The authors first conceived of this project in 2008. “We said to ourselves that we would wait until the crisis was over to publish”, Matagne recalls. “But it ended up lasting 541 days. Every six months we would discuss whether we should wait for an agreement establishing a government or not!” They waited until December 6, 2011, the date on which the Di Rupo Government came into existence. The book’s chapters also deal with certain elements of the Sixth Reform of the State, which is still being worked on.

The sixth and the last? Naturally, it is impossible to predict the future. No one can tell how elections will turn out. Just the same, we can easily imagine that the most recent modification of the Constitution will once again fail to reconcile the disputes involving one and another side of the linguistic frontier. “Every time, we get a little further”, says Matagne. “for example, when we look at the first platform of the Volksunie, everything they said they wanted has come to pass. Eating improves the appetite. But we don’t know at what point that appetite will be satisfied…”

From revolution to institutionalization

Time passes, but certain claims continue to be pressed, although their substance may change. In the beginning, the demands of the Flemish were intended to protect a language they judged to be in danger, and they were also efforts to gain power within institutional structures that were in their view dominated by the francophone bourgeoisie, to the detriment of the Flemish people. This view is typical of the period from 1960 to 1980, which is referred to as revolutionary by the authors. In 1993 Belgium became a Federal state. This step formalized the transition into a period of institutionalized conflict. Discourses that made claims, and that once came primarily from outside the institutional and traditional political sphere (social movements, cultural or economic associations, editorial positions, marginal groups associated with a party in the government,…) were now to be integrated into that sphere. The parties took over the job of pressing various claims, and these claims began to be represented in party platforms. Questions about languages or autonomy gave way to questions about the division of responsibilities within the government, good governance, the subsidiary character of some institutions and effectiveness in a socioeconomic context below the national level.
 
Any satisfaction obtained by the removal of one thorn from the communitarian paw – like that of BHV – seemed to last only a moment. Other points of contention emerged. “There are points of conflict that recur”, Matagne notes. “Like social security, interpersonal solidarity, the question of Brussels or of Europe”. The political dynamic remained essentially unchanged: the Flemish wanted to move forward, while the Francophones, saying that they were “asking for nothing”, finally accepted the necessity of a reform, but still wanted to limit its scope. The eventual agreement was an effort to avoid anyone being identified as the clear winner or loser of the negotiation. This is the recipe for a Belgian-style compromise.

Briefly, then, Belgian federalism is dualistic (it includes two communities and two visions about the way they are to live together, but these visions are opposed to each other), dynamic (meaning it is always changing, and is not the result of a deliberate choice) and centrifugal (it is not the result of the will of two entities to unite, but rather of a desire for emancipation). It has been realized through a bipolar federation (at the level of the institutional structures of the Federal state, and also at the level of the system of the federated entities) that changes frequently (a reform of the State takes place, on average, every 7 years) and that is asymmetrical (the institutional structures in the north and in the south, in the centre and in the east are different).