Sur les dynamiques sociologiques et politiques de l’identification à l’Europe

Depuis les débuts de son existence, la Communauté Européenne suscite des inquiétudes quant à sa capacité à faire naître un sentiment d’appartenance de nature suffisamment forte pour asseoir la légitimité de son système politique. Au nombre des explications de la faiblesse de ce qu’on ose à peine désigner comme une « identité » européenne, l’idée que les attachements des Européens à leurs nations respectives feraient écran au développement de cette nouvelle identification figure en bonne place, surtout depuis la ratification du traité de Maastricht. Les données dont on dispose pour tester la validité de cette hypothèse à l’échelle de l’Europe – les enquêtes de l’Eurobaromètre – rendent les choses difficiles à traiter du fait des changements survenus depuis 1994 dans la formulation des questions. Néanmoins, il est possible de faire apparaître un effet de contexte électoral tout à fait intéressant : loin des périodes où le débat public autour de l’Europe est particulièrement soutenu, on n’observe aucun antagonisme dans les mesures d’attachement à l’Europe et à ses nations, alors qu’au moment des consultations européennes, notamment, on observe bien un tel antagonisme. Cet effet de contexte peut être interprété comme la conséquence de la bi-dimensionnalité des attachements territoriaux des Européens, combinant logique politique de choix entre des élites et des communautés politiques pour partie concurrentielles, et logique sociologique d’appartenance à des collectifs imaginaires.The European Community has always – that is, since its beginning – given cause for concern regarding its ability to arouse a feeling of belonging, strong enough to establish the legitimacy of its political system. Many explanations have been given for this weakness. The idea that the commitments of Europeans to their nation form a screen between them and Europe is very widespread, especially since the ratification of the Maastricht’s Treaty. The database available to test this hypothesis is difficult to use, because of the many changes of wording having occurred since 1994. Nevertheless, it shows a very interesting electoral effect : far from the periods of sustained public debate on Europe, no antagonism can be measured between the variables of commitment to Europe and to its nations ; while a negative relationship appears between belonging to Europe and national pride during the European electoral campaigns. This contextual effect can be interpreted as a consequence of the bi-dimensional character of the territorial commitments of the Europeans, which combine a political logic of choice between elites and citizenries partially competitive, and a sociological logic of belonging to any available imaginary community

Partitocracy and the future of Belgium. Revisiting Does Belgium (still) exist?

In 2006, Jaak Billiet, Bart Maddens and André-Paul Frognier raised the question: Does Belgium (still) exist? And they explored the differences in political culture between Flemings and Walloons (Billiet, Maddens, & Frognier, 2006). 15 years later, we continue their journey and seek to uncover whether these differences have increased or by contrast declined. Because the general endeavour of the volume is to disentangle partitocracy in Belgium, we focus on political differences or similar- ities between the two main language groups and add to the perspective of voters, the perspective of candidates. This allows us to grasp possible differences not only between Dutch-speakers and French-speakers but also between political elites and masses. Billiet and colleagues started their exploration from the gradual cultural and social divergence between Flanders and Wallonia that led to two separate political systems in Belgium. They came to the conclusion that “quite a few differences in public opinion still exist between Flemings and francophone Belgians” (Billiet et al., 2006, p. 929). In particular, the former have a stronger regional – i.e. Flemish – iden- tity whereas the latter a stronger national – i.e. Belgian – identity, which goes hand in hand with preferences for further regionalization in Flanders but less in Wallonia, even though emotional ties to Belgium do still exist in each region, albeit more wide- spread in Wallonia than in Flanders. In order to explain these differences, the researchers concluded that “contextual characteristics are more important than national character” (Billiet et al., 2006, p. 929). In 15 years, the political and social context in Belgium has quite dramatically changed and centrifugal but also centripetal dynamics can be observed (De Winter & Baudewyns, 2009; Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2015; 2020; 2022). Such dynamics can be seen both between language groups and between so-called ‘elite’ and ‘mass’ (De Winter & Van Wynsberghe, 2015). The objective of this chapter is therefore to look at the evolution of political attitudes and opinions over the last 15 years regarding the future of Belgium. Beside voter surveys, we can rely on candidate surveys that offer insightful data to grasp the evolution of this question in both language groups and between masses and elites. In this chapter, we first look at the left-right dimension, before focusing on ethno-territorial identities and finally turn to state reform prefer- ences. In so doing, we seek to revisit the underlying twofold question: does Belgium (still) exist and will it continue to do so