The Changing Basis of Political Conflict in Advanced Western Democracies: The Politics of Identity in the United States, the Netherlands, and Belgium
Alan Arwine, Lawrence Mayer
Language: English
Pages: 135
ISBN: 2:00285666
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This book is concerned with changes in the social structures, demographics, and issues in Western democracies along with the impact of those changes on party systems and policy outcomes. Three countries - the United States, the Netherlands, and Belgium - are examined to determine how they accommodate these changes. The United States is investigated as an example of a stable consolidated party system, the Netherlands is included as a representative fragmented parliamentary regime, and Belgium is an extreme example of a sub-culture alienated from the rest of the country. The conflict between the representation function and the function of forming a majority able to govern is stressed.
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Attended Easter mass. By contrast, in 1956, 87.9 percent of Dutch Catholics attended Easter mass (Bakvis, 1981, 55). The relationship between religious commitment and voting for the KVP is shown by the fact that 53 percent of a national sample of Dutch who were “regular attenders of mass” supported the KVP while only 25 percent of non-mass attenders in that sample did so (Bakvis, 1981, 148). DOI: 10.1057/9781137306654 10.1057/9781137306654 - The Changing Basis of Political Conflict in Advanced.
Concerned with an analysis of the cultural and the consequent constitutional changes that have occurred in Belgium, especially those that have occurred since 1970, have agonized over the question of whether Belgium has become a federal state (Deprez and Vos, 1998, 193–195; Molitor, 1981, 159–150). This chapter contributes to that discussion by suggesting that since the sub-units (regions or communities) have acquired a non reversible power to govern over the vaguely defined area of competence.
Themselves into a successful polity. But the population of the 13 American colonies spoke a common language, shared many values and had even fought a war together. In contrast, Europeans speak different languages. We have seen that even within Belgium several language groups existed that did not share a common` sense of identity. Many of these populations have conflicting interests. Norwegians, for example, vigorously assert their exclusive right for fishing within a certain distance of the.
Government accountable, but it may also render a parliamentary government vulnerable to the frequent displacement of governments for relatively trivial reasons, creating an ongoing history of cabinet instability. Parliamentary governments with highly fragmented party system such as the two featured in this volume, the Netherlands and Belgium, are especially vulnerable to that phenomenon. In Belgium there are some 30 parties nationwide and 14 of these have representation in the federal parliament.
45 percent of Italians (in the home country of the papacy) and only 29 percent of the West Germans were regular attendees at church (Mayer, et. al., 2001, 89). Church going among the Dutch Catholics declined from a peak of around 85 percent to around 38 percent by 1972 (Bakvis, 1981). Several of the mainstream Christian Democratic parties responded to this growing secularization by distancing themselves from the church. The Austrian Christian Social Party in the post-war period changed its name.