Abstract
Belgium is said to be internally divided into ideologically defined ‘pillars’, which are isolated from each other by innumerable organizations which exclusively serve members of their own community. Pillarization has been discussed at length in Belgian sociology. But pillarization also had a strong impact on the development of sociology in Belgium. It led to the development and institutionalization of different sociologies within Belgium. After an overview of these differences and their lasting impact on sociology, this chapter deals in more detail with sociology as it was practiced by Belgian Catholics, and with the rise of ‘religious sociology’ and its gradual transformation into a sociology of religion, i.e. of Catholicism, and eventually a sociology of religions.
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Notes
- 1.
In the next chapter, we will see how the language questions in the Belgian census likewise threatened the unity of the state. But language questions were included into the census until the mid-twentieth century. When the results led to severe social and political conflict, these questions were also banned.
- 2.
In the political literature, one also speaks of “consociationalism”. A consociational state is defined as a state which has major internal divisions along ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines, with none of the divisions large enough to form a majority group, but which nonetheless manages to remain stable, due to consultation among the elites of each of its major social groups (the pioneering publication for this research tradition is Lijphart 1977). A high degree of autonomy for each social group or segment was expected—either in the form of territorial autonomy (federalism) or in that of cultural self-government (pillarization). For an international sociological perspective on such social cleavages, see the work of Rokkan (e.g., Rokkan 1977).
- 3.
Denis was also politically active; he was a socialist member of Parliament for nearly two decades. In his writings, he time and again argued against Adam Smith’s idea of an “invisible hand”. Sociological analyses were in his view needed to inform state interventions, as only the state was able to ensure liberty and solidarity within the social organism (e.g. Denis 1919, p. 59; see also Deferme 2007, pp. 180–186).
- 4.
Vandervelde later held several posts in the Belgian government. He was Chairman of the International Socialist Bureau from 1900 to 1918 and President of the Belgian Workers’ Party from 1928 to 1938. Since 1946, the research institute of the Belgian (now Walloon) Labour Party is called the Institut Émile Vandervelde.
- 5.
Among others, Otlet and La Fontaine established the Office International de Bibliographie Sociologique in Brussels in 1893. In 1910, they created the Mundaneum, which aimed to gather all the world’s knowledge and classify it according to a system they had developed themselves. Otlet and La Fontaine were also peace activists, who believed that knowledge could help solidify a new world order. La Fontaine won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913. At present, Google conceives of the work of Otlet and La Fontaine as a forerunner of present-day electronic search engines, such as Google itself.
- 6.
Waxweiler did not engage in a discussion with Durkheim . Following Pierre de Bie (1986, p. 194), Waxweiler ’s sociology was characterized by “une superbe ignorance” of Durkheim ’s work.
- 7.
Darwinism and biology inspired more sociologists at that time. In Belgium, Jules Dallemagne had presented a strong version of bio-sociology in his Principes de Sociologie. For him, sociology had to study the ways in which animals use other animals to ensure the survival of themselves and of their species. In his words: “La sociologie est donc … l’ensemble des modes selon lesquels l’animal utilise l’animal pour maintenir la conservation de son individu et celle de l’espèce” (Dallemagne 1886, p. 50). One can, of course, also think of the “biological sociology” propagated by René Worms .
- 8.
The quotations are taken from the programme statement in the first issue of the Revue de l’Institut de Sociologie , the official journal of the Institut Solvay, which started to appear after the First World War. This statement reads as follows: “Dans la pensée de son fondateur, l’Institut de Sociologie devait non seulement contribuer au progrès des sciences sociales, mais encore encourager et organiser l’application des méthodes d’investigation et d’enseignement de la science moderne aux problèmes économiques et sociaux qui dominent les préoccupations contemporaines. Pour assurer la réalisation de ses intentions, M. E. Solvay fixa lui-même, sans exclure les travaux scientifiques d’inspiration différente, un plan d’orientation sociologique comportant une partie théorique: l’appréhension de la matière sociologique du point de vue énergétique, et une partie pratique: la conduite de la réforme sociale du point de vue productiviste” (1920, pp. 5–6).
- 9.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Congo Free State was a personal colony of Leopold II, the King of Belgium. But the system of economic exploitation led to intense diplomatic pressure on the Belgian state to take official control of the country. Belgium finally did so in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo. In his early, ‘journalistic’ writings, Robert E. Park was among the first to attack Leopold’s depredations in the Congo Free State (see Lyman 1992). While Park referred at times to Vandervelde , we have not been able to find systematic links between the work conducted in the Institut and what later became Chicago sociology.
- 10.
“Il s’agit d’élaborer lentement et progressivement une série de crises artificielles dans les milieux primitifs, pour aboutir à certains résultats prévus et préparés”. This overview of the early history of colonial science is primarily based on Wils and Rasmussen (2012, p. 1289) and Poncelet (2008, pp. 155–166).
- 11.
For a more detailed overview of Waxweiler ’s work at the Solvay Institute of Sociology, see the analyses presented in Frost (1959), de Bie (1974), Van Langenhove (1978), Popelin (1986), Crombois (1994, pp. 23–44); Wils (2005, 2011) and De Bont (2008, pp. 371–398). It seems fair to say, however, that the contributions of Waxweiler are now largely forgotten within the international sociological community.
- 12.
“La sociologie répandait une odeur d’incroyance”.
- 13.
“This book is an apologetic pamphlet. Its goal is to discredit our ideas, by all possible means, for the greater glory of the doctrine of St. Thomas”. The controversy Deploige -Durkheim is discussed in a number of more recent publications. See, for example, Lukes (1973, pp. 92–93); Firsching (1995); Gerard and Wils (1999, pp. 41–42); Thompson (2002, pp. 38–41); Wijns (2003, pp. 38–42). Controversies typically attract much attention!
- 14.
The contributions of Waxweiler , resp. Van Overbergh and Jacquart, first appeared in Le Mouvement Scientifique en Belgique, 1830–1905, which was published in 1907–1908 under the editorship of Van Overbergh ; they were reprinted in the December 1908 issue of Le Mouvement Sociologique International . Internationally, the Société enjoyed regular contacts with Worms and his journal, the Revue Internationale de Sociologie (Deschamps 1901, pp. 189–190).
- 15.
The original excerpt of the interview between Van Overbergh and De Bie reads as follows: “ce que faisaient Solvay et Waxweiler n’était pas de la véritable sociologie. Waxweiler était économiste; il a toujours travaillé avec les économistes. Il a fait de bonnes choses dans ce domaine, mais il ne faisait pas de la sociologie. Les rapports que j’entretenais avec lui étaient excellents. Nous applaudissions mutuellement nos efforts. Mais nous, nous faisions de la véritable sociologie. Nous étudions Comte , Spencer , Durkheim . Nous autres, nous faisions de la vraie sociologie, … Nous voulions montrer que les catholiques peuvent faire de la sociologie, qu’ils ne sont pas tenus par leur religion” (de Bie 1986, p. 210). Similar views were already expressed within the Société Belge de Sociologie at the start of the twentieth century (see Deschamps 1902).
- 16.
J. M. Keynes, for example, published The End of Laissez-Faire in 1926.
- 17.
During the German occupation of Belgium, and thus under German rule, Victor Leemans became Secretary-General of Economic Affairs. For this, he was prosecuted after the war. But he was acquitted of collaboration in 1947, after which he was able to pursue a political career. And he did so with considerable success: Leemans served as President of the European Parliament from 1965 to 1966.
- 18.
From 1935 until 1952, the Institut Solvay was directed by the historian Georges Smets (1881–1961). From 1952 until 1959, he was succeeded by the classicist and sociologist Henri Janne (1908–1991). Both Smets and Janne also served as rector of the University of Brussels. With Georges Gurvitch, Janne founded in 1958 the Association Internationale des Sociologues de Langue Française (AISLF). In the 1960s, Janne held several political positions for the Belgian Labour Party.
- 19.
One of the congress’s morning sessions, chaired by the American president of the Institut International de Sociologie , Charles Ellwood, was entirely devoted to the “social physics” of Adolphe Quetelet . It had to mark the centennial of the publication of Quetelet ’s La Physique Sociale.
- 20.
In Les Formes Élémentaires de la Vie Religieuse, Durkheim later introduced the following definition, which again stresses the collective function of religion: “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (2001, p. 62).
- 21.
“Je vois dans votre œuvre la possibilité de civiliser l'Afrique, progressivement, avec méthode, sans perte de temps, en prenant comme point de départ la situation réelle de ces braves gens”.
- 22.
After the Second World War, the Franciscan Devolder would become one of the founding fathers of the School of Journalism at the Catholic University of Louvain. He would also teach sociology of religion in Louvain. Devolder saw both religious sociology and journalism as forms of missionary work, as privileged ways of diffusing Catholic values and principles (see Gerard 1992, pp. 85–88).
- 23.
Jan Kerkhofs later became one of the founding members of the European Values Study. The European Value Systems Study Group, as it was called at that time, conducted its first survey in 1981. Subsequent waves of the survey took place in 1990, 1999 and 2008. See http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu.
- 24.
Of special importance in this regard is the Institut Supérieur du Travail , which was founded in Louvain under the patronage of the Catholic Labour Union in 1951. In the mid-1960s, shortly before the official division of the Catholic University of Louvain into two monolingual universities, two independent institutions were created. On the Flemish side, a new Higher Institute of Labour Studies (or Hoger Instituut voor de Arbeid) was established in 1974, again in collaboration with the Catholic Labour Union, in order to study workers’ problems “in a broad sense” including education, health care, and the use of leisure time. These institutions are multi-disciplinary, but it does not seem unjustified to argue that they are primarily guided by an applied economic, data-driven perspective. For a brief ‘inside’ history of this Flemish institution, see https://hiva.kuleuven.be/en/about-hiva/brief-history, for an inside overview of its Francophone counterpart, see https://www.uclouvain.be/13830.html (last accessed on May 2, 2017).
- 25.
De Bie’s paper was initially presented at the First International Congress of Social Sciences, organized by the Catholic Istituto Luigo Sturzo (de Bie 1967); in a slightly revised version it was later published in the Handbook of Contemporary Developments in World Sociology. As these communication venues indicate, the second phase of expansion and institutionalization of the social sciences took place in many parts of the world.
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Vanderstraeten, R., Louckx, K. (2018). Religion. In: Sociology in Belgium. Sociology Transformed. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55663-9_2
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