2. Centre–periphery relations and the process of state formation
2.3 State building in the interface peripheries
Belgium and Switzerland
Belgium: from a unitary francophone to a federal multilingual state
Arguably, of the West European states that still exist today, Belgium has been the most problematic case in terms of state-nation building. The territory that came to be known as Belgium was once a part of Burgundy, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, France and the Netherlands. In 1830, it emerged as the seceded neutral, southern, Catholic and more industrialized part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. In this sense, the historic roots of Belgium are very different from that of the other interface periphery, Switzerland.
The Franco-German language border cross-cuts Belgium (the roots of which go back to the Roman Empire). Hence, at the time of independence, the population of Belgium could be clearly divided between a majority group of Flemish-speakers (a Dutch dialect) and a minority group of French-speakers.
The Flemish live concentrated in the North, the French-speakers in the South. Although it had been a powerful region in the Middle Ages, the present-day borders of Flanders correspond only in part with its historical borders. Much of its contemporary territory once belonged to the Duchy of Brabant or the Episcopate of Liege. The same observation applies to Wallonia. In this sense, the two main regions of the contemporary Belgian federation are relatively recent constructs.
Although in 1830 a majority of the Belgian population spoke Flemish, the political, military, socio-economic and cultural elite was French-speaking. In addition, Flemish had a negative connotation. It was associated with the Protestant Dutch Republic which at that time was controlled by King Willem I, at best an enlightened despot. These values contrast with the predominantly Catholic nature of Belgium but also with the liberal ideas that inspired part of the bourgeoisie. The latter were obviously derived from the French Revolution. Thus, they were written down in French (Wils 1992; Witte, Craeybeckx and Meynen 2000).
Pursuing the state-nation policies of its southern neighbour, the Belgian elites imposed French as the only public language. One nineteenth-century Belgian Prime Minister is known to have said that ‘either Belgium shall be Latin or Belgium shall not be’. Brussels, a relatively small and predominantly Flemish-speaking city, quickly developed into a more sizeable French-speaking administrative urban knot, modelled after Paris.
TheFrenchification of Belgium was not to the liking of the lower clergy, who kept a stronger foothold in the more Catholic Flemish part of the coun- try than in French-speaking Wallonia. Their claims were supported by the gradually expanding Flemish middle classes, who were exposed more directly to the discriminatory practices of the Belgian administration than the Flemish peasants or labourers. Unlike the latter, middle-class people would normally receive a basic level of education. Commerce would bring
them in touch with civil servants and the like, all of whom provide their services exclusively in French. Dutch-speaking people who pursued a career in the civil service also had to bear the extra costs of learning a non-native language, a requirement with which their French-speaking colleagues did not have to comply.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, a ‘Flemish Movement’
emerged. It sought the recognition of Dutch as an official language alongside French in legislation, the courts and education. Initially, its aim was to turn Flanders or Belgium into a bilingual area. Gradually that objective shifted to making Flanders monolingual. This shift was explained in part by the reluc- tance of the French-speakers to accept a bilingual solution for Belgium as a whole as this would put the Dutch-speakers into a strategic advantage. The latter had been more willing to learn French than the other way around and bilingualism would thus mean that citizens of Dutch-speaking origin would stand a better chance of getting the most attractive jobs in administration.
The recognition of Dutch as an official language alongside French has been a long process that started in the 1880s and reached its heyday in the 1930s, although formal rules (particularly with regard to the language laws in and around Brussels) were not always observed. Three major factors increased the process of linguistic emancipation. First of all, the gradual democratization of Belgium provided the Flemish demographic majority with a meaningful springboard to strike back. Demographic weight trans- lated into political weight. Second, increasing educational standards as well as a more widespread offering of education contributed to a standardization of the dialects that were spoken in Flanders. This has made Flemish entirely compatible with the Dutch language in all but accent. Third, except for a relatively small elite group of French-speakers, the gradual imposition of the Dutch language in Flanders has come at a relatively low cost. The share of French-speakers who live there has been relatively low from the outset. Apart from Brussels – which took on a predominantly French-speaking character in a relatively short time span – no immigration from French-speakers into Flanders has taken place. As long as Wallonia outperformed Flanders in economic terms, Flemish immigrants flocked to the Walloon centres of industry and quickly adapted the French language. Three elements certainly slowed down the process of Dutch linguistic emancipation, despite the facilitating elements that I have just enumerated.
First, and linked with the previous point, until the 1960s, the Flemish part of Belgium was economically weaker than Wallonia, one of continen- tal Europe’s early industrialized regions. This changed when the coal and steel industries of Wallonia went into a severe economic crisis and Flanders – like Bavaria in Southern Germany – shed its agricultural past and welcomed a group of multinational companies in and around the port city of Antwerp.
Consequently, Flanders could use its economic strength as a vehicle for strengthening language rights. This occurred in the 1960s, when the
Flemish GRP per head of the population surpassed that of Wallonia for the first time (Hooghe 2004).
Second, in World War I, a majority of the Belgian front-line soldiers was Dutch-speaking, but more often than not they received their orders from French-speaking officers. When Flemish complaints after the war did not lead or led too slowly to increasing the role of Dutch in the army or public life, the share of Flemish militants who questioned the legitimacy of Belgium increased. Later, the Nazi’s tapped into these feelings of Flemish discontent.
During the occupation period, they offered collaborating Dutch-speakers nice career prospects in the Belgian civil service at the expense of their French-speaking colleagues. The repression that followed after World War II was severe for those people who had sold their soul to Nazism, and thus also for those who did so primarily with a linguistic cause in mind. The war also rendered the quest for Flemish autonomy illegitimate, making federalism or devolution a non-issue until the 1960s. As a result, public opinion in Flanders and Belgium polarized. Many of the Flemish citizens who had actively collaborated with the Nazi’s would find even less legitimacy in the Belgian state. A hard core (some of whom ended up in the Volksunie and Vlaams Blok, two Flemish Nationalist parties) considered federalism as a springboard to confederalism or even an independent Flanders.
Finally, federalism requires a clear demarcation of territorial areas. In Belgium territoriality generally coincides with linguistic homogeneity, but in order to push through this principle a solution had to be found for linguisti- cally mixed zones, in particular, Brussels and its surrounding areas. When Belgium became independent in 1830, Brussels was still a relatively small and predominantly Flemish-speaking city. By 1960 the city had grown in population by more than 600 per cent. Because it had played the role of Belgium’s leading political and administrative centre since 1830, Brussels had developed into a predominantly French-speaking enclave located in Flanders. In 1963 an ‘agreement’ was reached on the bilingual status of Brussels, but also on the Flemish character of the surrounding municipali- ties. However, it was agreed that French-speakers should be entitled to some services in French in a few of these municipalities (see Chapter 7).
The demarcation of linguistic zones paved the way for devolving powers to the regions and communities. Thus the linguistic zones were a monolin- gual French-speaking Wallonia, a monolingual Dutch-speaking Flanders, a bilingual Brussels Capital Region and a tiny German-speaking Community.
The latter is located in the East of Belgium on territory that was acquired from Germany after World War I. Belgian federalism is unique in that it com- bines a strictly territorial with a partially non-territorial form of federalism.
The territorial component refers to the devolution of socio-economic pow- ers to three regions (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels). The non-territorial component relates to the devolution of cultural and educational competencies to three linguistic communities (Dutch- , French- and German-speaking).
Brussels is thus the playing field of two communities; it is not a community of its own. The German-speaking community is not a region: regional com- petencies within its territory are taken care of by the Walloon Region. The number of Dutch-speakers who live in Brussels is relatively small, both as a share of the total inhabitants of Brussels and as a share of the total group of Dutch-speakers in Belgium. Therefore, the Flemish Region and Community have merged their governments and parliaments into one governmental structure (labelled the Flemish Community). A French Community that is separate from a Walloon Region and a Brussels Capital Region continue to exist. This is so because the French-speaking inhabitants of Brussels consti- tute a larger share of the French-speaking group of Belgians (roughly 18 per cent) and do not generally identify as Walloons. Table 2.5 summarizes the complex Belgian state structure. In the next chapter, I will elaborate in more detail on the various linkages that exist between community and regional structures.
Table 2.5 The Belgian Regions and Communities
Communities Regions
Flemish Community
French Community (‘Communauté Brussels Capital Region Bruxelles-Wallonie’)
German-speaking Community Walloon Region
Switzerland: Western Europe’s only ‘coming-together federation’
Switzerland is Western Europe’s other main interface peripheral state. Unlike the present-day regions of Belgium, the eldest Swiss cantons have a much longer history of prolonged independence. If we consider that the borders of the German regions have repeatedly changed, Switzerland is the only West European example of a centripetal or ‘coming-together’ federation.
Swiss cantons have gradually joined forces, first in a confederal alliance and subsequently in a federal state structure. The deep historical roots of the cantons, many with different religious and/or linguistic backgrounds have prevented a unitary structure from arising. The mountains served as a protective barrier against the crushing military powers of the surrounding empires. Therefore, a confederal defensive alliance was sufficiently strong to protect the Swiss against outside aggression, until the French controlled Switzerland after the French Revolution took place.
The roots of contemporary Switzerland go back to 1291 when 3 forest, pastoral and German-speaking communities (Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden) formed a confederal defensive alliance against the Habsburgs. In the fourteenth century, 5 further communities with a more urban character
(amongst which were Bern and Zürich) joined the alliance. This conjunction between urban and agrarian centres set the Swiss confederal arrangement apart from the Hanseatic League which never forged the same connection (Forsyth 1981: 21). Shortly after the alliance held off the Habsburgs in the battle of Sempach (1386), it entered a phase of offensive expansion, leading to a union of 13 cantons at the time of the French Revolution.
The first major test for this expanded confederation came with the Old Zürich War, as Zürich (with the support of the Habsburgs) sought to violate the terms of the alliance, but was brought in line again by the other cantons.
Protestantism brought the second major challenge. Seven cantons remained Catholic, two were divided and four became Protestant. The Protestant cantons constituted a numeric minority, but in economic and demographic terms they dominated the confederation. However, internal compromise prevailed and an external policy of neutrality was pursued. The founding of the Helvetic Society in 1761 is testimony to the development of an embryonic Swiss national identity (Forsyth 1981: 24).
During the period of French rule a unitary and French-speaking regime was imposed upon Switzerland, modelled after the administrative structure of France. The cantons continued to exist as sheer administrative depart- ments of France. When the Swiss retook the destiny of their own land in 1815, they quickly restored the previous confederal state-order. Six predom- inantly non-German speaking ‘subject territories’ received full recognition as cantons, in compliance with the former French policy of treating all cantons (departments) as equals. Full cantonal status was accorded to a further three French-speaking allies, including Geneva. Hence, it was not until 1815 that Switzerland became a multilingual confederation in the true sense of the word. The cantons offered each other mutual assistance in the event of a military threat. Confederal decisions required the common consent of a conference of cantonal delegates, but a central legislature, let alone execu- tive, was missing. Thus, the Swiss confederation still fell short of genuine statehood.
The revolution which swept through France in July 1830 sent liberal shockwaves through the confederation, and with it a desire to turn Switzerland into a more centralized democracy. The liberal ideas found sway in the more Protestant, urbanized (and generally also more German-speaking) Swiss cantons. In political terms, the pro-liberal reformers were known as Radicals, those who sought to uphold the traditional privileges of the Catholic Church as Conservatives. Tensions between liberal Protestants and Catholic conservatives escalated in 1845 when seven Catholic cantons formed the Sonderbund. The Sonderbund war that followed in 1847 pitted these Catholic cantons against the Protestants. After 26 days of warfare in which a hundred casualties were made the Protestants won this battle.
A more centralized federal constitutional order emerged (Forsyth 1981: 29).
A written constitution established a multilevelled, partially democratic polity
in which many of the traditional instruments of local policy input were retained or extrapolated to the federal level. The constitution was put to a nation-wide vote and accepted in two-thirds of the cantons. That the federal constitution was not subject to unanimous cantonal consent (in fact the cantons that lost the Sonderbund war all voted against) testifies that Switzerland had surpassed the confederal order already.
Switzerland is a state-nation and not a nation-state insofar as a sense of Swiss nationhood only developed after a Swiss federal order was established.
However, it is not a ‘plurinational’ or multinational state either because its religious or language communities cannot be conceived as ‘minority nations’ within the Swiss state. The previous paragraph also made clear that for long in Switzerland religion has had a more polarizing effect than language. The ebbing of the religious cleavage is linked to various factors.
Next to the overall secularization of Western Europe, the Swiss state has accepted ‘religious diversity’, for instance, by recognizing Land churches or Catholic schools. The federal constitution also explicitly recognizes full freedom of religion, but couples it with a cantonal obligation to establish confession- ally neutral schools (which may exist alongside Catholic schools – Linder 1998: 20). In this sense, the constitution established the state’s religious neutrality but simultaneously guaranteed the protection of the Catholic minority. The same principle applies to linguistic diversity. German, French, Italian and Romansch are recognized as national languages. The first three also receive recognition as official (working) languages of the Swiss federal centre. However, the cantons are guaranteed linguistic autonomy. Unlike the French-speaking elite who governed Belgium in its first century, Swiss federal elites have not sought to push through German as the sole language of administration, commerce and education. Instead, cantons were allowed to protect the language that is most widely spoken within their borders (see Chapter 7 for a discussion).
Finally, the cross-cutting nature of Switzerland’s linguistic, religious and socio-economic cleavages which do not intersect with cantonal borders has contributed to an appeased climate of policy-making. German-speaking cantons are more Protestant and slightly more affluent than the Catholic cantons of the Suisse Romande (French, Italian or Romensch-speaking cantons).
Yet, some predominantly French-speaking cantons are also predominantly Protestant; some German-speaking cantons are small and agrarian, and no Swiss canton is more industrialized and urbanized than the German-speaking canton of Zürich. Thus, respect for cantonal traditions, including their linguistic, economic, cultural and religious profile has fostered the formation of a Swiss national identity which embraces diversity as one of its core values (Linder 1998: 18–27).
Table 2.6 lists all 26 Swiss cantons in alphabetical order, but distinguishes between 20 ‘full’ and 6 ‘half-cantons’. The dates in between brackets refer to the year in which a canton became a full member of the Swiss confederation.
The difference between half and full cantons is explained in greater detail in the next chapter; the relatively recent formation of the Swiss Jura canton is discussed in Chapter 7.