Political Crises and Contexts of Consociational Democracy in Belgium

Year 2020, Issue: 66, 64 - 81, 26.10.2020

Dilek Canyurt

Abstract

While Belgium was shown as the best example of Lijphart’s model of the consociational democracy, political troubles in the country have revealed that this is not the case. In fact, what is happening in Belgium is nothing more than the reflections of centuries of struggle and linguistic freedom efforts that have reached today. Belgium is a country where Flemings and Walloons -Flemish and French-speaking communities- live in the form of a federal government. The history of the country has been shaped by the struggles of these two language groups against each other for democratic rights. The main focus of these struggles is on linguistic freedoms. The struggles are so strong that Belgium, which began its political life as a unitary state, with the constitutional changes that were made in 1970, was separated into linguistic areas and started to apply the power sharing feature of the consociational democracy model properly. The country became a federal state as a result of the constitutional reform in 1993. Besides, constitutional amendments have been made several times in the context of language rights. Because of these changes, some argue that the system could turn into a confederation, and even reach the independence of the two sides. It is not known how long the consociational democracy, which was initially applied in order to transcend the tensioned areas of society and in order to give linguistic freedom to communities, will manage to hold the country together, however, it would be wrong to expect a separation in the near future. In this context, the subject of the study is to investigate the characteristics of the consociational model and its applications in Belgium. Its aim is to examine the relevance of the problems in Belgium to consociational democracy.

Keywords

Belgium, consociational democracy, federation

Belçika’da Siyasi Krizler ve Oydaşmacı Demokrasi’nin Bağlamları

Abstract

Belçika, Lijphart’ın teorisyenliğini yaptığı oydaşmacı demokrasinin en güzel örneği olarak gösterilen ülkesi iken, ülkede baş gösteren siyasi sıkıntılar bunun böyle olmadığını ortaya çıkarmıştır. Gerçekte Belçika’da olan yüzyıllardır süren bir mücadelenin ve dilsel özgürlük çabalarının günümüze kadar ulaşan yansımalarından başka bir şey değildir. Belçika, Flamanlar ve Volanlar adı verilen, Flamanca ve Fransızca konuşan iki büyük toplumun federal bir devlette yaşadığı bir ülkedir. Ülke tarihi bu iki dil grubunun birbirleriyle olan demokratik hak talebi mücadeleleri ile şekillenmiştir. Bu mücadeleler dilsel özgürlükler üzerinedir. Mücadeleler o kadar güçlü olmaktadır ki, siyasi hayatına üniter bir devlet olarak başlayan Belçika, 1970 yılında federal devlete dönüşmüştür. Ayrıca dil ile ilgili haklar bağlamında da defalarca anayasal değişiklik yapılmıştır. Bu değişimlerden dolayı bazıları, sistemin konfedere bir yapıya dönüşeceğini hatta bunun iki tarafın bağımsızlığına kadar varabileceğini iddia etmektedirler. Başlangıçta toplumun gerilimli alanlarını aşmak ve topluluklara dilsel özgürlüklerini kazandırmak için uygulanan oydaşmacı model, Belçika’nın üniter devletten federal yapıya dönüşmesine neden olmuştur. Oydaşmacı demokrasinin ülkeyi birlikte tutmaya ne zamana kadar gücü yetecektir bilinmez ama yakın zamanda bir ayrılık beklemek de yanlış olacaktır. Bu bağlamdan çalışmanın konusu oydaşmacı modelin özellikleri ve Belçika’daki uygulamalarının araştırılması, amacı ise Belçika’daki sorunların oydaşmacı demokrasi ile ilintisinin incelenmesidir.

Keywords

Belçika, oydaşmacı demokrasi, federasyon

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