Political science, public administration & international relations
Author, co-author :
Counet, Maxime ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de science politique > Politique belge
Language :
English
Title :
Federal state and political claims: Evolution of Party Programs Regarding the Form of State and its competencies (1991-2019)
Alternative titles :
[en] Etat fédéral et demandes partisanes : Evolution des programmes de partis au sujet de la forme de l’Etat et de ses compétences (1991-2019)
Publication date :
19 December 2019
Event name :
8th State of the federation conference
Event organizer :
CRESPO - Saint-Louis UCL
Event place :
Bruxelles, Belgium
Event date :
19 décembre 2019
Audience :
International
References of the abstract :
In 1970, Belgian negotiators agreed on several deep constitutional modifications known as the first state reform. Throughout the mid-1990’s (and after four state reforms), all three communities and regions were created and featured functioning organs (including an elected Parliament for each entity) and the first article of the Constitution stated that Belgium is a federal State composed of Communities and Regions. Back then, some (mainly French-speaking) observers believed that the process was completed.
As a matter of fact, political parties quickly issued new claims. Since then, the country has therefore known another two state reforms, that is to say a total of six state reforms during the 50 first years of federalist dynamic. All these were negotiated at a party-elite level (between representatives which may or may not match the contemporary governments) and characterized by different focus, ranging from cultural recognition to governance issues, administrative efficiency and reach for “confederalism”.
This paper intends to present and suggest a classification of political programs of all demanding parties, from 1991 to 2019 and link these findings with an outgoing research on social identification in Belgium.
