Abstract
Belgium is, to all intents and purposes, a bi-ethnic state of Flemish and French speakers with a very small German-speaking community in the rural southeast towards the German border. Currently, about 58 percent of the population are Dutch speakers, 41 percent French speakers and 0.7 per cent speak German. Geographically, the two main communities are located to the north and south of a relatively precize language frontier that was first laid down and has varied but little since Roman times. The favourite Belgian euphemism for Flemings and Walloons are ‘the north of the country’ and ‘the south of the country’. The fact that the administration of the post-1830 independent Belgian State was centred in Brussels led to the increasing ‘Frenchization’ of Brussels that had in the Middle Ages been a Flemish city. This and other centres of mixed population created a problem that could not easily be resolved by pure territorial federalism.
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Notes
X. Mabille, Histoire Politique de la Belgique: Facteurs et Acteurs de Changement, CRISP, Brussels 1912, pp. 5–138; A.Z. Zolberg, ‘Les Origines du Clivage Communautaire en Belgique, esquisse d’une sociologie historique’, Recherches Sociologiques, Vol. VII, No. 2, 1976.
For the early history of pre-independent Belgium and independence, see Mabille, op. cit.; pp.16–27 for the pre-independence period, pp.101–25 on independence and J. Fitzmaurice, The Politics of Belgium: Crisis and Compromize in a Plural Society, London, Hurst, 1996.
H. Hasquin, ‘Le Français à Bruxelles entre 1740 et 1780’, in Etudes sur le 18ième Siècle, ULB, VI, 1979, pp. 193–200.
For a history of the Flemish movement in English, see M. Ruys, The Flemings: a People on the Move, Lanoo, Tielt, 1973.
K. MacRae, Conflicts and Compromize in Multilingual Societies: Belgium, Waterloo, Ontario, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1986, pp. 32–33.
C. Kesterloot, ‘Mouvement Wallon et Identité Nationale’, Courier Hebdomadaire (CH) No. 1392 (1993), Brussels, CRISP, 1993.
On conflict resolution and cooperation, see Lagasse, op. cit., pp.251–78 and G. Nagel, Communautaire Conflicten in Belgie: Systemen voor Beheersing van Conflicten Tussen de Staat, de Gemeenschappen en de Gewesten, Het Arbitrage-Hof en de Overleg Comité RegeringExecutives. Die Keure, 1984.
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© 1999 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Fitzmaurice, J. (1999). Belgium. In: MacIver, D. (eds) The Politics of Multinational States. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27047-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27047-7_4
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