Ongeveer vijf weken na de start van de jacht op Jürgen Conings, de Belgische beroepsmilitair gezocht omwille van het bedreigen van viroloog Marc Van Ranst en andere prominente doelwitten, vond men zijn stoffelijk overschot terug in het Dilserbos, Dilsen-Stokkem. Ook na zijn dood – Conings overleed hoogstwaarschijnlijk door zelfmoord – blijft de zaak Conings het Belgische sociaal-politieke landschap beroeren en de publieke opinie verdelen: de mate van steun die Conings de afgelopen weken kreeg, toont nog maar eens aan dat extreemrechts (...) een serieus maatschappelijk probleem is in België, waarvan de reikwijdte bovendien maar al te vaak miskend wordt. (shrink)

This article tries to answer two questions : 1) How does the cooperation between the Belgian and Flemish government work within the field of multilateral policy?; 2) How is the multilateral policy of the Belgian federation and the Flemish government received at the multilateral level? The Belgian constitution has foreseen a system in which all governments are equal. This has important consequences for Belgian delegations in multilateral fora : in 'mixed' dossiers, no government has decisive power. Thus, all Belgian governments (...) are objective allies in guarding the externally projected image of the federation. Nevertheless, this seems to be a 'grey area' in the cooperation among the various Belgian governments. (shrink)

Since 1965 Belgian has stopped recognizing governments confining itself to the recognition of states only and maintaining diplomatie relations with the recognized states through wathever government able of exercising effective controle of those states' territory. Nota single exception to this doctrine was made untill 1979.In 1979 however Belgium refused to recognize the government installed in Phnom Penh following the Vietnamese intervention. One year later it also stopped recognizing the Khmer Rouge. In the UN however Belgium went on to accept the (...) Khmer Rouge delegation as the representatives of Cambodia, a state thus being represented by a delegation accredited by an entity that Belgium did not consider to be a government. This contradiction was maintained untill present since neither the coalition between the Khmer Rouge, Sihanouk and Son Sann nor the Supreme National Council were regarded by Belgium as governments.The article reconstructs the Belgium position out of the many statements and arguments the government bas put forward in the UN and the Belgian Parliament. The Belgian position is than examined in the light of international law, its own recognition doctrine and the international and domestic political context.This led to the conclusion that the legal grounds for the Belgian policy were rather weak and that its position almost completly differred from its traditional doctrine. In the Cambodian case however political considerations appeared to have prevailed Belgium chose to join the US, China and Asean and manoeuvred as to follow them in their condemnation of the Vietnamese intervention. Acting even as one of the most faithfull followers of the Asean policy towards Cambodia, Belgium enjoyed the improvement of its own relations with Asean, also in the commercial field.The continuous domestic opposition in and out of the Parliament was not able to change this policy. Even the present Minister of Foreign Alf airs who declared to be inclined to adjust the Belgian position had to hold back in order not to affect the esthablised relations. (shrink)

The article gives a review of inedited sources dealing with the Belgian contribution to European integration in the years 1945-1955. Such sources are kept in the Algemeen Rijksarchief, in the Parliament, various ministerial departments, the Navorsings- en Studiecentrum voor de Geschiedenis van de Tweede Wereldoorlog, study centres of the major political parties, a number of non-governmental organizations as well as the private archives of a number of politicians.

Belgian municipalities rely heavily on surcharges on national income taxes as a source of income. In a context offederal government, such taxes create "fiscal externalities": decisions at one level of government affect the welfare at other levels. We focus on one such interdependency: EC-civil servants are not subject to national incame taxation. We show that this federal decision has far reaching budgetary effectsfor the municipalities where these people reside. Apart from its budgetary impact, this situation also baspolitical and social relevance.

Before the so-called 'bill Moureaux ', the health insurance policy in Belgium was contracted out by the government to the health workers and the health funds. Also in other sectors, government contracted out. This subsidiarity has advantages and disadvantages. Especially because of the unbearable budgetary excesses, this situation started to change since the beginning of the eighties, starting with the hospital sector. In the early nineties, the management of the sickness insurance also went through some radical changes. The budgetary envelope (...) is now mainly established by those who finance the system, e.g. the government and the social partners, who must take their responsibilities. In this new perception, all partners must be made truly accountable.Government must pass on statistic material in order to be able to pursue a well-informed policy. It must also crank up some social debates, namely about the demographic ageing.Health funds and organisations of physicians need a further democratization. The health funds must accomplish at the same time several functions: pressure group, service and consumer defence. (shrink)

1. De jezuïten -- 4. Een zwerm getuigen -- 5.-6. De filosofie van Leuven -- 7. Op zoek naar zijn en zin -- 8. Katholieken en hun filosofie.

In this article the spread of demonstrations - a political activity that situates itself in the middle on the scale of conventional - unconventional political action - is studied. The rare survey of the effective participation in demonstrations in Belgium shows that it is rather high. An extensive minority of some 20 to 25% ofthe Belgians declares to have participated in a demonstration. These figures modify the image of the passive, indifferent citizen that research of conventional political participation has shown. (...) The spread of the participation in demonstrations according to age and professional activity, moreover, differs from the pattern found in conventional participation. Demonstrating is typical behaviour of the younger age-categories and therefore of students, but also of farmers, blue collar workers and lower-ranked white collar workers.From this survey follow a number of results connected to the use of demonstrations and the number of demonstrators during the period 1953-74. Related statistics indicate that the number of demonstrations and demonstrators increases, the latter not to the same extent as the farmer however. Furthermore it appears that students, labor unions and agricultural organizations have often come to the streets to enforce their demands. Thematically speaking, particularly problems related to traditional cleavages in Belgian polities have been theobject of demonstrations: ideological, socio-economic and linguistic issues. Organizations active in the area of this cleavages are able to mobilize a great number ofdemonstrators. These organizations are for the most part pillarized and structurally well-developed. Nevertheless the division between issues and organizations during the period 1953-74 has become less unequal. During the sixties and the early seventies the share of traditional cleavages in the number of demonstrations and demonstrators is becoming smaller. New organizations areusing demonstrations more and more to put new issues on the political agenda. They have, however, not the same power to mobilise as do the pillarized organizations. (shrink)

There is a relationship between the different means of action of pressure groups - aimed at exerting pressure on the national government - and its effectiviness on policy level. Because a theoretical analysis is indispensable for further emperical research, the study first focuses on a general survey of possible means of action. This theoretical scheme is applied to four pressure groups. The analysis ofJour quite different pressure groups: 'Vrouwen Overleg Komitee', 'Bond Beter Leefmilieu', 'Vlaams Artsensyndicaat' and 'Belgische Boerenbond' shows that (...) the use of indirect means of action produces a greater effectiviness on policy level. But the choice of the means of action by an organisation depends on several determining factors. Following hypothesis can be sustained by this emperical study: stronger pressure groups, like Vlaams Artsensyndicaat and Belgische Boerenbond, mostly use indirect means of action and are characterised by a greater effectiviness than the two other organisations. (shrink)