Accommodating Diversity in Deeply Divided Societies: the Management of the Linguistic Conﬂict in the Belgian Consociational Democracy

Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften Sommersemester 2008

Bachelorarbeit

Accommodating diversity in deeply divided societies: The management of the linguistic conﬂict in the Belgian consociational democracy

Erstgutachterin: Frau Prof. Dr. Konstanze Jungbluth Zweitgutachter: Herr PD Dr. Antonius Liedhegener

Tobias Weise 06. Semsester BA Kulturwissenschaften Wildenbruchstr. 83 12045 Berlin +49 178 2 18 18 81 [email protected]ffo.de http://tobiasweise.de 23. Juni 2008 Abstract In divided societies, i.e. societies where multiple separate societal groups are living together under one government, larger conflicts appear to be common. These conflicts might lead to violent disputes between groups and endanger the stability of the state. This may be even more so, when the conflicting groups are divided by a linguistic cleavage. However, there are states, like the Kingdom of Belgium, that manage to maintain a stable democracy despite the divided character of their society. This paper will try to analyze how this is possible. At first, the divisions of the Belgian society will be examined. Following, in a multidisciplinary approach that unites theories from sociolinguistics and political sciences, a consociational approach will be identified as crucial for the successful accommodation of diversity in the Belgian democracy. Furthermore, it will be stated that language policy plays a very important role in the maintenance of stability of the Belgian divided society.

An electronic version of this paper and additional material is available at http://tobiasweise.de/studium/ba-arbeit/

Zusammenfassung In gespaltenen Gesellschaften, also in Gesellschaften in denen verschiedene, von- einander getrennte Gruppen unter dem Dach einer Regierung zusammenleben, treten häufig schwere Konflikte auf. Diese können zu gewalttätigen Auseinan- dersetzungen zwischen den Gruppen führen und so die Stabilität des Staates gefährden. Diese Gefahr besteht besonders dann, wenn die Gruppen sprachlich gespalten sind. Trotzdem gibt es Staaten, wie das Königreich Belgien, die es trotz ihrer gespaltenen Gesellschaft schaffen, eine stabile Demokratie aufrecht zu erhal- ten. Diese Arbeit wird versuchen zu zeigen, wie dies gelingen kann. Zuerst wird die Gespaltenheit der belgischen Gesellschaft analysiert. Dann wird mittels eines multidisziplinären Ansatzes, der Theorien der Soziolinguistik und Politikwissen- schaft verbindet, ein consociational approach als elementar für die Prozesse des Interessenausgleichs zwischen den Gruppen der belgischen Gesellschaft identifi- ziert. Außerdem wird dargelegt, welche wichtige Rolle die Sprachpolitik für den Erhalt der Stabilität in der gespaltenen Gesellschaft Belgiens spielt.

Für eine elektronische Version dieser Arbeit und zusätzliche Materialien: http://tobiasweise.de/studium/ba-arbeit/

i Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Theoretical Overview 4 2.1 DividedSocieties ...... 4 2.2 ConsociationalDemocracy ...... 6 2.3 ConﬂictLinguistics ...... 9 2.4 LanguagePolicy...... 13

3 Case Study:Belgium 16 3.1 BelgianHistory-AHistoryofConﬂict ...... 16 3.2 Divisions and Cleavages in Belgian Society ...... 19 3.2.1 Language ...... 19 3.2.2 Religion ...... 22 3.2.3 Economy...... 23 3.2.4 MediaandPopularCulture ...... 25 3.2.5 PoliticalCulture ...... 27 3.3 Consociationalism in Belgian Democracy ...... 31 3.3.1 Federal Structures, Institutions and Processes ...... 32 3.3.2 ConsociationalFeatures ...... 35 3.4 Managing Linguistic Conﬂicts in Belgium ...... 36

4 Synthesis:Managing linguistic conﬂicts in divided societies 40

5 Conclusion 44

References 45

ii List of Figures

1 Belgium:LinguisticMap ...... 17 2 Belgium:Map of Regions and Communities ...... 33

List of Tables

1 Languagepolicygoals ...... 14 2 Belgium:Languages spoken most frequently. 1846-1947 + 2005...... 19 3 Belgium:Reported language knowledge. 1866-1947 + 2000...... 20 4 Belgium:Belonging to Roman-Catholic religion. ESS (RLGDNM)...... 23 5 Belgium:How religious are you?ESS (RLGDGR) 2002-2007...... 23 6 Belgium:Per capita Gross Domestic Product of Flanders and Wallonia. . . . 24 7 Belgium:Unemployment rate in Flanders and Wallonia. 2000-2006 ...... 25 8 Belgian popular culture:Comparison of the annual Belgian single charts. . . . 26 9 Belgium:Parliamentary election results by political groups ...... 29 10 Belgium:Findings from the ESS on political culture. 2002-2007...... 30

iii 1 Introduction

1 Introduction

During the Cold War, the conflicts of a bipolar world were the center of interest for social scientists. Gradually, with the end of the confrontation between the two superpowers, the interior conflicts of nation states drew more attention. Dissimilar socio-economic development, linguistic frontiers, ethnic divisions and religious oppositions are often a first reason for inner-state antagonisms. Such conflicts characterize divided societies. Divided societies have an intrinsically higher risk for conflicts and deep discord. When dealing with the management of conflicts, the heterogeneous composition of a divided society, with its different interest groups and possibly separate minorities, poses a whole set of questions (see e.g. Nordlinger 1972, Guelke 2004): How do institutions have to be designed to handle diversity? Which strategies for conflict resolution can there be? How does the civil society influence the governmental decision-making? Is a stable democracy possible? Despite the difficult premises, democracy in divided societies is possible. Arend Lijphart’s model of consociational democracy (see Lijphart 1969, 1989) describes democratic, but divided societies. The basic idea of his consociationalism is that such democracies have managed to integrate processes into their political organizations that allow for democratic co-existence of deeply divided societal groups. Generally, in this model, group interests are accommodated and basic political rights are granted to all societal groups. However, a critical approach to consociationalism is needed: The promotion of conflict management and group autonomy might deepen the divisions in society and group identities might be reinforced at the expense of an overarching societal identity. When questions of identity are evoked, language is an important factor, especially when there are different linguistic groups sharing one society and state. Conflict linguistics (see e.g. Kremnitz 1979, Bochmann & al. 2003, Darquennes & al. 2004) tries to give a sociolinguistic analysis of situations of language conflict and their social and linguistic repercussions. Linguistic conflicts have a tendency to occur whenever there is contact of different languages in a distinct geographical area. Furthermore, in divided societies where there are different languages in conflict, the linguistic conflict sometimes turns into a symbol of group identity representing other divisions and conflicts.

1 1 Introduction

If linguistic conflicts can play such a pivotal role, the political management of linguistic conflicts is an important aspect of managing divided societies. Language policy tries to show different ways for organizing and managing linguistic diversity within a state (see e.g. Ricento 2006, Shohamy 2006). Nevertheless, the limited capacity of linguistic policies should be considered: Language as a social phenomenon can barely be ruled by decree. These four themes, i.e. divided societies, consociational democracy, conflict linguistics and language policy, are of importance for the analysis of a country that has often been called a model case for both linguistic conflict and consociationalism: Belgium. The country is divided into the now economic prosperous and Dutch- speaking Flanders, the stuck-in-transformation and French-speaking Wallonia and a German-speaking minority. After the linguistic quarrels of the Flemish movement in the last century, it is the current governmental crisis over constitutional reforms that brought Belgium to the attention of the international community. The difficult government building process after the 2007 national elections led to broad discussions about the future of the Belgian national state. Both inside and outside of Belgium, the scission of the national state was a much-discussed scenario. Eventually, with the creation of an interim government, a compromis à la belge was found and the long process of accommodating interests of the communities started again. Despite all these complications, it is remarkable that a national democracy is still functional in this deeply divided society. A part of this analysis will be contributed to identifying the processes that make this possible. The goal of this paper will be twofold. First, an interdisciplinary approach will try to combine the deeper insights of sociolinguistics in the mechanisms of linguistic conflict and the analytical approach of the political sciences to the management of diversity in divided societies. This multi-angled view might lead to a deeper and more detailed account of the current situation in Belgium concerning the political management of diversity and the maintenance of democratic stability. Secondly, a case study of the Belgian state and society will try to examine how mechanisms of accommodation are put into practice. In general, given the increasing migration and mobility in the world, the idea of plu- rality and division of societies will be of greater importance in the future. If peaceful coexistence of diverse groups in one state is desirable, ways of political cooperation have to be found. Maybe, a better understanding of the processes in already exist-

2 1 Introduction ing divided societies might put forward important lessons for the design of political institutions and democratic processes for modern societies. Thus, the main theses of this paper will be that:

• linguistic conﬂicts play a very important role in divided societies, especially when they constitute the main division of the society, like it is the case in Belgium,

• the analysis of the processes of linguistic conflicts is crucial for better language policy, that is if it helps with finding a way for a peaceful coexistence of language groups, and finally that

• a consociational approach might be important for the design of institutions for divided and diverse societies, assuring peaceful and democratic coexistence.

In a first step, a short theoretical overview of the concepts of divided societies (2.1), consociationalism (2.2), conflict linguistics (2.3) and language policy (2.4) will be given to provide a framework for the analysis of the Belgian case. The study of the Belgian case will follow in the hereunder steps: After a short historical overview (3.1), the cleavage structure of the Belgian society (3.2) will be analyzed in order to show what divides the society. In a second step, the Belgian political institutions (3.3) will be reviewed to examine their consociational features. In addition, the subject of language policy in Belgium (3.4) will be discussed. Finally, a synthesis (4) will sum up the findings from the different sections and explore the main theses of this paper. To conclude, it is important to emphasize what this paper does not intend to do. It will not try to answer extensive questions on the current political crises in Belgium, as this would require a more detailed view from a policy analysis perspective. In- stead, this paper will attempt to offer a deeper insight into the diverse problems of managing divided societies and their conflicts. Consequently, the paper could offer meta-information on the processes of the current political crises in the Kingdom of Belgium.

3 2 Theoretical Overview

2 Theoretical Overview

The following pages will build a theoretical framework for the empirical analysis of the Belgian case. It is assumed that an interdisciplinary approach facilitates the analysis of the complex Belgian situation. For that reason, theories of political sciences (2.1, 2.2) and sociolinguistics (2.3, 2.4) will be presented and utilized. Certainly, the concepts and models that are to be presented in this theoretical section can only be explained to a certain degree due to space limitations. For more detailed discussions on the topics, references to further descriptions of the problems are given.

2.1 Divided Societies

States are complicated constructs. If one compares the Aristotelian ideal of a state with today’s reality, one could say that a state is no longer a relatively homogenous and small group of people sharing the same interests (cf. Lijphart 1968: 3). Present time states usually consist of a multitude of societal groups that may or may not share common interests, believes and motivations. Most current societies, which should be understood here as the human beings living under the authority of the same state and their complex systems of interaction, are diverse. While a certain degree of diversity, i.e. the multitude of groups within one society, appears to be common for current societies, there are some societies where the level of diﬀerence and division of the societal groups is very high. These divided societies (or “plural societies”, Lijphart 1968: 3) can be described by the following characteristics:

• There are “clearly discernible racial, linguistic, and religious diﬀerences” (ibid.) within the society.

• These diﬀerences are represented in subsystems of the society.

• People identify with their subsystems.

It should be emphasized, that the last two points are of great importance. Only when the “diﬀerences” are represented in societal groups, i.e. in subsystems of the whole society, they are inﬂuential for the society and its functioning as a whole1.

1 In the literature, these societal groups are often referred to as segments. However, the notion of a segment of a society might be to narrow in some situations, especially when individuals are members of many societal groups.

4 2 Theoretical Overview

Consequently, when societal groups are build around “racial, linguistic and religious” features, there is the tendency that the respective group also influences the identities of the respective individual. Certainly, the notion of identity is not very clear and could be misunderstood. Here, it shall be used to describe a certain self-perception of the individual incorporating two ideas: (i) identity as something that connects me to the other members of my group; (ii) identity as something that is separating me from others that are not members of my group. Thus, religion, ethnicity and language can be markers of difference. Nevertheless, what exactly means “clearly discernible” in this context? The classifi- cation already offers a direction but a more detailed view is needed to locate conclusive factors that are dividing a society. For an empirical assessment of the dividing features of a society, the analysis of cleavage structures, as proposed by Lipset & Rokkan (1967), offers a possible point of departure. In their model2, there are two main dimensions of cleavage. The first, the territorial-cultural dimension, describes cleavages on a periphery-center axis. Here, on a lower point of the axis, cleavages appear between local oppositions objecting to dominant national elites (e.g.: Why can our region not have more autonomy?). On a higher point of the axis, one could find conflicts concerning institutions and control on the national level (e.g.: How should the national educational system look like?). The second, the functional dimension, relates to cleavages that are relevant in the whole territory and that have the ability to bridge territorial interests. On one side of this axis, one can find conflicts over short or long term goals of the society, like economic policies (e.g.: Should a specific tax be lowered?). While these conflicts can potentially be settled through rational bargaining, the conflicts on the other side of the axis cannot. They are about whole conceptions of the society that involve stronger, ideological group identifications (e.g.: Should the state provide a system of social security?) (cf. ibid.: 9-13). Lipset & Rokkan’s dimensions should be understood as guidelines for classifying cleavages that can be found in real societies. Maybe, their explanatory strength lies in the comparison of different cleavages within a society, and in the comparison of cleavage structures, i.e. the set of cleavages present in a society. The latter might be

2 Lipset & Rokkan’s model is based on a Parsonian model describing the functions of a social system. It assumes that all conflicts that could appear in a society are attributable to conflicts of the four essential subsystems, which are The Economy, The Polity, The Public and Households, Schools (cf. Lipset & Rokkan 1967: 7). In consequence, conflicts and cleavages that become apparent in divided societies have their sources in conflicts of these four subsystems.

5 2 Theoretical Overview especially productive for the analysis of different societies. Consequently, an analysis of the cleavage structure might offer a first insight into the complex nature of diverse oppositions and interests in divided societies.

2.2 Consociational Democracy

As one could derive from the previous section, divided societies require special political management in order to assure political stability and peaceful coexistence. Con- sequently, divided societies might not offer ideal conditions for a stable state and thus lead to state failure (see e.g. the case of Czechoslovakia: Harlová 2004). However, there are states that do exists in spite of there divided societies. Some of these states even manage to maintain a stable democratic system over a long time. This slightly paradox situation influenced the genesis of Arend Lijphart’s (1969, 1989) model of consociational democracies, which tries to find a correlation between the political and social structure on the one hand and the political stability of a society on the other. So, what exactly are consociational democracies? First of all, the basic idea of consociationalism is that all societal groups are granted basic political rights and that the interests of these groups are being accommodated. Certainly, there are some important preconditions that are crucial for the genesis of these “fragmented but stable democracies” (Lijphart 1969: 211). Generally, they feature (i) a strong subsystem autonomy, (ii) a diverse and distinct political culture, together with (iii) a certain kind of political elites that promote the idea of consociationalism. First, the societal subsystems need to be equally balanced, i.e. they should have about the same political structures and powers. In addition, the existence of clear boundaries among the subcultures tends to be beneficial for stability, as the distinct lines of cleavage result in a lack of constant everyday conflict. Secondly, the political culture should feature a preference for peaceful conflict resolution and compromise. Furthermore, a high degree of political cohesion within the societal groups is advanta- geous, as the interaction and consensus finding with other societal groups works better when there is strong public inner-group support. In this context, an adequate articu- lation of the interests of the group through political parties are of eminent importance. Finally, it is the political elites that play the predominant role3 as they are responsi-

3 “Consociational democracy means the government by elite cartel designed to turn a democracy with a fragmented political culture into a stable democracy“ (ibid.: 216).

6 2 Theoretical Overview ble for the cooperation of the societal groups on the state level (ibid.: 212-215). For consociationalism to be possible, the political elites need be able to:

• accommodate the divergent interests and demands of the subcultures, to

• transcend the diﬀerent cleavages, and they must be

• committed to the stability and maintenance of the political system (i.e. of the state as a whole) (cf. ibid.: 216-221).

As the previous paragraph has shown, there are some important preconditions for consociationalism. It is especially the political elites and their attitudes towards the process of decision-making that are crucial. Once these preconditions are met, consociationalism becomes an option for state and institution building. How does a consociational democracy look like in reality? First, it has to be remarked, that “the essential characteristic of consociational democracy is not so much any particular institutional arrangement as the deliberate joint effort by the elites to stabilize the system” (ibid.: 213). Besides the strong focus on the role of the elites, there are some institutional concepts that are defining consociationalism. These are the principles of grand coalition, mutual veto, proportionality and segmental autonomy (cf. Lijphart 1989: ch. 2 for the following description of the features). The grand coalition is the main feature of consociationalism. In a grand coalition, all political representations of the societal groups are working together in governing the country. As a consequence, there is a lot of inner-government opposition but little parliamentary opposition. A grand coalition offers the possibility of accommodating the interests of the societal groups, but this comes at a cost: grand coalitions hin- der important parliamentary opposition that controls the government. Furthermore, grand coalitions are generally harder to form and maintain than oppositions between politically closer parties. Usually in non-divided societies, grand coalitions are only envisaged in cases of crisis. It could be that this state of crisis is permanent in divided societies as the coexistence of the different societal groups is constantly at stake. The mutual veto principle is, more or less, an instrument of the grand coalition cabinet. Giving all groups represented in the grand coalition veto rights adds another layer of protection for minorities against pure majority rule. When every group is granted veto powers, it is assured that interests are accommodated within the coalition as the smaller partners within the grand coalition cannot easily be outvoted. However, if the

7 2 Theoretical Overview veto power is misused by the smaller groups, there is the danger of minority tyranny which consequently imperils the cooperation within the grand coalition. Thus, the principle of mutual veto, on the one hand, coerces compromises between the groups, but on the other hand, it can only work productively, if the societal groups are committed to working together instead of blocking each other. The principle of proportionality adds the idea that all societal groups should be represented corresponding to their size in the grand coalition. This also implies that resources and political offices are distributed among the societal groups according to their relative size. The principle allows for bargaining and the delegation of decisions among the representatives of the groups in the government. Besides, the resulting policy outcomes might find a greater acceptance among the societal groups themselves as all were involved in the negotiations. Finally, the principle of segmental autonomy grants the societal groups the oppor- tunity to manage their own affairs to a high extent. Only decisions that concern all groups are debated on the national level. Of course, segmental autonomy can only be an option when a societal group is located in a distinct region, separated from other groups. On the one hand, segmental autonomy fosters the idea of peaceful co-existence in a federalist society. On the other hand, it may cause severe problems where multiple groups populate a region and where clear regional borders cannot be drawn out of concerns over too much segmentation. Consociationalism, as presented here, seems to describe methods and processes that make democracy in divided societies possible, both on an empirical and normative level. However, some critical remarks need to be made. At first, it should be asked, how a consociational democracy scores when one analyzes its democratic performance. On this level, a critical point is the role of the opposition. It should be considered that a working opposition is important for the grade of inclusion of interest groups into the policy-making process. Still, a grand coalition still leaves room for both parliamentary and inner-government opposition (cf. Lijphart 1989: 47f.). On the same level, the prominent role of the elites needs to be discussed. It is the elites that play the main role in accommodating the interests of the groups and in bargaining compromises. Consequently, there is limited room for bottom-up initiatives of the civil society and thereby limited inclusion and participation4 of the demos in the

4 These terms refer to Dahl’s (1972) model of democracy. Here, the citizens should have the right to formulate and signify their equally weighted preferences to the state institutions and fellow

8 2 Theoretical Overview political process of a consociational democracy. This problem leads to a second level of questions on consociationalism. Does the consociational model really lead to a stable democracy that actually accommodates the different societal groups? In that matter, the main point of critique is that consociationalism leads to the promotion of group identities rather than to the strengthening of an overarching, commonly shared identity. Such shared identities are important for the existence and stability of a state, as they motivate the people to engage in politics and even lay the basis for the general acceptance of state authority (cf. O’Flynn 2006: 32f.). In this context, the prominent role of the elites somewhat hinders the bridging of societal segmentation by grass-roots activities that might be more favored to solve conflicts (cf. Guelke 2004: 243). For a final assessment of consociationalism, an empirical analysis of states with consociational features should be undertaken. The present literature suggest that the commonly cited examples of Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria show how consociationalism can work (see e.g. McRae 1974). However, when consociational democracy is primarily understood as a normative model, it appears that there are substantial obstacles that need to be overcome in order to introduce consociational elements into the political system of divided societies (see e.g. Barry 1975 for the cases of Canada and Northern Ireland). Certainly. the greatest problems are connected to the attitudes of the elites, that cannot be influenced. Consequently, consociationalism cannot be set up from scratch, it is something that has to grow in an environment, where the political elites, and thus the societal groups, are willing to cooperate in the context of their divided society. Nonetheless, a final analysis of consociationalism shall be presented after the analysis of the Belgian case in the synthesis (chapter 4).

2.3 Conﬂict Linguistics

Divided societies are often split along linguistic cleavages. These are often perceived as the most obvious divisions within a society which is not surprising as they can easily be experienced. Yet, there is more to linguistic division than simply not speaking the language of fellow citizens. Language is not only a simple means of communication, it is a vehicle for culture and as such one of the constituents that make up a person’s

citizens. Following from these basic rights, there are two basic categories: public contestation and liberalization, which describe the people’s opportunities of inﬂuencing the state; participation and inclusiveness, which characterize the quantitative level of the people allowed to inﬂuence the state. High degrees of these two factors would then designate a desirable political system.

9 2 Theoretical Overview identity (cf. e.g. Tabouret-Keller 1997 on the multiple connections between identity and language). Especially for the purpose of this paper, language should be understood as something used in a social context. As Calvet (1999) points out in his introduction, language is something that was formed by the basic human need for communication and is hence much more than just a biological capability of the human body. Consequently, the process of linguistic change and development has to be understood in its social context5. Following the idea of seeing language as a social phenomenon, the scientific discipline of sociolinguistics developed in the second half of the 20th century with the first major publications of Basil Bernstein and William Labov. In the field of sociolinguistics, the research on languages in contact is of special interest for this paper. The phenomenon of different languages that have contact with each other and the results of such contacts are of interest from both a diachronic and synchronic perspective. The former can offer insights into the development of languages since the very beginning of the human capability to utter meaningful sounds. The latter can provide a deeper understanding of the processes in today’s multilingual and linguistically divided societies. The first basic approaches to contact linguistics, especially Weinreich’s (1963) first comprehensive overview, focused on the linguistic, and not the social, results of language contact. With the move from a micro-perspective, examining the effects of language contact on an individual’s language production, to a macro-perspective that studies how language contact influences whole linguistic groups, the interest began to change. From a macro-perspective, there are three possible outcomes of linguistic contact (cf. Winford 2003: 23f.): 1. Language maintenance, i.e. a situation where both languages in contact are being used over many generations which results in linguistic interferences.

2. Langauge shift, i.e. a situation where one of the languages in contact is no longer used as the speakers of the respective language adopt the other language.

3. Language creation, i.e. a situation where out of the contact situation, a new language develops and is used either for speciﬁc situations only (pidgins), or becomes the new mother tongue of following generations (creoles).

5 According to Calvet, linguistic change is to be understood as “traduction linguistique de mouve- ments sociaux plus profonds” (1999: 8).

10 2 Theoretical Overview

Apparently, these results of language contact are very likely to be influenced by socioeconomic factors. Furthermore, these outcomes influence the affected individuals and societies alike. One of the first to analyze the social functions of different languages within a society is Ferguson (1959). His concept of diglossia identifies two basic functions that “varieties of the same language” (ibid.: 325) can have in a society:

1. The high variety is used in formal and oﬃcial communication, has a standardized form whose rules are taught in school and has a high prestige.

2. The low variety is used in private and semi-formal communication, has no standardized form, is learned at home and has a low prestige.

With Fishman (1967), the perspective of diglossia is broadened to societies where different languages coexist in a diglossic situation. In addition, he added the idea of bilingualism. While diglossia is to be understood as a situation where different languages fulfill different functions within a society, bilingualism describes the linguistic capabilities of an individual6. However, both Ferguson’s and Fishman’s concepts have problems describing and explaining the genesis of diglossic situations. How came they into existence ? Are these stable situations? If not, what leads to the loosening of the socially divided functions of language? It is with the tradition of Catalan sociolinguists (see Kremnitz 1979 for an overview) that an important factor of language contact is put into the center of attention: conflict. In situations of language conflict, one can distinguish between dominating and dominated languages. In many cases, the dominating language is the language of the group that has all political power. Accordingly, the dominated language is often spoken by the group that is politically oppressed. This situation of oppression leads to specific problems within the dominated group. On the one hand, knowledge of the dominating language offers social mobility and an ascent in social status. On the other hand, the dominating language is a symbol representing the dominance of the cultural and political oppressors (cf. Kremnitz 1981). For these reasons, language conflicts are complex situations that have a considerable influence on politics and social processes within a society. As Nelde’s law (2005: 1350) states: there is no language contact without linguistic conflict. 6 Accordingly, these two concepts render possible the comparative description of sociolinguistic situations in societies (existence or absence of diglossia vs. existence or absence of bilingualism).

11 2 Theoretical Overview

Following these assumptions, linguists like Bochmann (2003) and Darquennes (2004) argue in favor of a separate sub-discipline of sociolinguistics that focuses on linguistic conflicts. In the tradition of contact linguistics, they proclaim the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to linguistic conflict. Furthermore, one of their basic claims is that linguistic conflicts are closely related to political, economic and social conflicts. Consequently, they are normal properties of human society itself that cannot be overcome. Thus, linguistic conflicts cannot be solved, they can only be peacefully managed through cooperation between the linguistic groups in conflict7. Accordingly, there are different dimensions to linguistic conflicts: The first dimension includes the idea of different linguistic groups living together in one society. If there are sociocultural differences because of belonging to a linguistic group, the situation becomes unstable as the linguistic division effects the lifes of people. A second dimension sees linguistic conflicts as conflicts of distribution. Here, the linguistic conflict becomes a proxy conflict concealing the real conflicts over the access to resources like power, wealth and prestige. As a third dimension, the social impact of linguistic conflicts on the political culture of a society is examined. The statement is that the process of peaceful negotiations over the linguistic conflicts brings along some beneficial side-effects like the democratization of the societal groups and the emergence of a culture of consensus (Bochmann 2003: 7-10). In summary, linguistic conflicts should be understood as multidimensional phenomena that do not have easy solutions. Consequently, linguistic conflicts have a profound impact on the functioning of affected societies. To conclude the argumentation on conflict linguistics, it is important to restate the following points that might be relevant to the analysis of divided societies:

• Language as a social phenomenon is important for people.

• When there are different languages in contact, conflict between these languages is likely, if belonging to a linguistic group has social effects.

• Linguistic conﬂicts cannot be solved peacefully if solving them requires language shift. Consequently, linguistic conﬂicts need constant management.

7 “Il n’est pas question de la fin d’un conflit en cause, mais d’une manière d’assurer que sa manifes- tation soit la moins déstructive pour les acteurs sociaux. Le règlement doit garantir le respect des gains acquis par les différents acteurs; il faut que les règles soient acceptées par tous les participants et que leur changement se fasse en commun accord” (Bochmann 2003: 7).

12 2 Theoretical Overview

2.4 Language Policy

As the previous sections have shown, policy-making in divided societies takes place in a very complex context, especially when multiple linguistic groups are involved. Policy- makers are likely to encounter special problems when they try to influence language usage and language itself, i.e. influencing the status of a language. The status of a language could be described as the “perceived relative value of a national language, usually related to its social utility, which encompasses so-called market value as a mode of communication as well as more subjective features rooted in [. . . ] a society’s linguistic culture” (Ricento 2006: 5). Language policy itself can be understood as all the actions taken by governments aiming at changing the usage of language and the language itself, not only in public, but as well in the private sphere8 (cf. Labrie 2003). Already with this definition, the limited range of language policy is underlined. Language usage can only be influenced indirectly by official legislation. This is also due to the role of the state itself that, in times of globalization, migration and intra- national networking, has only limited control over the civil society. As a result, the actual language usage of the people can only be influenced to some degree. In the following, approaches to language policy will be presented that might be of importance for the analysis of the political management of the linguistic conflict in Belgium. Hornberger (2006: 29) offers a comprehensive overview of language policy goals (see Table 1). At first, language policy can aim at (a) influencing the form of language or (b) at manipulating its function within the society. The former includes all actions that try to change the language, i.e. its grammar, lexicon and phonology, and its official status by state action. The latter tries to influence the status of the language. These two approaches use three basic types of language policy which aim either at (i) planning the status of a language, (ii) planning language acquisition, or (iii) planning the corpus of a language. Status planning represents all policies that directly try to influence the status of a language, i.e. the uses of language within a society. Status planning policies, in approach (a), include legislation on the official status of a language within a state, like declaring a language as the only language used in government and administration

8 Labrie (1999: 201) understands language policy as “l’exerice du contrôle social visant le pluralisme et la variation linguistique, empruntant des voies politiques, incluant, d’une part, l’expression des rapports de force aus sein de la société civile et, d’autre part, la codiﬁcation des pratiques langagières par les agents investis de pouvoirs”.

13 2 Theoretical Overview

Table 1: Language policy goals

Types (a): Influencing the form (b): Influencing the func- and official status tion (i): status (users) official status of a language social status of a langauge

(ii): acquisition Incentives for wanted usage state-ﬁnanced language (users) of language through frame- learning programms work manipulation

(iii): corpus (lan- standardization of a lan- inﬂuencing the language’s guage) guage appeal through modernization or puriﬁcation (Source: cf. Hornberger 2006: 29)

or proclaiming the language as a national asset that needs to be used by every full member of society. Here, approach (b) aims directly at the social status of a language within a society. Policies could include actions aiming at the further spread of a language in the whole society, its maintenance in areas where it may be endangered, or even at the revival of languages that are no longer spoken within the society. In close relation to status planning, acquisition planning tries to affect the users of language directly. In approach (a), the state sets a framework for the institutions that are of major importance for the linguistic landscape of a society. Such actions include legislation on the education system, the media and even the business sector, giving incentives for the use of desired languages. Under approach (b), more direct actions are taken to influence the linguistic capabilities of the citizens. Here, possible policies could be about the direct support of language learning programs of national, minority or foreign languages. Finally, corpus planning directly influences the linguistic features of a language. Under approach (a), one can find measures that give the wanted language a standardized form in grammar, lexicon and phonology that then leads to compulsory rules on how the language is used “correctly”. In approach (b), there are two possible extreme positions, the first, language modernization, the second, language purification. Both include the idea that the language needs to be taken care of to make it easier to use

14 2 Theoretical Overview or to defend it against foreign influences. Thus, in approach (b), policy-makers try to influence the social status of the language concerning its esthetic value. To sum up, the fields (a:i) and (a:ii) describe decisions about the selection and role of the official language. Fields (b:i) and (b:ii) represent policies that are concerned with the implementation of a language in a society. The actions taken in field (a:iii) deal with the codification and thus with the form of languages. Finally, in field (b:iii), policies deal with the elaboration of language. As Hornberger’s overview shows, policy-makers may follow a wide variety of language policy goals. However, their range of effective instruments to attain these goals is limited. As discussed in previous sections, language as a social phenomenon makes detailed planning and steering difficult. It appears that the approaches aiming at influencing the form and the official status (approach (a)) are more likely to yield desired results. In contrast, policies that are intended to change the social function of language (approach (b)) seem to be less successful. Furthermore, political actions of this kind might even lead to violent conflicts, when there is more than one linguistic group represented in the society (see section 2.3). This appears to be critical for the management of linguistic conflicts in divided societies. In this context, language policy can have significant consequences, for example when a state accords privileges to a single linguistic group at the expense of another. Regarding this, it might be important to keep in mind the relation of language and identity: Language policy can be used and abused to make identity policy, i.e. the state taking influence on the process of individual identity building. As might be expected, such actions can potentially lead to more conflict among the society’s segments (cf. Schmidt 2006: 98f). To conclude, language policy appears to be an important factor in the process of accommodating diversity in deeply divided societies. The following case study will try to show, which forms real-life language policy can take (see esp. section 3.4).

15 3 Case Study: Belgium

3 Case Study: Belgium

L’Union fait la Force || Eendracht maakt Macht || Einigkeit macht stark

(Belgian National Motto, Constitution, Art. 193)

The following case study will try to analyze the current situation in Belgium concerning the politics of accommodation of diversity. A first section (3.1) will give a short historic overview illustrating the history of conflict between the societal groups in Belgium. The following section (3.2) will give a summary of the main cleavages and divisions that divide Belgian society and will claim that the dominant cleavage is of an ethno- linguistic kind. In a next step (3.3), the political institutions of Belgium will be examined in order to show how interests of the societal groups can be accommodated. Following this step, a more detailed analysis of the management of the linguistic conflict with the instruments of language policy will be given (3.4). This case study will considerably rely on statistics to illustrate the argumentation. Consequently, it should be remarked that these statistics can only hint relations and dependencies and are not intended to justify definite judgements. Furthermore, this argumentation cannot take all possibly relevant points into consideration so that the interested reader should refer to more comprehensive studies on the topic, like McRae (1986) or Siegemund (1989).

3.1 Belgian History - A History of Conﬂict

Belgium is one of the smallest European states, covering an area of ca. 30,500 km2. Of the total population of 10.5 million, six million people live in northern, Dutch- speaking Flanders, 3.5 million people live in southern and French-speaking Wallonia, one million people live in the bi-lingual area of Brussels. Finally, there is a German- speaking minority of about 72.000 located in eastern Wallonia (see Figure 1). The numbers indicate that the country comprises a Flemish majority, a signiﬁcantly smaller Walloon group and a German minority. Consequently, the main conﬂicts will appear between Flanders and Wallonia, whereas the German minority will only play a minor role. Therefore, the German minority will not be dealt with in detail in this paper (for a study on the German minority, see e.g. Nelde 1979).

16 3 Case Study: Belgium

Figure 1: Belgium: Linguistic Map (Source: McRae 1986: 15)

It should be noted, that Brussels, the Belgian capital, plays a special role. It is the only area in Belgium, where both Dutch (ca. 20% of the Brussels population) and French (ca. 80%) are accepted as official languages, whereas in the other regions, administrative unilingualism is in effect. Furthermore, Brussels is home to about 300 international organizations. The most prominent ones being the European Com- mission, the Council of the European Union, parts of the European Parliament and NATO. From a sociolinguistic point of view, the Brussels area and its inhabitants offer an interesting view into the processes of language contact. Linguistic phenomena can be spotted, but Brussels is also the field of intense social exchange and conflict between the Flemish and Walloons. However, in the course of this paper, the complex role of Brussels in the Belgian society cannot be discussed in detail (for more on this topic, see e.g. Treffers-Daller 1991; Panowitsch 1994; Verdoodt 1997: 1107).

17 3 Case Study: Belgium

Conflict between the Flemish and Walloon has always been an extremely influential factor in Belgian history. This region in western Europe, where Roman and Germanic groups have been in contact for centuries, has often been ruled by foreign rulers, until the independent Belgian state was declared in 1830. This state’s constitution already recognized the basic rights of the linguistic groups9. However, in everyday life, French was the most prestigious language in Belgium, spoken by the society’s elites. Consequently, at that time, there is a high degree of diglossia where French is the high variety and Flemish the low variety with little prestige (cf. Verdoodt 1997: 1114). As large parts of the Flemish population could not speak French, they had no access to higher education or higher office. For that reason, 1830s Belgium can even be described, with Fishman’s terminology, as a diglossia without bilingualism. Yet, as Fishman indicates too, such situations are usually not stable. The Flemish movement could be understood as a force trying to change that diglossic situation of 19th century Belgium. Soon after Belgian independence, with the socioeconomic situation in Flanders improving, multiple cultural and social movements fought for the position of Flemish culture and language in Belgium. Beginning with literary works emphasizing the Flemish culture, the Flemish movement fought for a full implementation of their granted constitutional rights. Finally, the movement was successful in establishing full acceptance of its language and rights. The movement is still active today as an agglomeration of different interest groups with different goals, ranging from supporting Flemish culture to Flemish independence. In consequence, today’s Flemish policies have to be analyzed in this context. Of course, it would be mistaken to imply that all Flemish policies are driven by such interests. It should also be noted, that comparable movements can be found in Wallonia’s history and present, although to a much smaller extent (cf. McRae 1986: 22-33; for a more detailed overview, see e.g. Reynebeau 1995 for Flanders and Denis 1997 for Wallonia). To sum up, the conflict between the two biggest population groups has been, and maybe still is, defining for the Belgian society. Next to typical political issues like security, employment, social security and education, the inner Belgian struggle for regional autonomy, here, and regional integration, there, has always been present in

9 Kern (1997: 1131) cites the following passage of the 1830 constitution: “Die Bürger dürfen sich in ihren Beziehungen mit der Verwaltung frei der französischen, ﬂämischen oder deutschen Sprache bedienen.” Cf. Today’s Constitution, Article 30: “Der Gebrauch der in Belgien gesprochenen Sprachen ist frei; er darf nur durch Gesetz und allein für Handlungen der öﬀentlichen Gewalt und für Gerichtsangelegenheiten geregelt werden.”

18 3 Case Study: Belgium

Belgian politics. Certainly, this cultural-territorial cleavage (see section 2.1) puts high pressure on central and regional governments alike and demands for adjusted political institutions and processes of policy making. Some of these processes and institutions will be discussed in the following sections.

3.2 Divisions and Cleavages in Belgian Society

The following section will present divisions and cleavages of the Belgian society. They are expected to be found in the areas of language, religion, economy and in popular and political culture. The goal is to show to which extent the Belgian society is divided and how these divisions potentially inﬂuence the political life.

3.2.1 Language

As the previous section (3.1) has already indicated, the linguistic cleavage is one of the most important divisions of Belgian society. Unfortunately, data on language usage is difficult to gather, as linguistic questions in an official census or interview usually yield responses motivated by a political background. For this reason, it is relatively complicated to access comprehensive data on today’s language usage in Belgium. The results of the last and preceding Belgian official censuses from 1846 to 1947 that included questions on language usage are presented in Table 2 and Table 3.

Table 2: Belgium: Languages spoken most frequently. Census results from 1846 to 1947 and survey results of 2005. (percentages)

Year Total Population (in millions) French Dutch German Other 1846 4,337 42.1 57.0 0.8 0.1 1910 7,424 42.9 51.6 1.0 4.5 1920 7,466 43.9 50.8 1.2 4.1 1930 8,092 43.4 51.1 1.2 4.2 1947 8,512 41.9 52.6 0.9 4.6 2005 10,364 38 56 <1 5 (Source: cf. McRae 1986: 36; for 2005: Eurobarometer 2006) Note: For 2005, interviewees were asked what there mother tongue was (1000 people were asked).

Table 2 shows which languages where used most frequently by the Belgian population in the respective years. As the numbers indicate, language usage is a relatively

19 3 Case Study: Belgium

Table 3: Belgium: Reported language knowledge. Census results from 1866 to 1947 and survey data from 2000. (percentages)

Year Total Pop- French Dutch German another another ulation (in only only only nat. language millions) language 1866 4.828 42.3 49.8 0.7 5.1 0.2 1880 5.520 42.6 47.5 0.8 9.2 0.1 1890 6.069 40.9 45.2 0.5 13.2 0.1 1900 6.694 38.5 42.2 0.4 13.7 5.2 1910 7.424 38.2 43.4 0.4 13.5 4.5 1920 7.466 38.2 42.7 0.8 14.3 4.1 1930 8.092 37.6 42.9 0.8 15.4 4.1 1947 8.512 34.2 41.8 0.7 19.2 4.0 2000 10.241 21 17 – – – (Source: cf. McRae 1986: 37; for 2000: Ginsburgh & Weber 2007: 36) Note: The source of the row for 2000 does not offer numbers for the last three columns. stable phenomenon in this context. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the propor- tions between the linguistic groups have not changed significantly (French at around 43% and Dutch at around 51%). This stability indicates that there has been no language shift, where one linguistic group stops using its own language. This is especially remarkable for the German minority. Contrasted with recent numbers from 2005, a slight alteration can be seen in the percentages. The number of French speakers has decreased and the percentage of Dutch speakers has increased. Furthermore, there is now a lower proportion of German speakers and a slightly higher number of speakers of other languages. However, the numbers for 2005 are not the outcome of a general census but of a survey (Eurobarometer 2006) and they stand for the mother tongue of an interviewee. Consequently, these numbers could be interpreted as a tendency of more Flemish using their mother tongue as their most frequently spoken language. Furthermore, these numbers are a result of the slightly higher population growth in Flanders after World War II. Table 3 offers information on the knowledge of other languages than the mother tongue in Belgium. Here, the final stages of the diglossic situation of 1830s Belgium are clearly visible. Nearly half of the population spoke their mother tongue only. The knowledge of another national language was very limited in the 19th century, but

20 3 Case Study: Belgium the proportion was rising from only 5% in 1866 to already 19.2% in 1947. Recent numbers from 2000 indicate that more people have knowledges in other languages, as the number of people speaking French or Dutch only has decreased significantly. Again, these numbers are results of a survey (Ginsburgh & Weber 2007) and thus have to be interpreted carefully. Additionally, results from a recent, Europe-wide study (Eurobarometer 2006) offer some interesting insights into the opinions of the Belgian population towards foreign language learning. The comparison to the average results of all EU25 states with the Belgian results might indicate what makes Belgium special, in this context. A large majority of Belgians (BE: 91% vs. EU25: 83%) consider knowing foreign languages as beneficial for their personal life10. When asked whether they have started to learn a new language in the last two years, 27 % of the Belgian interviewees responded with “yes”. Again, this is higher than the EU 25 average of 18%. The same appears when they are asked about whether they would begin learning a new language in the coming year (30% “yes” in Belgium, 21% “yes” in EU25). Moreover, there are interesting results concerning the evaluation of the utility of learning their national languages11. French is considered as useful by 53% (EU25: 25%), Dutch by 22% (EU25: 1%) and German by 8% (EU25: 22%). French and Dutch are over-proportionally considered as useful, which indicates the importance that Belgians attribute to their main national languages. However, the most frequent answer to the question was English with 83% whose average EU25 score is at a much lower 68%. It could be interpreted that English as an international lingua franca could also be considered by the Belgian population to fulfill this function in their national context. In spite of that, when asked to evaluate the linguistic capabilities of their fellow citizens, the interviewed Belgians think that 70% of the population are good at speaking foreign languages (EU 25: 44%). To conclude, the Belgian linguistic landscape is characterized by a growing number of citizens that articulate the intention to learn their national languages and English. The picture of the 1830s Belgium, when a large part of the population was monolingual, is no longer accurate. However, as the numbers from Ginsburgh & Weber (2007: 36) indicate, there are still some significant regional differences: In Flanders, just 28% of

10 “Do you think knowing other languages than your mother tongue is, or could be, very useful, fairly useful, not very useful or not at all useful for you personally?” (Eurobarometer 2006: QA1). 11 “Which two languages, apart from your mother tongue do you think are the most useful to know for your personal development and career?” (Eurobarometer 2006: QA2a).

21 3 Case Study: Belgium the population speak Dutch only and 59% speak French, whereas in Wallonia, 57% of the population speak French only and just 19% speak Dutch. The same is true for English, which more people speak in Flanders (52%) than in Wallonia (17%). On this level, the differences between the two regions are still clearly visible. Knowledge of foreign languages, especially the knowledge of other national language, is significantly higher in Flanders. Thus, language and linguistic knowledge is still an influential factor dividing the country.

3.2.2 Religion

Traditionally, Belgium is known as a Catholic country. However, as most parts of western Europe are becoming more secular, the importance of religion in every day life is diminishing. The results of the European Social Survey (ESS)12 presented in Table 4, show the percentages of Flemish and Walloon that claim to be of Roman- Catholic religion. In both regions, less than half of the interviewees claim to be of Roman-Catholic Religion. There are some ﬂuctuations, probably caused by the ESS design. However, the numbers indicate that the interviewees in Wallonia do slightly less claim to be of Roman-Catholic religion. This information should be contrasted with the results of another ESS variable that comprises the responses to the question: “How religious are you?” Table 5 shows that the median interviewee positioned itself to be moderately religious (5 on a scale from 0-10). However, as the p(χ2) column suggests, there are some diﬀerences of the distribution to the left and right side of the scale. A more detailed analysis reveals that there are more people in Wallonia that place themselves on the low end of the scale and on the high end of the scale, i.e. there are more “very religious” and more “not at all religious” people in Wallonia than in Flanders. Still, the majority of Belgian

12 The European Social Survey is a scientific project that assesses attitudes and beliefs of the European population. Its results are available online at http://ess.nsd.uib.no/. The website also offers basic analysis tools. However, the data presented in this paper were all processed with the computer program STATISTICA that offers further analytical possibilities. After the creation of a table of frequencies (respective variables compared to variable REGION), all data were tested with the χ2-Test for a relation between the variables. In all ESS analyses in this paper, the null hypothesis was that the frequencies in a table were equally distributed. Next, a theoretical table of frequencies was calculated that shows how the variables’ data would be distributed if the null hypotheses was true. The value of the χ2 Test will then indicate how close the theoretical and original table of frequencies are. Consequently, a probability (p(χ2)) can be given with which the null hypothesis is accepted (p(χ2)=1), or if it has to be rejected (p(χ2) < 0.005). All detailed tables for the ESS analyses in this paper are available online at http://tobiasweise.de/studium/ba-arbeit/appendixb/.

22 3 Case Study: Belgium

Table 4: Belgium: Belonging to Roman-Catholic religion. ESS (RLGDNM) 2002-2007. (percentages of all interviewees)

ESS Round Flanders Wallonia ESS 2002-2003 48.8 33.7 ESS 2004-2006 41.8 40.4 ESS 2006-2007 40.8 37.3 (Data: ESS (http://ess.nsd.uib.no/, Variable RLGDNM ; detailed tables: http://tobiasweise.de/studium/ba-arbeit/appendixb/)

Table 5: Belgium: How religious are you? ESS (RLGDGR) 2002-2007. Median values of placement on a scale from 0 (not religious at all) to 10 (very religious) and p(χ2) of whether the answers are equally distributed.

ESS Round Flanders Wallonia p(χ2) ESS 2002-2003 5 5 <0.005 ESS 2004-2006 6 5 0 ESS 2006-2007 5 5 <0.005 (Data: ESS (http://ess.nsd.uib.no/), Variable RLGDGR ; detailed tables: http://tobiasweise.de/studium/ba-arbeit/appendixb/)

interviewees positioned themselves equally. Thus, religion is still important for the Belgian population, but no clear and meaningful diﬀerences between the north and the south could be found.

3.2.3 Economy

The economic system arguably affects the social system of a society. Economic pros- perity offers a variety of opportunities that less prospering societies cannot provide. In this respect, economic differences can lead to social and cultural cleavages. Table 6 shows the per capita GDP of Flanders and Wallonia, expressed in Euro purchasing power parities. Flanders has a higher per capita GDP than Wallonia. Furthermore, the growth rate of the per capita GDP (in e purchasing power parities) from 1995 to 2004 is higher (46%) than in Flanders (42%). Table 7 shows the results of this disparate economic development. The unemployment rate in Wallonia is also

23 3 Case Study: Belgium

Table 6: Belgium: Per capita Gross Domestic Product of Flanders and Wallonia. 1995- 2004. (in e purchasing power parities).

Year Flanders Wallonia 1995 18,135.5 13,610.6 1996 18,608.6 14,002.4 1997 19,604.3 14,494.7 1998 20,316.0 15,154.4 1999 21,182.5 15,576.9 2000 22,883.7 16,777.5 2001 23,845.1 17,458.3 2002 24,688.4 18,008.4 2003 25,314.2 18,423.8 2004 26,483.1 19,340.2 (Source: Studiedienst van de Vlaamse Regering (http://aps.vlaanderen.be/index.htm)) significantly higher than in Flanders. Again, this could be understood as a sign of different socioeconomic structures. For a more detailed analysis, one should also analyze the state of integration of the Flemish and Walloon markets. Unfortunately, statistics on this issue are scarce. One could expect high levels of market integration as most basic preconditions for economic cooperation, like the presence of an equal currency, no borders and no taxes on trade, are fulfilled13. However, the existence of different languages hinders trade. The same is true for low worker mobility. Research on the topic suggests, that there are not enough workers that are willing to look for a job in the other region. Another indicator for this is the relatively low percentage of Flemish-Walloon marriages of about 7-10% (cf.: Billiet & Maddens & Frognier 2006: 915). To sum up, economic differences are important in Belgium. Flanders, the once rural and agricultural region, has become the economic leader in Belgium. The formerly prosperous Wallonia suffered from the end of the mining and heavy industry in Western Europe. This is in stark contrast to the situation in 1830s Belgium. In a few decades, the once culturally and economically disadvantaged Flanders transformed into the dominating Belgian region.

13 The rise in the unemployment rates in both Flanders and Wallonia in 2004 (see Table 7) indicates, that both parts are aﬀected by the same external shocks that inﬂuenced the economy. This can be interpreted as a sign of high market integration.

24 3 Case Study: Belgium

Table 7: Belgium: Unemployment rate in Flanders and Wallonia. 2000-2006. (percentages).

Year Flanders Wallonia 2000 6.4 10.3 2001 6.4 10.0 2002 7.0 10.6 2003 7.7 10.9 2004 8.3 12.1 2005 8.5 11.9 2006 7.8 11.8 (Source: Flanders: Studiedienst van de Vlaamse Regering (http://aps.vlaanderen.be/index.htm), Wallonia: IWEPS 2007: 88)

3.2.4 Media and Popular Culture

As it is hard to access and describe the popular culture of a society, there can only be indications about the differences between Flanders and Wallonia in this area. The public and private media in Belgium, a main force influencing popular culture, is divided along linguistic lines. The three linguistic communities finance their own public media, i.e. the VRT (Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep) for Flanders, the RTBF (Radio télévision belge de la communauté française) for Wallonia and the BRF (Belgischer Rundfunk) for the German community. These public channels report little about the current issues in the other parts of the country. The daily news reports are largely on regional issues and they cover national politics as well. The same applies to the print media. Different newspapers and journals appear in the regions and there is arguably no influential national print medium publishing and distributing equal contents on the national level (cf.: Billiet & Maddens & Frognier 2006: 914; McRae 1986: 249f). In addition, when taking a look at what people listen to, at what they read and what they watch, differences become apparent. Table 8 shows a comparison of the annual Top 10 singles in Flanders and Wallonia for a ten year period14. The numbers

14 The titles and artists of the Top 10 singles of each year from 1997-2007 were retrieved from http://www.ultratop.be for both Wallonia and Flanders. Then, the language in which the titles are sung were determined. Where the numbers do not add up to 10, titles sung in other languages were present. Finally, titles were counted that co-occurred in the Flemish and Walloon

25 3 Case Study: Belgium

Table 8: Belgian popular culture: Comparison of the annual single charts in Flanders and Wallonia. Top 10s. 1997-2007. Total numbers of titles sung in a speciﬁc language and co-occuring titles.

Flanders Wallonia Year Dutch French English Dutch French English Equal titles 1997 2 0 5 0 2 5 5 1998 0 0 9 0 3 3 2 1999 1 0 9 0 5 4 4 2000 3 0 6 0 6 4 1 2001 2 0 8 0 5 5 3 2002 1 1 7 0 5 3 4 2003 2 0 8 0 6 4 1 2004 1 0 5 0 6 2 3 2005 3 0 5 0 6 2 2 2006 3 0 5 0 5 3 3 2007 2 0 8 0 6 4 3

Total 20 1 75 0 55 38 31 (Data: http://www.ultratop.be, Analysis: http://tobiasweise.de/studium/ba-arbeit/appendixa/)

indicate some interesting differences between the regions. While in Wallonia, 55% of the Top 10 titles are sung in the region’s language, in Flanders, only 20% are sung in Dutch. Given the different volume of the francophone and Dutch music industry this might not be astonishing. However, what is remarkable is that songs that are sung in one region’s language and are placed in this region’s Top 10, never appear to become very popular in the other region. This can be interpreted as a sign of little communication between the groups and indicates that there are limited connections between the Flemish and Walloon civil societies and popular cultures. Accordingly, the titles that were present in both region’s Top 10, are all sung in English15. The overall proportion of titles sung in English is significantly higher in Flanders than in Wallonia. To conclude, these

Top 10s. The totals for Flanders and Wallonia could also be understood as percentages because they are both relative to a total of 100 titles. This is similar for the last column. Additional detailed data can be retrieved from http://tobiasweise.de/studium/ba-arbeit/appendixa/. 15 The only French title that appears in the Flemish charts in 2002 was sung by a Flemish artist and was not represented in the Walloon Top 10.

26 3 Case Study: Belgium numbers suggest that the popular culture of Wallonia and Flanders, or at least parts of it, is divided along a linguistic cleavage. Equal results can be expected for book bestsellers and TV programs (cf. McRae 1986: 237f). As on other levels, the linguistic barrier between French and Dutch appears to stop the subcultures from the north and south to interact and to exchange on a large scale.

3.2.5 Political Culture

What has been said about popular culture is also true for political culture, it is hard to access. Here, political culture should be understood in a rather narrow sense as something that comprises political opinions and ideals. However, an analysis of votes and opinion polls can give indications about the topic. Before examining voter decisions, an analysis of the party constellation of Belgium might turn out to be useful (see e.g. Luther & Deschouwer 1999 on parties in divided societies). In today’s Belgium, there are distinct and separate party systems in Flanders and Wallonia. The parties are in no direct competition as a party can only be voted by citizens of the respective region. In consequence, there are diﬀerent political parties for each political orientation in Flanders and Wallonia. The most prominent ones are (cf.: Billiet & Maddens & Frognier 2006: 913; see Siegemund 1989 for a very detailed description of the Belgian party system):

• [christian-democratic] CD&V (Christen-Democratisch & Vlaams) in Flan- ders, CdH (Centre démocratique humaniste) in Wallonia

• [social-democratic] SP.a-spirit (Socialistische Partij anders and Sociaal, Pro- gressief, Internationaal, Regionalistisch, Integraal-democratisch en Toekomst- gericht) in Flanders, PS (Parti Socialiste) in Wallonia

• [liberal] open VLD (Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten) in Flanders, MR (Mou- vement Réformateur) in Wallonia

• [green] Groen in Flanders, Ecolo in Wallonia

• [extreme right / nationalists] Vlaams Belang in Flanders, Front National in Wallonia

27 3 Case Study: Belgium

Table 9 shows voters preferences in the national elections for the Chamber of Rep- resentatives. The table also offers hints about the standings of the different political groups on the regional and national level. On the latter, the christian-democratic, social-democratic and liberal groups are about equally strong and there is no political group dominating the national level. Moreover, the extreme right and the nationalist parties are remarkably high on the national level. At this point, regional differences are clearly visible: The extreme right and the nationalists are significantly stronger in Flanders, than in Wallonia16. Furhermore, while the christian-democratic and the liberal groups are the strongest in Flanders, in Wallonia, it is the social-democratic and liberal group that has won majorities. This finding coincides with the ESS data on the placement of the population on the right-left-scale, as seen in Table 10. More interviewees in Wallonia said of themselves to be positioned politically left than in Flanders, were more people claimed to be politically right (LRSCALE). The numbers are not very stable, but as the very low p(χ2) values suggest, there are great differences between the answers of the Walloon and Flemish interviewees. When asked how much they trusted in their politicians and their national parliament (TRSTPRL and TRSTPLT), Walloon interviewees trust these political institutions less than their Flemish counterparts. In this area, there are very significant differences between the north and the south, as most p(χ2) values are smaller than 0.005. Furthermore, Walloons and Flemish respond differently when asked about their satisfaction with their national democracy and government (SFTDEM and SFTGOV). There are notably more people dissatisfied with their government and democracy in Wallonia than in Flanders.

16 It has to be noted, that the classiﬁcation of some Flemish parties is not easy. While extreme-right parties often have xenophobic and nationalist agendas, some Belgian parties feature the latter, but not the former. Their main agenda item is the Flemish independence. Flemish nationalist parties, like the Volksunie that won many seats in the elections, focused basically on this issue. Therefore, nationalist does not necessarily mean anti-democratic in the Belgian context (see e.g. Deprez 1994).

28 3 Case Study: Belgium

Table 9: Belgium: Parliamentary election results by political groups (Chamber of Rep- resentatives). 1987-2007. (totaled percentages of all votes)

Year Political Group Flanders Wallonia Total (row) christian-democratic 19.45 8 27.45 social-democratic 14.9 15.64 30.54 1987 liberal 11.5 9.41 20.9 green 4.48 2.57 7.05 extreme right / nationalists 9.96 1.16 11.12

christian-democratic 16.81 7.74 24.55 social-democratic 11.98 13.49 25.47 1991 liberal 11.98 8.14 20.12 green 4.86 5.07 9.93 extreme right / nationalists 12.47 2.52 14.99

christian-democratic 17.18 7.73 24.91 social-democratic 12.56 11.87 24.43 1995 liberal 13.15 10.26 23.41 green 4.43 4.01 8.44 extreme right / nationalists 7.83 2.28 10.11

christian-democratic 14.09 5.88 19.97 social-democratic 9.55 10.6 20.15 1999 liberal 14.3 10.14 24.44 green 6.99 7.36 14.35 extreme right / nationalists 15.43 1.45 16.88

christian-democratic 13.25 5.47 18.72 social-democratic 14.91 13.02 27.93 2003 liberal 15.36 11.4 26.76 green - 3.06 3.06 extreme right / nationalists 14.65 1.98 16.54

christian-democratic 18.51 6.06 24.57 social-democratic 10.26 10.86 21.12 2007 liberal 11.83 12.52 24.35 green 3.98 5.10 9.08 extreme right / nationalists 11.99 1.97 13.96 (Data: 1987-2003: http://www.ibzdgip.fgov.be; 2007: http://belgium.fgov.be/elections2007/) Note: All parties that won seats in the parliamentary elections were noted and assigned to the respective political families. As there are diﬀerent parties for each linguistic group, it is possible to assign them to Flanders and Wallonia. However, the results also comprise the votes of the Brussels region, where both Flemish and Walloon parties can be elected.

29 3 Case Study: Belgium

Table 10: Belgium: Findings from the ESS on political culture. 2002-2007. Percent- ages of the responding interviewees that place themselves on the left and right end of a scale from 0 to 10 and p(χ2) of whether all answers are equally distributed.

Flanders Wallonia ESS Variable ESS Round 0-2 8-10 0-2 8-10 p(χ2) ESS 2002-2003 10.55 10.28 15.12 6.83 <0.003 LRSCALE ESS 2004-2005 8.47 8.89 14.94 6.52 <0.002 ESS 2006-2007 10.65 11.1 14.17 8.19 <0.007

ESS 2002-2003 12.59 10.3 19.06 9.63 0 TRSTPRL ESS 2004-2005 14.71 6.91 20.42 7.27 <0.02 ESS 2006-2007 10.18 10.62 15.7 7.04 <0.05

ESS 2002-2003 17.35 4.51 34.11 3.04 0 TRSTPLT ESS 2004-2005 15.67 4.91 30.4 2.87 0 ESS 2006-2007 15.02 4.36 26.68 2.48 0

ESS 2002-2003 6.63 16.42 13.35 13.53 <0.001 STFDEM ESS 2004-2005 9.41 15.26 11.55 21.55 <0.008 ESS 2006-2007 7.8 15.7 13.51 12.97 <0.004

ESS 2002-2003 9.9 9.65 12.88 7.58 <0.0005 STFGOV ESS 2004-2005 11.85 5.34 19.08 4.17 <0.09 ESS 2006-2007 9.09 8.00 16.69 5.03 0 (Data: ESS (cf. notes to Table 4) Variables: LRSCALE (Placement on left right scale; 0=left, 10=right); TRSTPRL (Trust in country’s parliament; 0=no trust at all, 10=complete trust); TRSTPLT (Trust in politicians; 0=no trust at all, 10=complete trust); STFDEM (How satisfied with the way democracy works in the country; 0=extremely dissatisfied, 10=extremely satisfied); STFGOV (How satisfied with the national government; 0=extremely dissatisfied, 10=extremely satisfied) detailed tables: http://tobiasweise.de/studium/ba-arbeit/appendixb/)

30 3 Case Study: Belgium

These differences in the political opinions and culture are important, especially when reconsidering, that they represent cleavages on a functional dimension (see section 2.1). This makes governing a more difficult task, if the potentially different conceptions of society that are present (left vs. right) need to be accommodated. The different evaluations of the government’s performance also indicate that the political processes and policy outcomes are different in the regions. This could imply that national policies are differently effective in each region. To summarize the last sections that tried to illustrate divisions in Belgian society, it can be said that the linguistic division still plays the crucial role in the Belgian context. Linguistic knowledge of the other national languages is still limited, especially in Wallonia. This is also limiting the economic development of Belgium as a whole and of Wallonia in particular. The currently, economically less-powerful Wallonia cannot profit from Flanders’ growth, as the linguistic barrier hinders worker migration. In addition, religion, in today’s more and more secular world, does no longer seem to have much of the dividing power it used to have. Furthermore, the different political orientations and differences in the popular culture, constitute another division. To conclude, the main division of current Belgium appears to be an ethno-linguistic cleavage, i.e. a cleavage on a linguistic and cultural basis.

3.3 Consociationalism in Belgian Democracy

The following section will attempt an analysis of Belgian democratic institutions and processes. The main goal will be to ﬁnd mechanisms and institutional arrangements that make accommodation of diversity possible. In a ﬁrst step, the federal structure of the Belgian state and its political organizations will be described. Then, these institutions and processes will be contrasted with the features of a consociational democracy, as described earlier (see section 2.2). It will be found that consociational processes are indeed active in the Belgian context, assuring peaceful stability and democratic co-operation between the societal groups.

31 3 Case Study: Belgium

3.3.1 Federal Structures, Institutions and Processes

The Belgian federal state consists of the following elements17 (Constitution, Art. 1-5): three Communities: the German-speaking Community, the Flemish Community and the French Community (see Figure 2) three Regions: the Walloon Region, the Flemish Region and the Brussels-Capital Region (see Figure 2) four linguistic areas: the German linguistic area, the French linguistic area, the Dutch linguistic area and the bilingual linguistic area Brussels-Capital (see Fig- ure 1)

The Communities18 are based on the language spoken by the people in the area. Their competences are in the areas of culture, education, health care, social aid and, to a limited degree, science and foreign relations (Constitution, Art. 127). The legislative organ of the Community is the Community’s parliament (Art. 115). Consequently, there is a parliament of the German, the French, and the Flemish Community. Their laws are binding for the respective region and for their institutions in the Brussels- Capital region, where both the Flemish and French Community are allowed to support and create organizations. Furthermore, the Communities also have a government, that is elected by the respective parliaments (Art. 121). The Region’s borders are territorially oriented along the linguistic border. The Walloon Region comprises the French and German linguistic area, the Brussels-Capital Region consists of the bilingual Brussels area and the Flemish Region of the Dutch linguistic area. The Regions have their own parliaments and governments and have legislative and executive powers in the following areas: culture, health, social aid, land settlement, environment, accommodation, energy, economy and employment (Articles 4 to 6 in the law of August, 8th 1980). In the Brussels Region, the parliament is divided into linguistic groups to assure the rights of the Dutch-speaking in Brussels. In Flanders, the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region have combined their institutions, so that there is now only a Flemish Community, having both the Region’s

17 For a description of the process of constitutional reforms, starting in the 1970ies, that lead to the current federal structure, see Swenden & Brans & De Winter (2006). 18 In the following, Community and Region, starting with a capital letter, refers to the federal structures.

32 3 Case Study: Belgium

Figure 2: Belgium: Map of Regions and Communities (Source: http://www.cfwb.be)

and Community’s competences. Moreover, on the sub-regional and sub-communitary levels, there are local political institutions, i.e. provinces and municipalities that deal with the policy issues of their area (Constitution, Art. 162). On the same level as the Regions and Communities, there are the federal authorities, i.e. the King, the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate. The national political institutions have competences over political issues that affect all Belgians. These are, for example, financial policy, justice, social security, foreign affairs and defense (Art. 74). Clearly, the multitude of federal, regional and community organizations renders the exact definition of competences difficult. In the following, the legislative, executive and judiciary institutional structures are described. The legislative powers on the federal level are with the bicameral parliament and the King (Art. 36). The Chamber of Representatives is directly elected by the Belgian population. The number of seats is fixed at 150, but the number of delegates per electoral district is relative to the amount of people living in this area (Art. 63). The second chamber, the Senate, counts 71 Senators that are elected directly by the Dutch (25) and French electorate college (15), appointed by the Com- munities’ parliaments out of their members (10+10+1) and co-opted to fulfill special

33 3 Case Study: Belgium functions (10) (Art. 67). In both chambers, the delegates are divided into linguistic groups (Art. 43). This becomes important, when a linguistic group feels that a proposed law, in case it would pass the parliament, would severely endanger the relations between the societal groups (Art. 54). In this case, a three-fourths majority of a linguistic group can set a motion to stop the passing of a law and send it to the council of ministers for further debate19 (Art. 143). The executive powers are held by the King (Art. 37). The members of the government, i.e. the minister and the prime minister, are appointed by the King. However, it is the ministers that are responsible for their political actions, and the King cannot pass acts without the signature of a minister. The federal ministers are checked by the Chamber of Representatives (Art. 101, Art. 102, Art. 106). Furthermore, the King has to take an oath in front of the parliament before his inauguration guaranteeing his respect for the constitution and laws of the Belgian people. This strongly limits the executive powers of the King, assigning him a representative role in the Belgian constitutional monarchy. The judiciary power is in the hands of courts, that execute laws in the name of the King. There is an independent constitutional court that decides about competences and verifies the law’s constitutionality (Art. 142). Moreover, there is only one national court of cassation. To conclude, the Belgian system is a federal system that has some notable features. In this form of a “federalisation by disaggregation” (Swenden & Brans & De Winter 2006: 864), the political powers are transferred from the center, i.e. the once unitary Belgian state of 1830, to multiple organizations acting on a regional level, i.e. today’s federal system. This is in opposition to forms of federalism, where different states are deciding to work together in a federal system. Furthermore, the bipolarity – between Flanders and Walonia – of the federal system, with relatively strong Regions and Communities, creates special processes in the federal framework. However, the following question will be, whether this federal, institutional design manages to accommodate the interests of the different groups and can assure the stability of the Belgian democracy.

19 This is called the alarm bell procedure, which was notably used in November 2008, when the French group vetoed a law on the scission of the important electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde thus sending the law for further discussions to the council of ministers (see Le Soir, November 8, 2007).

34 3 Case Study: Belgium

3.3.2 Consociational Features

In the following, the stereotypical features of the institutional setup of a consociational democracy (see section 2.2) will be contrasted with today’s Belgian reality (cf. Lijphart 1981: 4-8; Deschouwer 2006). The first principle was the one of a governing grand coalition, where political power is mutually shared between the societal groups. Governing coalitions in Belgium need to consist of parties from Flanders and Wallonia in order to have a majority (see Table 9). In addition, the numbers of delegates in Senate and Chamber make cooperation between the societal groups necessary, especially for important laws that require a two-thirds majority. Furthermore, as Article 99 of the Constitution states, there has to be the same number of French-speaking and Dutch-Speaking ministers in the national cabinet. These points underline, that politics on the national level rely on the cooperation of Flemish and Walloon politicians. This principle of power-sharing is also in close relation to the idea of a proportional representation of all societal groups. This is functional in the composition and election of the bicameral parliament, especially in the Senate, where senators are appointed by the Region’s and Communities’ parliaments, and in the House of Representatives through the fixed relation between delegates and the population of the electoral district. In addition, the entire federal design, with its regions and communities, tries to give each group a maximum of segmental autonomy. This also takes a lot of load off the national government: While the regional and community institutions can deal with local issues that require less effort in accommodating the societal groups, the national level can endeavor to deal with national issues touching all groups. Moreover, to protect the Walloon against the demographical majority of the Flemish on the national level, there are processes that refer to the principle of mutual veto. At first, important laws, such as amendments to the constitution need a two-thirds majority. Additionally, as already discussed in the previous section, Art. 54 of the constitution gives each linguistic group a suspensive veto that assures that no law that does not require more than a simple simple majority can be passed by the other linguistic group. These mechanisms effectively protect the Walloon and encourage a process of compromise-finding on difficult issues.

35 3 Case Study: Belgium

To sum up, if interpreting Lijphart’s consociationalism in a concise manner, i.e. understanding it as an explanation for the stability of divided societies, Belgium still is a consociational democracy. As shown in the last paragraph, the main constitutional features of consociationalism are present in today’s Belgium. On the one hand, this is not surprising, as Lijphart built this model after the Belgium example. However, in the last 40 years after the formulation of the consociational model, Belgium is still a stable democracy20 in this respect. The accommodation of the diﬀerent societal groups, i.e. of the diﬀerent linguistic groups21, still seems to work. Some further remarks will follow in section 4.

3.4 Managing Linguistic Conﬂicts in Belgium

If the dominating cleavage in today’s Belgium is of an ethno-linguistic kind, then language policy, next to institutional design and economic policy, is one of the most important outcomes of accommodation of diversity. Consequently, language policy can be understood as a main political instrument to manage the main conflicts in the Belgian society. The Belgian state is known for its plenitude of linguistic regulations, as the 900-page study of Clement (2003) shows. In the following paragraphs, the management of the linguistic conflict in Belgium with the help of language policy will be described. A first important question is which languages have an official status and where they have that status. The officiality of a language is a major first step in the language policy of each state (see field (a:i) in Table 1). As previously noted, Article 30 of the Belgian constitution sets a limit to all language policy goals: Language usage is generally free in Belgium and language laws are only in order if they regulate the use of language of the public authorities and the jurisdictional system. This constitutional

20 Here, the basic assumption is: Hence the Belgian state still exists and there are no violent conﬂicts in its interior that would make democracy impossible, the Belgian democracy can be considered as stable. 21 This is also the the diﬀerence to the Belgium of the early 20th century. Then, the main cleavages were to be found in the religious and economic sphere. Consequently, the accommodation of these cleavages was achieved by another mechanism, known as verzuiling, or pillarization. The main interest groups were organized in nation-wide, i.e. cross-linguistic, organizations that organized the political activities of an interest group. One of this pillars could, for example, include all social- democratic movements from workers unions, to health funds, media channels and educational institutions to political parties (cf. Deschouwer 2006: 900f; on pillarization and de-pillarization, see e.g. Billiet 2006, Siegemund 1989: 297f).

36 3 Case Study: Belgium rule sets a limitation for all state actors trying to influence the usage and status of language in Belgium. On this level, the basic regulation of language, with the exception of Brussels, is the regional unilingualism that was fully implemented with the laws of 1962 (November 8) and 1963 (July 30, August 2, August 9). Regional unilingualism means, that in Flanders only Dutch, and in Wallonia only French has the status of an official language. This entails that all official communication between the state and the citizens occurs in the region’s official language. Consequently, national laws need to be translated in all national languages, regional laws need not. The respective laws also proposed a fixed linguistic border by prescribing administrative unilingualism to every municipality. This meant that some communes had to leave their original province in order to join a province where the commune’s language was the official language. If some language minorities were still present, facilities for the minority languages were created. Of course, this did not come without some conflict in the concerned areas, especially in the Voeren and Comines villages (see Figure 1). However, the enactment of regional unilingualism aims at equalizing the status of the national languages by granting them their own protected spheres, where they do not compete against each other (cf. McRae 1986: 150f; see e.g. Sonntag 1993 for the political process that lead to these regulations). Another important feature of a linguistic policy is usually, whether knowledge of the national language(s) is mandatory to become a legal citizen of the state. This measure can aim at the improvement of the social status of the language, as language is recognized as an integral part of citizenship (see field (b:i) in Table 1). Belgium has a jus sanguinis system of citizenship. However, the process of naturalization, which is run by the Chamber of Representatives, does not include explicit regulations on linguistic knowledge of a national language. Nevertheless, applicants need to explain their attachment to Belgium. It is uncertain, to which extent linguistic capabilities in the national languages are of importance in this context. Language policies often regulate the usage of languages in the public space. Again, Article 30 of the constitution regulates this area. Consequently, all official announcements, street signs and posters must be Dutch in Flanders, French in Wallonia and bilingual in Brussels. This leads to some inconveniences, e.g. for foreigners traveling the country. If traveling by car across regions, one has to know both the Dutch and French name of the destination (e.g. Bergen and Mons). The same is true when traveling by train: when boarding the train in bilingual Brussels, one will be asked for the

37 3 Case Study: Belgium ticket in both languages and announcements are in both languages, too. After leaving Brussels to enter Wallonia or Flanders, the train service will be unilingual only. Other public displays and advertisements are not regulated by law22. However, most private sector displays and announcements are written in the region’s language. Finally, one of the most important instruments of language policy is influencing the educational system, especially the number of lessons in a foreign language (see field (a:ii) and (b:ii) in Table 1). In the school system, the official language of teaching is the region’s official language. The authorities responsible for education are the Communities. Consequently, in Brussels, schools are controlled by either the French, or Flemish Community. The federal law of July 30, 1963 regulates which foreign languages are to be taught. In Flanders, the first foreign language is French and lessons have to start in the fifth year of schooling with three hours per week. There also is the possibility to offer foreign language initiation as early as in pre-primary education. In general secondary education, French classes are continued and lessons in a second language, i.e. English or German start. In higher education, there are no rules on compulsory language courses (cf. Eurybase 2007: 10, 105). In Wallonia, foreign language education also has to start in the fifth year of primary education. However, Walloon pupils have the choice between Dutch, German and English as their first foreign language. Earlier initiations are possible as well. A second foreign language has to be taught in general secondary education. Once more, the pupils have the choice between English, German and Dutch. The language of higher education also has to be French, only parts may be taught and evaluated in another language (cf. Eurybase 2006: 5, 94, 167). In Brussels and the communes with facilities, lessons in the other national languages usually start with the beginning of primary education. To sum up, the obligatory second language teaching in Wallonia and Flanders starts relatively late, although there are possibilities for an earlier start. The outstanding difference between the two systems is that in Flanders, learning the other national language, i.e. French, first is obligatory. However, this is in contrast with the data presented in section 3.2.1, describing the language knowledge in today’s Belgium. The different educational systems cannot fully explain, why Walloons speak less foreign languages than the Flemish.

22 Nevertheless, there are some communes that try to pressure Dutch-only advertisements and displays (see e.g. LeSoir online, June 12, 2008: “Keulen condamne l’appel à la délation lancé à Overijse”).

38 3 Case Study: Belgium

Finally, to describe all language policy goals presented in Table 1, it has to be said that corpus planning (fields (a:iii) and (b:iii)) is currently not an objective of Belgian politics. This may be due to the fact that all national languages are heavily influenced by the language of the neighboring countries, i.e. German by Germany, French by France and Dutch by the Netherlands. Consequently, there are no political movements to politically form a Belgian Dutch, a Belgian French or a Belgian German, at least not in the sense of corpus planning. To conclude, the Belgian language policy, on a national level, has chosen the way of a multilingualism by juxtaposition (Clement 2003: 6), meaning that the national languages and their linguistic systems are to co-exist side-by-side. One could also imagine a multilingualism by superposition (ibid.) where all national languages have an official status in the regions and where the goal would be that, in the future, every citizen would be able to use all national languages23. This way was not chosen, neither in language policy, nor in constitutional design. Maybe, this is an important factor allowing the peaceful co-existence of both societal groups in Belgium. This question will be raised in the following section.

23 “Het eerste regime, waarin eentalige gebieden naast elkaar worden geplaatst, en dat past binnen het voormelde territorialiteitsbeginsel, [. . . ] [is, T.W.] het multilinguisme par juxtaposition en het tweede regime, waarin de verschillende talen elkaar over het gehele grondgebied overlappen, [. . . ] [is, T.W.] het multilinguisme par superposition” (Clement 2003: 6).

39 4 Synthesis: Managing linguistic conﬂicts in divided societies

4 Synthesis: Managing linguistic conﬂicts in divided societies

To end the study on accommodation of diversity in the Belgian consociational democracy, this synthesis will summarize the previous sections and link their findings. Its goal is to show how stability in Belgium was achieved through institutional design and linguistic policy. Finally, it will be discussed if consociationalism has something to offer for the management of conflicts and the accommodation of diversity in other contemporary societies. At first, the divided character of the Belgian society has to be underlined. Belgium is divided by a major cleavage, that was identified to be of an ethno-linguistic type. Flanders in the north and Wallonia in the south are both separate societies that, besides their different languages, also feature differences in their cultures. There are significant differences in their political orientation, knowledge of the national languages and between their popular culture. The latter is a sign of little communication between the civil societies of both sides. It could be suggested that language, as a social phenomenon, plays a major role in this context: It limits the exchange between the two societies and is an important constituent of both Flemish and Walloon culture (see e.g. Verdoodt 1982). Thus, the linguistic divide of Belgium is the deepest and hardest to bridge cleavage that separates the Flemish and the Walloon. Over a long time, especially when the Belgian state was founded, the relationship of the two linguistic groups within the unitary Belgian state was marred by conflict. Here, it should be noted again that language contact generally leads to linguistic conflicts. This is even more so, when being a member of one linguistic group has social meaning. If the life planning and the opportunities of individuals are limited because they speak the “wrong” language and if others profit from speaking the “right” language, then this constellation will lead to severe conflicts between the linguistic groups. Under these circumstances, how can the linguistic conflict in Belgium be managed? How could the interests of the societal groups be accommodated and a peaceful coexistence be achieved? As the Belgian history has shown, the basic principle of conflict management was to find a compromise solving the most pressing problems of Belgian society. Somehow, Belgium managed, through a long process that knew times of extreme crises but also

40 4 Synthesis: Managing linguistic conflicts in divided societies of far reaching compromise, to install an institutional framework that made finding compromises more attractive than open conflict and separation. As this analysis tried to show, this framework is based on two basic principles, i.e. the consociational approach and multilingualism by juxtaposition, that make accommodation of diversity possible in the Belgian case. The first, the consociational approach24, is described by the respect of the ideas of power-sharing, proportionality, mutual veto and segmental autonomy on those political levels that have power over all societal groups. This approach can be found in the process of federalization that Belgium went through after World War II. Federalization started together with the transformation of the basic cleavages of the Belgian society. The functional cleavages of the pillarized society of 1830s Belgium might have called for other measures and solutions. Then, the cleavages cut across the linguistic border thus affecting the whole society. However, with the starting de-pillarization, other cleavages became more important. The now dominating ethno-linguistic cleavage on a territorial-cultural dimension was more likely to be solved by ongoing federalization. The process of delegating power from the center to regional institutions was fruitful in a societal setting, where the main cleavages where not cross-cutting and were thus not putting a constant pressure on political institutions and the civil societies in north and south (on federalism and divided societies, see e.g. Arefaine 2005). In this light, the decision for a multilingualism that sets both languages on an equal level but separates them at the same time, appears to be an important basis of the stability in Belgium. With the introduction of regional unilingualism, the conflictual potential of the linguistic conflict was lowered. In addition, the problems associ- ated with dominating and dominated languages, as they were still present in 1830s Belgium’s diglossic situation, were significantly reduced. In giving each language its own unchallenged space, multilingualism by juxtaposition might have worked better than multilingualism by superposition possibly could have. Given the historical background of linguistic confrontation and the motivation and goals of the Flemish

24 In contrast to Lijphart’s consociationalism, the proposed consociational approach should rather be understood as a set of principles for governing and institutional design then as a description of a democratic system. Lijphart’s description of consociationalism as a democratic system might be to narrow to be applied to other divided societies. In this context, it might also be interesting to compare Lijphart’s consociationalism to Lijphart’s consensus democracy (1999), which can be understood as a further development.

41 4 Synthesis: Managing linguistic conflicts in divided societies movement, keeping both French and Dutch as official languages in all of Belgium would probably not have led to a moderation of the linguistic conflict. So far, both measures, the consociational approach and a language policy that follows the principle of multilingualism by juxtaposition, helped assuring the stability of the Belgian democracy. However, some negative aspects have to be mentioned. What has been lost by the present arrangement and where are its problems and dangers? The stability that the consociational approach and multilingualism by juxtaposition have brought came with high costs. The main problem is that the two sub-societies, i.e. Flanders and Wallonia, are showing signs of disparate development on both the cultural and economic level. On the former, the civil societies are drifting apart, leaving less common political problems and goals. On the latter, the different states of economic development call for different measures and instruments of national economic policy. This is putting high pressure on the national level, especially on the national elites that are vital for the negotiation of compromises. Consequently, the political process is slowing down and is likely to produce results that cannot fulfill the expectations of the different civil societies. This might lead to less public support and finally to less contribution to the project for keeping the current state arrangement alive. Even more troublesome is that this will most likely diminish the motivation of the political elites to work together and to invest energy in negotiating compromises. As the institutional design might not be able to compensate for this, such a crises would likely terminate the functioning of the consociational principle. Consequently, there is a possible danger for the very existence of the Belgian state. However, the question is, will it ever come this far, that the costs of regional independence are smaller than the gains of staying together? At least for the near future, this scenario is unlikely. On the other hand, what would be the consequences of a scission of the Belgian state? They may not be to severe in the context of a Europe of Regions, where there are close ties between regional institutions across all of Europe. The future will show, how the Belgian democracy is evolving. Certainly, the consociational approach is not a perfect and flawless principle, as it has been shown here. Still, even when it might not prevent scissions, it is offering a phase of peaceful stability. So, does the consociational approach qualify as a model for the management of diversity in divided societies? To answer the question, the conditions under which this approach might be advisable have to be accentuated.

42 4 Synthesis: Managing linguistic conﬂicts in divided societies

In the Belgian case, some special preconditions are fulfilled. At first, the societal groups in conflict are territorially separated. Furthermore, the main cleavage is not cutting across the society. In consequence, the societal groups are not in constant conflict in their every day life25. Moreover, a political elite that is willing to cooperate and maintain the state is present. Finally, the Belgian democracy’s process of federalization started in a peaceful environment, with neither internal nor external security threats. These factors limit the possible reach of the consociational approach, especially for states that are in severe crises or even in state of (civil) war (see e.g. Oberschall 2007 on ethnic violence). If this is the case, the basic precondition, i.e. a good-willing political elite, is rarely present (see e.g. Nordlinger 1972: 117f). Still, this makes the consociational approach interesting for modern national states that are struggling with globalization and migration. Here, an approach that stands for:

• the inclusion of all societal groups into the political process and

• the principle of working together to achieve compromises, might oﬀer a fruitful perspective on the management of the growing diversity of these societies.

25 In the Belgian case, this is not true in the communes with facilities and in the Brussels periphery. In these areas, the consociational approach is not followed, as the minority languages do not have the equal rights. This is apparent, for example, in some communes of the Brussels periphery, that are part of the Flemish Community but the majority of their population is French-speaking. This leads to numerous conflicts, e.g. the minister of internal affairs of the Flemish Community’s refusal to appoint democratically elected mayors in these communes because they are francophone and willing to use the French language in office (see e.g. Wilby 2004).

43 5 Conclusion

5 Conclusion

This paper had two goals. The first was to give a description of the cleavages that are present in the current Belgian society. It was concluded that the major division of Belgium is of an ethno-linguistic kind separating Dutch-speaking Flanders from French-speaking Wallonia. The linguistic barrier limits communication between the two civil societies, thus resulting in two separate cultures. The second goal was to examine how, despite its divided society, the Belgian democracy was able to assure stability since founded in 1830. The consociational approach and a language policy that follows the principle of multilingualism by juxtaposition, were identified as major factors for stability. Finally, it was suggested that the consociational principle might yield fruitful results, if reconsidered in the context of present day modern societies. However, the scope of this paper was limited. The choice of the Belgian case study might not have offered a view broad enough to formulate a well balanced conclusion. Consequently, further research on the topic might be constructive. Especially a comparative approach of the democratic and institutional features of other divided societies would allow conclusions about the effectiveness of the consociational approach. Furthermore, such an analysis could show further problems of the approach, especially concerning its necessary preconditions. Despite all factors that may speak against the consociational approach and multilingualism by juxtaposition, further research on the topic is advisable. Envisaging the difficulties and puzzles modern societies have to face in times of growing globalization and migration, a discussion on how societal groups can best be included into the democratic process is strongly required. All discussions, regardless of their outcome, will thus potentially be productive and important.

44 References

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48 Eigenständigkeitserklärung

Ich versichere hiermit, dass ich die vorliegende Bachelorarbeit mit dem Thema: Accommodating diversity in deeply divided societies: The management of the linguistic conﬂict in the Belgian consociational democracy selbstständig verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen Hilfsmittel benutzt habe. Die Stellen, die anderen Werken dem Wortlaut oder dem Sinn nach entnommen wur- den, habe ich in jedem einzelnen Fall durch die Angabe der Quelle, auch der benutzten Sekundärliteratur, als Entlehnung kenntlich gemacht.

Berlin, 23. Juni 2008