Accommodating Diversity in Deeply Divided Societies: the Management of the Linguistic Conflict in the Belgian Consociational Democracy
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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 oppo- sitions 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 institu- tions 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 lin- guistics (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 con- flicts. 1 1 Introduction If linguistic conflicts can play such a pivotal role, the political management of lin- guistic 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 lin- guistics 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 consociational- ism: 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 pro- cess 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