The Federal Dynamics: The Attitudes of Citizens Towards Federalism in Belgium

• In Event: Political Behavior and Public Opinion Under Federalism

Abstract

In multinational federations, federal dynamics seem to be guided by the congruence between the ethno-linguistic differences in society and institutions. As a result, institutions have been gradually modified over the course of various institutional arrangements to accommodate the diversities of these federations. However, citizens as the “raison d’être” of federalism tend to have a rather passive role in the processes of federalization that shape these federal dynamics. This role is even more limited in consociational systems where citizens are perceived to be more radical than political elites in their political preferences and identities. However, even if citizens are not the main designers of federalism, they are nonetheless the main receptors of policies. Hence, the study of their perceptions and attitudes towards federalism are crucial in order to identify the contours of issues and dynamics within multinational federations. Belgium is a particularly relevant case because the historically centrifugal federal dynamics of decentralization of competences is highly debated and a reversal of the federal dynamics could be at play. Indeed, recent studies show that the political elites are increasingly advocating the “re-centralisation” of some competences in the name of efficiency. The objective of this paper is to explore and compare longitudinally the preferences and argumentative logics used by citizens when discussing federalization processes. This qualitative analysis using a critical framework analysis is carried out on 4 citizens’ forums on the future of federalism that were organized in two phases (2007 and 2017-2018) in Flanders and Wallonia. This analysis will make it possible to understand to what extent the preferences of citizens are more or less in agreement with those of the political elites on the major issues of Belgian federalism.

Author

• Laura Pascolo, Université catholique de Louvain