Download Download
Religion and the Development of the Dutch Trade Union Movement, 1872-1914 by Erik HANSEN and Peter A. PROSPER, Jr.* In a recently published essay, ''Segmented Pluralism : Ideological Cleavages and Political Cohesion in the Smaller European Democracies," Val Lorwin examines the process whereby separate and distinct ideolog ical and religious groupings in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland have been able to accommodate each other and to evolve into stable, capitalist, parliamentary democracies in the post-World War 1 II era. • As a point of departure, Lorwin draws a sharp distinction be tweenfunctional groupings and those which are segmented. A trade union which bargains on behalf of Austri,.m metal workers is a functional asso ciation. However, a Roman Catholic metal workers union is segmented in that its Roman Catholic attribute carries with it something more than a purely socio-economic role. A segmented plural society is thus a group ing of ideological blocs, be they religious, liberal, or to one degree or another socialist. The blocs may be defined in terms of class and thus the labour or socialist groupings in Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands with their respective liberal bourgeois counterparts, or they may be reli gious blocs such as the Roman Catholic communities in Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands or the Protestant churches in the Netherlands. A society in which these blocs maintain separate but parallel political parties, newspapers, various types of voluntary associations, e.g., women's leagues, youth clubs, athletic facilities and competition, trade unions and, in some instances, school systems, Lorwin terms segmented and pluralist.
[Show full text]