterbalancing the more radical demands of sub-nationalist and Flemish secessionist parties. This constitutes an example of how certain political parties can exert outsized influence over the general political discourse and thus sway the entire discussion on a certain topic towards their goals (Heinish et al. 2019: 2). In this case, as autonomist and regionalist parties radicalized their demands in Belgium from just cultural and linguistic autonomy towards economic and political autonomy, the more mainstream and traditional parties moved in to occupy the initial ideological position vacated by sub-nationalist parties, namely laying emphasis on language and culture. The data from 1981 also reveals the increasing importance of the topic of immigration and the resulting social change. All electoral programs represented in the data sample from the 1981 election contained references linked to the code "Multiculturalism," with the CVP, the RW, and the Socialist Party leading the number of references. This reflects the ongoing transition in the discourse of these traditional parties at the time from perceiving immigration in mostly economic terms and as a temporary process, to accepting the permanent nature of immigrant settlement in Belgium. The sub-state nationalist parties with a more pronounced autonomist orientation like Vlaams Bloc and the Volksunie accorded attention to the topic too. However, based on the lower incidence of the code "multiculturalism" in the electoral program of VB for instance (relative to other parties), and the language they used to refer to the topic ("Guest workers" instead of "immigrants"), one can conclude that by this stage the major preoccupation of the Flemish sub-nationalist movement remained to expand the movement from its purely linguistic and cultural basis to a broader political and economic dimension. Immigration and the accompanied social change were perceived negatively; however, the transition towards multicultural society was not yet a significant concern to the Flemish sub-nationalist movement in the 1980s.

41

Figure six: graph with the coded data from the 1991 election manifestos

The next data set comes from electoral programs formulated in the lead up to the 1991 election. The parties represented in this sample are the Christian people's party (Christelijke Volkspartij CVP), The Vlaams Bloc (VB), The party for freedom and progress (PVV-PLP), The socialist party (SP), and the Francophone green party Ecolo. The 1991 election is of crucial importance to the evolution of sub-state nationalism in Belgium for two main reasons. It was the final election before the adoption of the new Belgian constitution in 1993, which formally instituted federalism, completing the process of transforming Belgium from a unitary state to a fully federal state. Besides, the 1991 election marked a big electoral reversal of fortunes with the unprecedented success of the far-right Vlaams Bloc and a decline in the share of votes that went to traditional parties like the CVP and the SP. These facts are reflected in the data in two ways. The number of references grouped under the code "Federalism" declined drastically among all represented parties compared to the 1981 election. This reveals the fact that the discussion about transitioning to a Federal system already reached its conclusion by the 1991 election, reducing the importance of state reform in relation to other issues. References grouped under the code "linguistic conflict" also decline in comparison to the two previous election cycles. This demonstrates the relationship

42 between the state reform process and Belgium's linguistic issues. As the two are interconnected, and the process of instituting federalism was initiated to try and mitigate the country's linguistic problems, the transition towards a Federal system tempered the relevance of language issues in Belgium in the 1990s. However, this is not the only reason behind the decline of references to the code "linguistic problems" in party programs from the 1991 election. The rise of other issues attracted increasing attention within the broader social discussion, and certainly in the discourse of political parties in all linguistic regions in Belgium. Data from the 1991 election reveals that another code experienced a spike in the number of references associated with it, namely the code "multiculturalism." As mentioned in the coding scheme, this code encompasses all references to topics of immigration and integration, besides references to the multicultural aspect of big cities like Brussels, whose population diversified rapidly. The previous graph shows a clear increase in references to the topic, across all parties represented in the data sample, regardless of their ideological orientation and constituency. It is noteworthy that for a party like Vlaams Bloc, which built its political platform on language-based demands for Flemish independence, the code "linguistic problems" is far exceeded by the code "multiculturalism" in the party's manifesto. This is very telling about the shift in the party's perception of immigration as the most important policy issue, even more so than language-related problems. In this regard, the fixation of Vlaams Bloc on the topic of immigration is an early indication of the general trend across all parties in Belgium towards more focus on the topic of immigration.

43

Figure seven: graph with the coded data from the 2007 election manifestos

The data sample from the 2007 election includes insight from various parties like the Vlaams Belang (VB) (as the Vlaams Bloc rebranded following a racism-related court ruling against it in 2004), the Francophone green party Ecolo, the Flemish green party Goren, the Walloon socialist party (PS), the New Flemish Alliance (NV-A), the Movement Reformateur (MR) and the Libertair, Direct, Democratisch party (LDD)( a minor party in Flanders). The sample is representative of various ideological strands across the taalgrens. The 2007 data sample is important since it captures political attitudes to various topics in the lead up to one of the most consequential elections in recent decades in Belgium. The 2007 election ushed in the start of political crisis and a government-formation impasse that lasted until 2011, earning Belgium the reputation as the country with the most protracted government formation process in the world. Many of the issues that precipitated this political crisis have to do with national identity, immigration, and its impact and sub-state national and cultural identity. The data reveals a clear pattern: all selected parties, regardless of their linguistic constituency, focused extensively on the topic of immigration and the policy of

44 multiculturalism in their electoral programs. This is represented by the number of references under the code "multiculturalism," which numerically far exceed all other codes, reflecting the continuation of a trend that we noticed in the previous election cycle among Vlaams Bloc. Looking at the data, we can deduce that By 2007, immigration and the discussion of multiculturalism is no longer the reserve of parties on the radical right. Instead, it imposed itself as a salient topic for all political parties in Flanders and Wallonia. The data also shows a skewed picture, whereby the references to immigration and multiculturalism are generally more frequent in the electoral programs of Flemish parties compared to Francophone parties. In this context, The data yields interesting insights. For instance, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), which has portrayed itself as a nationalist, secessionist party promoting Flemish nationalism, produced a political party program that included more references to the code "multiculturalism" than it did to the code "linguistic nationalism." This is an indication of the changing nature of the Flemish movement, whereby language concerns are becoming somewhat less relevant as the political discussion shifts towards immigration. The same applies to the electoral program of Vlaams Belang, which contained more emphasis on immigration than language. On the Wallon side, a similar pattern could be deduced from the data. The two major Francophone parties- Movement Reformateur (MR) and The Socialist Party (SP), published electoral programs that contained more references to the code "multiculturalism" than the code "Linguistic conflict." This indicates that also on the French-speaking side, immigration is rising in the list of political priorities, while language topics are increasingly relegated a second place.

45

Figure eight: graph with the coded data from the 2019 election manifestos

The final sample from the 2019 federal election is taken from the electoral programs of five political parties that represent the largest political forces in their respective linguistic communities. On the Flemish side, data were coded from the electoral programs of The New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) and Vlaams Belang (VB). Combined, these two parties gained 43 seats in the Belgian federal parliament. On the Walloon side, data were coded from the electoral programs of the Socialist Party (PS), the Movement Reformateur (MR), and the green party Ecolo. Combined, these two parties scooped 46 seats in the federal parliament. Thus, the data sample can be seen as a representation of the majority political attitude towards the topic of sub-state nationalism in its relation to immigration and multiculturalism. Based on the data sample collected from the 2019 federal election, several interesting observations can be made. The first observation concerns the remarkable "resurgence" in references to the code "linguistic conflict", particularly in the discourse of the Flemish parties. This fact indicates a renewed relevance of the topic of language and the defense of the Flemish language in political discourse. While at face value, this may seem like a return to the classic conflict over state bilingualism and the rivalry between French and Dutch in Belgium, it has to do with the effects of immigration and multiculturalism. Political parties,

46 especially Flemish parties, are increasingly assertive about the integration of newcomers through language learning and the adoption of the Dutch language. The theme "language" now plays two major roles: It is drawn upon when discussing the unresolved question of the language boundary, particularly in and around the city of Brussels (Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde). And it also has been appropriated within a broader framework of "values" to promote the integration of immigrants. The second observation concerns a spike in the number of references to the code "Federalism," which encompasses all references to the topics of state reform, decentralization, confederalization, and policy devolution. Coming in the context of the 2019 election, which resulted in a lengthy government formation period that almost exceeded Belgium's 2007 record, this increase in references to federalism is indicative of a political willingness to put further state reform on the political agenda. The political gridlock which occurred following the 2019 election is the latest in a series of political gridlocks, and that seems to have urged political parties across the language border to devote more attention to the topic. References to the code "multiculturalism" remain important, too, particularly in the discourse of Flemish parties. This can be explained by the effects of the 2015-2016 "refugee crisis," which witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of asylum seekers across all of Europe. This development seems to have weighed heavily on the discourse of all political parties in Belgium (Bozdag and Smets 2017: 4056).

47 Incidence of the codes related to language and multiculturalism in Flanders and Wallonia over various electoral cycles 250

200

150

100

50

0 1968 1981 1991 2007 2019 election election election election election Code Multiculturalism Flanders Code Multiculturalism Wallonia Code Linguistic problems Flanders code Linguistic problems Wallonia

Figure nine: summary graph of the incidence over time of the codes “linguistic conflict” and “multiculturalism”.

The graph (figure nine) visualizes a comparison of the discourse of party programs from Flanders and Wallonia, concerning the two topics of "multiculturalism" and "linguistic problems." The number of codes for each of these two topics was counted in the electoral programs of all parties representing each linguistic community that electoral year. For example, for the electoral year 2007, the number of codes for "linguistic conflict" in Flanders was collected from the texts published by Vlaams Belang, Goren, N-VA, and LDD. Then, the codes were added to arrive at a total figure, this was replicated with francophone parties, and the two figures were compared to make this graph. The graph visualizes several trends.

48 The first trend concerns the exponential growth in references to the code "multiculturalism" in the party programs from both Flanders in Wallonia between 1968 and 2019. While in 1968, references to language and linguistic issues predominated political discourse in Francophone Belgium, and the Flemish leaning parties laid their focus more on stoking Flemish nationalism beyond linguistic rights, references to multiculturalism were limited. This can be explained by the fact that the immigration of non-European guest workers has just begun by that time, and it was largely seen in economic terms (van Goidsenhoven and Pilet 2015: 53). References to multiculturalism began to increase steadily in the discourse of Francophone parties following the 1968 election, mainly because the dominant political orientation in Wallonia was of socialist nature (van Ginderachter and Leerssen 2012: 234). The socialist party emphasized social democracy through improving the labor conditions for the working class, which happened to include newly arrived guest workers and their families. Therefore, immigration started to feature early in the discourse of Francophone parties. For parties representing the Dutch-speaking part, the 1981 election marked a turning point in terms of discourse about immigration and multiculturalism. The data shows a tremendous increase in the references to the code "multiculturalism" in Flemish electoral programs. This has to do with the rapid socio-economic changes brought forth by the 1973 Oil crisis. This crisis affected Belgium, too, and resulted in an economic recession, with high unemployment and economic downturn (Website of the Federal Planning Bureau 2006). Non-European Immigrants, who overwhelmingly came as guest workers in the late 1960s to fill in labor shortages accompanying the post-war economic recovery, found themselves unemployed (van Goidsenhoven and Pilet 2015: 53). The fact that the crisis was felt even more in Wallonia with the closure of its heavy industries and the release of many migrant workers from the coal and heavy industry jobs resulted in an internal migration of non-European guest workers from the declining industrial belt in the south to urban centers in Flanders and Brussels. This brought immigrants and the Flemish into contact and often created social tensions with the widespread perception that immigrants are now competing with the local Flemings for employment, housing, and social provisions. These tensions thus began to manifest themselves in Flemish political discourse starting in the 1980s, as we can see from the data in the graph. The second trend concerns reference to linguistic problems in Belgium. The data shows that references to the code "Linguistic problems" are overall more common in the discourse of Flemish parties. This can be explained by the fact that the Flemish nationalist

49 movement crystallized around language nationalism (Shelby 2014: 47). It comes then as no surprise that language has been an important theme in the discourse of Flemish parties. The graph indicates that between the 2007 and the 2019 elections, references to the code "linguistic nationalism" spiked dramatically, for both Flemish and Walloon parties. However, this increase is more pronounced in the discourse of Flemish parties. This development is to be explained by the renewed relevance of the theme of language in relation to immigration and the integration of new arrivals. As figure nine shows, following the introduction of language legislation in the 1960s, references to the code "linguistic conflict" declined in Walloon political discourse, and remained relatively low in Flemish political discourse up until the 1980s, when the code "linguistic conflict" was redefined in relation to integration policies. The emphasis began to fall on the role of language in the integration of immigrants. This trend, which can be discerned in both Flemish and Walloon political discourse, set forth into the 2019 election and is likely to continue given the ongoing politicization of the topic of multiculturalism and integration in Belgium.

Chapter Five: Political Discourse analysis and discussion

The coding of political text like electoral programs allows for the categorization of the major axes of interest within these texts and the detection of the most important ideas that are often embedded in broader language. However, coding in and of itself is only a first step towards understanding the meaning of the text. A fuller understanding of political messages can only be achieved when their context of production, their audience, and their intended goals are exposed with the help of political discourse analysis (henceforth referred to as PDA). This raises the question as to what is political discourse and how it could be used to assess the outcome of the coding process critically? Teun Van Dijk admits that coming up with a definition for Political discourse can be a challenging task, as the concept refers to "various ways of doing politics". However, he stresses that "most political actions, such as passing laws, decision-making, meeting, and campaigning, are largely discursive" (Van Dijk 1998: 18). Hence, political party manifestos are instruments of political discourse illustrative of the relationship between context and political agenda. Further, van Dijk contends that political discourse can be defined with reference to its actors, that is, the politicians or political institutions that author the text (van Dijk 1998: 12).

50 Within the case study of Belgium, political parties across Flanders and Wallonia constitute the authors of political discourse. Teun van Dijk argues that "context is decisive in the categorization of discourse as political or not," this is certainly the case when parties approach the topics of sub-state nationalism and social change in Belgium (Van Dijk 1998: 14). The importance of discourse to the understanding of political texts is further stressed by Fairclough and Wodack, who explain that discourse, "that is language use in speech and writing," is a form of "social practice" that illustrates "a relationship between a particular discursive event (election) and the situation (context of state reform, the refugee crisis, multiculturalism). They argue that institutions and social structures like political parties shape discursive events (elections), but are also shaped by discourse. From their perspective, "discourse is socially constitutive as well as socially conditioned (Fairclough and Wodack 1997: 258).

Applying the concept of PDA to the political data at hand and the results of the coding process, a number of important conclusions can be drawn about the evolution of sub- state nationalism in Belgium and how it interacted with the immigration-driven diversification of Belgian society. As the first data set illustrates, the 1960s in Belgium were a period of economic and social recovery after the war. Simultaneously, they were a period of simmering tensions at the level of sub-state nationalism. Following the end of World War II, the Flemish movement entered a period of stagnation as the country processed the effects of the second experience of German occupation and the second attempt at Flamenpolitik (Keys and Peeters Grietens 2017: 4), which sought to stir up Flemish nationalism and drive a wedge between the country's two linguistic communities. Just like the first world war, the conflict cast a negative light on Flemish nationalism which was associated with collaboration, and for the next 20 years after 1945, the Flemish movement had to work on rehabilitating itself and realigning its goals to regain traction in Belgium (Keys and Peeters Grietens 2017: 4). Ultimately, this rehabilitation occurred by the mid-1960s with the return to language conflict themes. The adoption of language legislation to establish the linguistic borders of each community (taalgrens wetgeving), alongside the passing of legislation to guarantee the bilingual character of Brussels are policy issues that are clearly reflected in the coded data from the 1968 election. As the data shows, the two major codes were "Flemish nationalism" and "Linguistic conflict'. Hence, it can be argued that the 1960s, prior to the start of the state

51 reform in Belgium, sub-state nationalism focused mostly on the more pressing issues of re- organization and addressing the traditional topic of linguistic conflict. In fact, the most striking reference within the electoral programs of parties from the 1968 election is connected to the "linguistic conflict" code. The constant mentions of "Affaire de Louvain" and "Leuven Vlaams" refers to the single most policy issue which informed the discussion at the time: the issue of language at university, and by extension, the status of official bilingualism. The conflict over the language of instruction at the University of Leuven resulted in the split of the university into two institutions and triggered a political crisis that was one of the leading causes behind the start of the state reform process and the move towards federalization (Vandendriessche and Nys 2017: 4). Given this intense standoff over language, it comes as no surprise that all other policy issues were secondary. Concerning the topic of immigration, political discourse among parties from both linguistic communities was positive, especially in Francophone political party programs. This is explained by the fact that in the post-World War Two period, Belgium attracted labor immigration through its industries in the then prosperous region of Wallonia (Gemenne 2009: 44). Within the framework of the sociological theories of immigration, Labor immigration played a crucial role in economic recovery, immigrants were seen as social capital, and as a result, they did not initially represent a challenge to social cohesion in Belgium (Gemenne 2009: 48). When looking at the data from the 1981 election, a remarkable pattern can be seen. There is a reversal in the space accorded to the codes "Linguistic conflict" and "multiculturalism," with the latter overtaking the first to become one of the most prominent codes in electoral programs that year besides the code "Federalism." This can be accounted for with two major reasons: The first has to do with a broader socio-economic change that affected Belgium in the late 1970s (van Meerten 2014: 63) The oil crisis and the subsequent economic fallout brought an end to labor shortages that were remedied by the arrival of guest workers. As a result, Belgium tightened its immigration policy and halted labor immigration. However, this did not address the fact that immigrants already settled in the country had to move into other labor sectors and the widespread perception among large sections of Belgian society that immigrants are now competing with the locals for work in the midst of a difficult economic situation (van Meerten 2014: 63). This generated two forms of discourse in the political programs of parties, roughly corresponding to the two major linguistic communities in the country. Within Flemish political discourse, the focus was on the problematization of irregular migrants and the need to restrict immigration even further to deal with the

52 disappearance of spontaneous labor opportunities. Flemish parties, and the Flemish nationalist movement, in particular, accorded extreme importance in their discourse on the topic of immigration due to the prospect of the creation of the Brussels capital region in the 1980s. Since the start of labor immigration in the mid-1960s, and especially after the decline of mining and heavy industries in Wallonia, Brussels has been home to an increasing number of residents of foreign origin who represent an increasingly important electoral bloc. In this context, Hepburn and Zapata Herrorp explain that "territorial and linguistic cleavages interact with the issue of immigration in peculiar ways”: while some parties may perceive immigration as threatening the identity or language of their territory, others may view immigration as a way to boost their membership vis-à-vis the state in their claims for self- determination (Hepburn 2014: 43). The case of Brussels illustrates Eve Hepburn’s argument and provides many insights into the interaction between the codes "Linguistic nationalism" and "multiculturalism." From the perspective of Francophone parties (Parties in Wallonia and parties representing the Francophone majority in Brussels), appealing to the Brussels voters of foreign origin is important, especially that the majority of immigrants in Brussels are francophone ( by virtue of coming from francophone countries like Morocco or the Congo, or having lived and worked in Wallonia prior to resettling in Brussels after the economic decline of the region). Therefore, discourse about immigration in the Brussels area has been tightly linked to linguistic considerations. On the Flemish side, a major concern was halting the combination of Francophone domination over Brussels and the increasing diversification of the city, which would further limit the influence of the Dutch-speaking minority in Brussels. Hence, discourse about immigration in Francophone electoral programs from the 1981 election was mostly positive, retaining the idea that immigrants are social capital and supplementing that with linguistic and cultural considerations. The largely positive attitude of Walloon official discourse regarding immigration went hand in hand with the Walloon socialist tradition, especially that the process of immigrant integration had up that point taken place with the help of "intermediary groups like labor unions" (Mandin 2014: 9). Discourse in the Flemish electoral programs about immigration was mostly negative, reflecting increasing unease about the linguistic, cultural, and demographic situation in Brussels and the other major cities.

53 By the 1991 election, the trend of more references to the code "multiculturalism" was further confirmed, conveying the changing attitudes towards the topics of immigration and integration in Belgium. By this stage, a difference in discourse about these topics between the Flemish and Walloon sides could still be discerned. In both Wallonia and the newly created Brussels capital region, ethnic minorities were not officially recognized, not so much as a rejection of their presence, but rather as a way of fostering cohesion within a civic model of nationalism to which ethnic background did not matter. In these two francophone areas, integration in the 1990s was mainly tackled through general socio-economic policies targeting not only immigrants but also large segments of the population. Hence, the official discourse of parties like the PS, MR from the 1991 election was rife with references to "la lutte contre l'exclusion" (fighting exclusion), "anti-racism", "social welfare", etc. On the Flemish side, the emphasis was placed on the promotion of cultural and linguistic conformity, and official integration discourse has progressively entered the Flemish political agenda, with references to "values," "inburgering" and "culture" gaining importance. It is worth noting here that in Flemish discourse, the codes "linguistic conflict" and "multiculturalism" are not necessarily distinct and competing. Flemish party discourse often conflated the two, integrating the older interest in protecting and promoting the Dutch language into a newer concern with the protection of "Flemish values" and broader cultural terms. For instance, the concept of Inburgering, while being an apparent reference to the code "multiculturalism," also conveys elements of the code "linguistic problems" since mandatory Dutch language courses are part and parcel of the inburgeirng process." Hence, the use of PDA confirms the argument that regional immigrant integration policies in Belgium were for a long time divergent. Studying the tone of the language used in both regions to refer to immigration and integration indicates that up until the 1990s, "the convergence of the integration policies of the two Belgian communities was limited (Adam 2013: 554). Notwithstanding their reluctance to coordinate policy and strategy within the framework of Belgium's dual federalism, the fact remains that by the 1990s, Flanders and Wallonia shared an interest in addressing the question of immigrant integration. This was to be conducted through two different approaches. Wallonia's interest in immigrant integration is mainly driven by its interest in the Francophone Brussels capital region with its increasingly diverse population. The demographics of Brussels has faced the Walloon socialist party, as the leading party in the region, with the fact that immigrant inclusion can no longer remain "color blind" and under the broader heading of "social cohesion." Due to

54 mainly electoral considerations, Wallonia and the Francophone parties, at large, conceived of the granting of political and citizenship rights to immigrants as an incentive for integration and social engagement. On the opposite side of the linguistic border, Flemish parties considered the granting of political rights instead as the reward for a process of integration. (Adam 2013: 561). Regardless of which position taken by the Francophone or Flemish parties, their convergence on the need to have integration policy is evident by this stage.

When taking a closer look at party discourse from the 2007 election, it could be argued that this divergence began to diminish. In fact, the period leading up to the 2007 election can be considered as the culmination of communitarian polarization about language, identity and immigration subjects (van Drom 2010: 82), and that the "9-month debacle to reach a consensus on the formation of a government and possible state reform" (van Drom 82) may have contributed to narrowing the differences in policy approach between the Flemish and Walloon sides. Overall, Jérémy Mandin identifies three major trends that permeated political discourse about immigration in Belgium by the mid-2000s, irrespective of the region or community. The first is about "the culturalization of social problems", whereby difficulties with immigrant integration are perceived as a cultural problem. This evokes a shift in the sociological approach to the topic of immigration, from viewing immigration in the framework of social capital theory towards the increasing adoption of an assimilationist approach (socio). In this regard, the data corroborate the "culturalization of social problems," with topics like Islamic religious practices (headscarves) being overrepresented in discourse about immigrant integration, and social and economic problems facing the foreign-origin population like unemployment and ghettoization, being often interpreted as a cultural. The second trend in Belgian political discourse is described by Mandin as the "crystallization of integration discourses around Muslims", and especially after 2001, the conflation of integration and Islam in political discourse. In both Flanders and Wallonia, discourse gradually converged around the idea that the integration of Muslim immigrants into the norm of "western values" remains the most challenging task in their respective integration policies. Although the integration of immigrants became a community competence by the late 1980s, Flemish, and Walloon political discourse regarding the topic did not diverge further. Instead, since the mid-2000s, it has been converging around the preoccupation with the status of Islam in society and the defense of western norms and values, much to the detriment of

55 other salient topics. Mandin argues that as a result of the increased fixation with Islam, the third major trend in political discourse in Belgium by the mid-2000s is "the relative invisibility of some migrant populations (namely EU immigrants) as discourse focuses on populations from a poor socio-economic background." (Van Drom 2010: 83). The steady increase in references to the code "multiculturalism" in the data from the 2007 election also indicates the convergence of the tone of immigration and integration discourse in Flanders and Wallonia. As mentioned earlier, the 2007 election marked the start of one of the most challenging government formation negotiations in Belgium's modern history. The theme of immigration occupied the central stage in these negotiations as the Flemish demands for much tighter immigration legislation were weighed against the liberal francophone position regarding integration and nationality (Adam and Jacobs 2013). The ensuing political crisis, combined with the sustained pressure resulting from the electoral success of radical right parties like Vlaams Belang, and the ever-present prospect of the breakup of Belgium and the secession of Flanders, may have contributed to a shift in official Francophone discourse about immigration to accommodate the Flemish position. Catherine Xhardez contends that, indeed, "sub-national integration policies have converged towards a strong focus on compulsory civic-integration in both the Flemish and Francophone jurisdictions" (Xhardez 2019: 1). By 2014, Wallonia's "Colorblind", French republican inspired take on immigrant integration, and the overall "laissez-faire" approach to immigrants began to change in the direction of the more stringent Flemish model which emphasizes language learning and values. By 2016, Wallonia adopted a compulsory inburgering style trajectory for immigrants. Xhardez cites a number of explanations for the convergence of discourse on immigration in both sub-nationalist movements. A leading reason for this convergence is the "policy learning" factor, whereby political parties, usually across national borders, observe policy development and outcomes and develop their own versions to apply in a local setting in case of policy success. While the study of the "policy learning" factor has largely been conducted to focus on convergence on a national level, it also lends itself to application in the meso level of sub-state politics. In the Belgian context, the process of policy learning has occurred inter-regionally, with Walloon politics observing the strengths and limitations of the harder line of Flemish politics on immigration and integration matters, and subsequently adopting various elements of that policy as an alternative to the previous liberal approach. A second reason for the observed convergence in immigration discourse in Flanders and Wallonia, which was cited by Xhardez as well as Roger Brubaker, is the advent of the

56 general, European-wide trend of re-framing nationalism in cultural and civilizational terms. In this new form of "nationalism," the traditional understanding of national origin as a strict factor of distinction between countries is made obsolete in favor of the reification of cultural and civilizational differences and the emphasis on western values versus the "other." The "other" is often Islam (Brubaker 2017: 3). The notion of a civilizational threat from Islam that faces all European nations is a major premise upon which this new form of disguised nationalism rests. This trend has paradoxically not only brought nationalist parties towards transnational cooperation, in the case of Belgium, it also seems to have brought Walloon and Flemish nationalisms closer as they steadily antagonize Islam and immigration rather than each other.

By 2007, applying PDA to the data at hand also shows that language has not lost its status as one of the key themes of discussion in both federal entities in Belgium. In fact, the preoccupation with discussing immigration and the policy of multiculturalism has increased steadily, yet it did not detract from the presence and importance of language in Belgian political discourse. Jan Blommaert stresses that "the socio-linguistic political history of Belgium is not linear, and contains several major turning points." (Blommaert 2011: 1). The code "linguistic problems" has not lost significance as much it has been re- adjusted to reflect the changing political context in Belgium. Following the 1963 language legislation which instituted the linguistic frontier (taalgrens), the discussion on language in Belgium transitioned from bilingualism to a "paradoxical denial of bilingualism" in favor of territorial unilingualism. Apart from the ongoing discussion of bilingualism in Brussels and the references to the Halle-Vilvoorde district, which constitute a special case in political discourse, language largely merged with other themes like immigration. Regional political parties have therefore used language as they see fit within their strategy and goals, with the socialists in Wallonia generally dismissing language to focus on employment and labor conditions, and the Christian democrats using language to secure electoral support. From a political perspective, after 1963, language has become only a powerful nationalist motif "when it could be coupled with more substantial demands and goals" (Blommaert 2011: 6). Increasingly since the 1990s, language has been integrated in the discussion of multiculturalism and immigration. The coded data from the latest Federal election in May 2019 factors in the new developments regarding immigration and national identity in Belgium, with the ramifications of the 2015-2016 "refugee crisis" featuring prominently in the discourse of all political

57 parties. This is part of a shift in discourse whereby the theme of language conflict is redefined in Belgium to refer to the need to integrate immigrants and newcomers through language and "values." For instance, the discourse of N-VA in the lead up to the 2019 election draws heavily on the defense of Flemish "values" like separation of church and state, gender equality, individual freedom, and, most importantly, the 'Flemish language.' Hence, the issue of language conflict seems to have shifted from a Walloon-Flemish rivalry towards a focus on the assimilation of immigrants. Simultaneously, we can still find references to the original manifestation of the code "linguistic conflict" in the discourse of many Flemish parties, mainly when they refer to the issue of the "Vlaamse rand" (the Flemish periphery), the Flemish region surrounding Brussels where the status of the Dutch language is threatened due to the expansion of the French-speaking population in these suburbs (The Economist 2007). Additionally, the focus on the code of "multiculturalism" remains significant across all parties represented in the 2019 data sample. Overall, the sub-themes of "asylum," "Islam," "security and fighting crime," feature prominently within the code of "multiculturalism." This pattern is also observed in the sample from the 1991 election when a similar context of an increase in asylum requests (in relation to the collapse of the eastern bloc) translated into an increased in the politicization of the topic of immigration (Martiniello 2003: 225). Based on the aforementioned discussion of the results of the coding process, we can reach the following conclusions on the two hypotheses formulated about the relationship between sub-state nationalism and immigration-driven social change in Belgium. We first set out to investigate whether the advent of multiculturalism has led sub-state nationalism in Belgium to focus more on immigration issues and less on language conflict. The outcome of the coding process indicates that numerically speaking, references to multiculturalism and immigration are steadily rising in electoral programs in both regions. In fact, they even exceed the number of references to language after 1968 (figure eight), reflecting the importance of the topic to Belgium's sub-nationalist movements. However, using PDA, we also established that language did not lose significance to the sub-nationalist movements entirely, it instead was re-adapted and included in other political themes like integration and cultural identity. Therefore, the first hypothesis advanced here is only partly true.

58 Then, we wanted to test the hypothesis that immigration and the associated social change have led to the convergence of nationalist discourse in Flanders and Wallonia and the reduction of differences between the two movements. At the level of tone, we have established with the help of PDA that the two regions initially did not share the same perspective on the topic of immigration and multiculturalism, with Wallonia holding more favorable views than Flanders. By the 1990s, the two regions began to converge in discourse about immigration towards a stricter line and more emphasis on integration, the learning of language, and the adjustment of immigrants to the two regions' respective values. Roughly since the mid-2000s, discourse in the Walloon regionalist movement has moved from distancing Walloon values from "Flemish xenophobia," to adopting Flemish style integration legislation and voicing criticism of Islam and the challenges of the multicultural society. In this regard, we can conclude that two movements are no longer antagonizing each other, as much as converging around the same discourse of identity and culture and thus partaking in a wide European trend of "new nationalism." The remarkable increase in the number of references to the code “multiculturalism” in the discourse of parties across the language boundary, and the incorporation of the theme “language” within the code “multiculturalism” can be interpreted as an indication that line of separation between “us” and “them” in Belgium (van Haute et al. 2018: 955) has been redefined. The “us” is increasingly coming to represent Flanders and Wallonia while the “them” represents immigrants as outsiders and a threat to sub-national and regional identities in Belgium. latter conclusion lends credence to the second hypothesis presented here.

59 Chapter six: Conclusion

The questioning of Belgium's existence as a nation-state by Nigel Farage was not a one-off theatrical sneer towards the country by a Euro-sceptic and staunch nationalist politician. On the contrary, ever since the establishment of the kingdom of Belgium as an independent country in 1830, its salience as a project of national consolidation has been cast into doubt, not least by several prominent Belgians themselves. Time and again, the question was raised about the sustainability of Belgium as a political entity, especially given the growing linguistic, economic, and cultural divide between the country's two major groups, Flemings and Walloons. Despite the recurrent attempts to bridge this divide through a process of state reform which replaced the unitary Belgian state framework with a federal system that delegates competences and a high degree of autonomy to the country's linguistic regions, Belgium remains plagued with a deep division along the language boundary. This situation of persistent political gridlock earned the country the title of the "most successful failed state in the world." Belgium's status as a state with two nations is further complicated by the advent of the policy of multiculturalism in western nations. While even established nation-states, like the Netherlands, France, and Germany, have grappled with questions of national identity as a result of the far-reaching social transformation immigration has caused in their societies, the struggle in Belgium has been even more pronounced, in light of the country's already existing discussion about its national identity, and the rise of sub-nationalism within its borders. Taking this intersection of the two discussions about Belgium's sub-state nationalism and its transition towards multiculturalism as a starting point, this thesis raised the following question as a central field of inquiry: "how has sub-state nationalism evolved in Belgium?". This question was particularly approached from the angle of a relationship between the language-based nationalist and regionalist movements in Flanders and Wallonia, and the social change in Belgium, which resulted from increased immigration from the 1960s onwards. To better study this relationship, the central research question was supplemented by two sub-questions carrying two different assumptions. Namely, what role does the context of immigration and integration play in the inter-Belgian sub-nationalist divide: does it offer a way out as an alternative multiculturalist model, or does it elicit even more nationalist attitudes?

60 And has the change in Belgian society resulting from multiculturalism led to a shift in the priorities and goals of nationalist movements there, from focusing on language to broader identarian issues? Applying the method of content analysis to a collection of electoral programs from a variety of Flemish and Walloon parties published in four key electoral years, the thesis identified a number of codes relating to the topics of sub-state nationalism and immigration and transformed these codes into data that would then be compared to try and arrive at answers to the research questions. Once the main codes were identified, counted, and graphically visualized, political discourse analysis was used to interpret these results and place them in their broader political context. The outcome of this analysis yielded a number of insights. The most important of which is that the two sub-state nationalist movements in Belgium, and after a period of divergence in ideology, goals and policy, have gradually been coalescing again around the same discourse on immigration. It appears that the advent of multiculturalist society has presented both linguistic communities with a new, common challenge that they set out to face with the same approach and in the same way. The data indicates that older form of nationalism based on the narrow categories of ethnicity and language has ceded place to a newer form of nationalism where the emphasis lies on broader "western values" and "civilizational discourse." Both Flemish and Walloon parties have subscribed to this new form of nationalism and, in the process, began to cast Flanders and Wallonia as two entities dealing together with the challenge of immigration rather than antagonizing each other. Based on the data and the subsequent discourse analysis, I could establish that the change in Belgian society, which resulted from multiculturalism, has indeed spurred a change in the goals and agenda of both sub-nationalist movements in Flanders and Wallonia. From the 1960s onwards, multiculturalism, immigration, integration, the status of Islam, and the question of national identities have become a fixture in political discourse, across all political parties and regardless of the linguistic community, and the trend continues to rise as we go into the 2020s. Nevertheless, the ever-important politicization of multiculturalism does not eliminate the concern with the language issues as the original cause that polarizes Belgium. Therefore, the answer to the question of whether the shift in the political agenda of both sub-nationalist movements has prioritized immigration issues over language nationalism is not straightforward. The analysis conducted in this thesis indicates that language has been re- integrated in political discourse about multiculturalism, being drawn upon by parties from Flanders in Wallonia in various ways to inform their approach to multiculturalism and

61 integration. One cannot talk about the integration of immigrants without bringing up language learning as a cornerstone of integration. Furthermore, While the introduction of language legislation in 1963 and the establishment of the linguistic border has largely eliminated the question of official bilingualism, language problems are still discussed directly in a dichotomous way with reference to some unsettled questions like the Brussels-Halle- Vilvoorde district and other linguistic exclaves along the linguistic border. Hence, we can argue that it is true that multiculturalism became the major preoccupation for both sub- nationalist movements, but language did not disappear from their preoccupations, and continues to play a key role in political and social discussions about multiculturalism . The application of PDA to the data also shows that discourse about immigration is highly polarized and increasingly negative. Immigrants moved from being perceived as social capital to a being regarded as a social and cultural threat. This fact is reflected in the discourse of political parties in both regions, explicitly in the case of radical right parties, or implicitly with the focus on integration and the defense of values. We can conclude that the failings of the multiculturalist policy in Belgium have fueled nationalist backlash. While the two regions are coming together because of multiculturalism, they are uniting to address its challenges rather than uniting to champion the policy as a way out of the old linguistic dichotomy. In terms of methodology, while qualitative content analysis is a suitable approach to the topic of this thesis given its potential for the application of the qualitative method to fairly large quantities of data like political texts, it still presents a number of challenges. This thesis attempted to address the research questions with the use of data that is imperfect. Studying political party programs is a good approximate for public opinion, yet it does not give the full story since it is known that politics often reproduce issues long before society does. Hence, political party manifestos are only one indicator of wider trends within the sub-state nationalist movements in Belgium. In order to get a full picture of the changing nature of sub-state nationalism in relation to the question of multiculturalism, the analysis must be broadened to include economic, cultural and social perspectives on the research question. Further complicating the task, is the nature of Belgian politics, with the constant rise and fall of political parties, which makes establishing a consistent analysis of political text over time extremely challenging. Even though the analysis tried to remedy this issue by choosing a simple of various parties for each electoral cycle represented, to ensure that the sample is representative as much as possible, this remains a weakness in the data.

62 In addition, the use of structured content analysis in this thesis leaves room for bias. The fact that the analysis relied on a pre-determined code book can be detrimental to the validity of the conclusions drawn. While using a code book can be useful in keeping the scope of analysis focused, it is not a perfect substitute to the exploratory nature of content analysis This thesis hopes to contribute to the topic of the relationship between sub-state nationalism and the effects of multiculturalism, which remains largely unexplored. The outcome of the analysis conducted here carried several scholarly and social implications. The overwhelming majority of research has looked at the two topics of sub-state nationalism and the role of immigration in creating social change in host communities, separately. By establishing a relationship between the two topics, this thesis builds on the limited literature produced on the subject (Xhardez 2016, Xhardez 2019, Xhardez 2020), and provides insights that are not only applicable in the Belgian context, but also lend themselves to application in similar contexts of sub-state nationalism and multicultural settings. In summation, the conclusions reached through the analysis section also carry several social implications. The challenges surrounding modern multiculturalism in Belgium will continue to inform political and social discussions in the country for the foreseeable future. The profound social change resulting from immigration has had a big impact on sub- nationalist identity in Belgium and it remains to be seen whether the country will manage to overcome its complex identarian fault lines or if the next political impasse will mark the end of Belgium as we know it.

63

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