Several tendencies in the process of political decision-making in Belgium tend to put under strain the official model of representative democracy. One of these evolutions is the set up of many advisory councils, and especially the dynamism of some of these advisory councils to move up to participation in the decision-making itself.The process starts at the functional basis of the advisory councils: an information function, an advice function, a function to make proposals, an investigation function and a selection function. It (...) is possible to get to the care of the decision for reason of a liability to advice, the quality as regards content of the advice, the composition of the councils and the appeal to the public opinion. The dysfunctions are the obstacles that need to be advoided: the alibi function, a basis for non-decision, the delay and concealing of the decision-making itself, a certain obliqueness in the composition and the undermining of the representative function of parliament. (shrink)

Results from an opinion poll, held in mid-year 1975, with a representative sample of Belgian citizens, show that the oppositions the citizens perceive, are partly of a universal nature and partly specifically Belgian. Those who have gat power vs. those who have not, young vs. old, male vs. female are oppositions that complement more specifically Belgian conflict dimensions : socio-economic problems, religion, ethnicity. The political parties are instrumental towards some poles on such confiict dimensions, but the instrumentality is not yet (...) proportionalto the share of the poles in the total population; moreover, it is quite weak towards some poles. The image the public has about the power hierarchy in Belgium appears to coincide rather adequately with a ranking on the power hierarchy as established by the top-participants. People do realize who really is powerful. Besides, the basic institutions of parliamentary democracy are fundamentally recognized and accepted. One finds indeed quite unambiguous appreciations of the individual and social rights and freedoms, of the institutionalization of conflict solution and of the maintenance of the political entity. (shrink)

Between 1919 and 1981, Belgium was confronted with a number of profound societal crises : one world war, two af termaths of world wars, severe economie crises, a new politica! orientation, and serious internal political conflicts. This article examines the reaction of the elite to these crises, and operationalizes this reaction by the circulationof the elite.The non-political elite remained strikingly stable in spite of the multiplicity and intensity of the crises. The political elite, in this period, circulated much more rapidly. (...) Still, this was primarily in function of governmental instability. Crises shrink the room for maneuver of politicians, but crises are clearly not the only, and even not the most important factors contributing to governmental instability. The changes were, moreover, compensated for to a considerable degree by returns to former positions. Thus, there was a lot of rotation rather than circulation, especially among the top-level politicians. (shrink)

The Belgian electorate has the possibility not only to decide on the number of seats for the different parties, but also to appoint the members of parliament. By making insufficient use of the preferential vote, the electorale however denies itself the power to choose members of parliament. In a quasi-experiment the difference in the selection of members by the political parties and by the electorale is examined for the period 1949-1987. The Difference is small, tending to lower the more the (...) electorate use the preferential vote, which is the key to that autonomous selection. A puzzling result, which can be understood taking into account that the growth of the preferential vote is nearly exclusively given to or attrackted by the candidates leading the party lists. A striking illustration of the difficult emancipation of the electorate. (shrink)

Unlike France, Denmark, Sweden, Austria and other E.U. countries Belgium has not yet organised a referendum on European policy matters, however important these may be. So one is constrained to opinion polls and survey data to grasp the attitude of the Flemish community towards European integration. Five important policy matters are examined: the introduction of the euro, the involvement in E.U. countries, the enlargement of the E.U., the institutional design and the position ofthe Flemish community in the E.U. At the (...) end, with about 20 % of the electorale trying to follow the intricate European polities, on the whole public opinion on Europe in Flanders seem to be a mixture of unfamiliarity, indifference, resignation and acceptance of the policy advocated by the elitist consensus in Belgium on these matters. The missing impetus is the incentives provided by a referendum to become concerned with the complex policy-making and policies in Europe. (shrink)

Now being one of the 10 most important urban centres, Leuven provides a good case to study the determinant elements that have inspired the policy of mergers of communes in Belgium in 1975.Technocracy, consultation of the municipal councils concerned, preferences of the population, the opposition in parliament have all had very little or no influence at all on the eventual decision-making.On the contrary, specific pressure groups, supervision authorities, the extent to which one tried to anticipate the 1976 local elections, and (...) the power position of the majority parties have substantially infiuenced the merger map. Thus, these decision-making elements contain a considerable distortion - in terms of actual realization - of the official ideology behind the mergers, i.e. to make the municipal executive power more efficient. (shrink)

Although communication and discussion between rank and file members and the party leadership are at the heart of party congresses, most parties meet a lot of difficulties in organising truly democratie party conferences.The party leadership has a natural tendency to try to influence the decision-making process. In this article, we identify thirteen conditions fora democratic party conference. They vary from the decision whether or not to organise a conference, over the conference' s theme and the designation of the chair of (...) the conference on to the electoral formula to accept amendments to the proposed resolutions. The thirteen conditions stem from avery long and extensive participatory observation, combined with the analysis of numerous party conferences in Belgium, over the last couple of decades. This enables also to point out some shifting tendencies in the Belgian party congresses since World War II. (shrink)

Based on a extensive computation of power capabilities, the position of Belgium in international politics can reliably be assessed. Belgium belongs to a first stratum of followers states. Its best functional fields are international economie relations and those concerning science and technology. A globalisation of all functional fields runs at the expense of its international position.A splitting up of the country would relegate the emerging states, Flanders and Wallonia, to the second more numerous stratum of still less powerfull followers. Whereas (...) a politically unified Europe would mean a participation on a consickrably more powerful level. (shrink)

Most theorists on International Relations agree on recognizing natural resources, economic strength, technologica! development, political stability and military strength as the five bases of a state's power.This unanimity is in sharp contrast with the divergence in the operationalizations of the power of states. Most operationalizations use only one or two bases of a state's power and thus are very limited in scope.Therefore, the demand for an operationalization sticking as closely as possible to the unanimity among theorists, farces itself on the (...) researcher. The present study is an attempt to transform the theoretical unanimity into an operational measuring.Such an operationalization was obtained by granting all five power bases an equal share in the index, and by giving an equal weight to the sums of the arithmetical values for fifteen subindicators and thus for the five indicators. The nations'power index thus obtained was applied for 110 nation states as they existed in the beginning of the '70s. On this power scale, ratings diHer from 29,046 IWM for the USA to 276 IWM for Gambia, and even less for a number of the smaller states that could not be investigated. (shrink)

The political debate in Western polyarchies readily points to a «Parteienstaat», «particrazia», or particracy. Empirical verification, however, is by far more difficult to carry out, though it is a descriptive necessity for further analysis of this phenomenon.An initial attempt to detect the particraties in Western Europe has been performed and revealed two particracies : Belgium and Italy. Other polyarchies have either the cabinet or the president as the most influential actor, an,d some seem to have a real concurrence of approximately (...) equivalent actors. The reliability of this first attempt, however, must be improved. (shrink)

Municipal elections are not the only channel of participation in the municipal policy nor are they the only participation-problem. But it is nevertheless useful to make research into them because they are the unique institutionalized possibility of participation.This participation-research deals with the different aspects of the municipal elections.The first thing to note is that a number of council-members are pointed out by elections without competition. This phenomenon is not very extended: 373 out of some 2,600 municipalities, 12 % of the (...) council members, 200,000 voters. There is no notable change of size since 1920 in this phenomenon.Compared to the legislative elections, candidatures are very stable and limited : an average of 2,3 candidates per seat. These limited candidatures also mean that in practically half of the cases municipal elections have a two-parties system, by which the electoral corps chose directly the Court of Mayor and Aldermen. But even in municipalities with more than two parties, this «direct choice of the government» is made in 75 % of the cases. In respect of these facts, participation is qualitatively much better than in the case of the parliamentary elections.Forsaking of choice is notably lower at municipal than at parliamentary elections. As to the use of preference-votes, the choice of the municipal electorate is richer than that of the national electorate not only because municipal electors more aften express their preference for individuals, but also and not in the least because, by this more frequent use of preference-votes, they have real participation in the choice of the councilmembers themselves.The possibilities of choice at municipal elections offer an original alternative : to vote beyond party-frontiers with the «mixed vote». This multi-party vote is but seldom used : by 2,5 % of the electorate.And even then those who tlus mixed way lose half of their votingcapacity. Generally seen however, the municipal elections show a more favorable participation-pattern than the legislative ones. This leads to the question if it can be imputed to the voters when something is wrong with municipal politics. Is this problem not-situated on a higher level of the participation-pyramid? (shrink)

La dissolution assez inattendue des Chambres, le 24 septembre 1971 impliquait une promesse d'élection directe du gouvernement. Cette promesse s'est cependant vite volatilisée. Des élections calmes et traditionnelles ont pris le relais, le gouvernement ayant choisi uniquement le moment le moins défavorable pour les partis de la majorité.La composition des listes s'effectue dans un plus grand calme que de coutume et se déroule davantage par le biais de petits comités ou d'assemblées peu nombreuses. Cependant un grand changement de personnel se (...) réalise par le retrait plus au mains forcé de 65 parlementaires sortants; ce chiffre est, d'après la tradition établie depuis plusieurs élections, très élevé.En dehors de Bruxelles la campagne est calme. Une personnification se manifeste de plus en plus, aussi bien en Wallonie qu'en Flandre.En ce qui concerne la personnification, Bruxelles a une longueur d'avance. Le penchant pour l'«argumentation» symbolique est une autre caractéristique de la campagne. On ne s'oppose pas sur les points litigieux, on ne les expose même pas.Les résultats électoraux en W allonie et à Bruxelles diffèrent fondamentalement de ceux de la Flandre. En Wallonie et à Bruxelles de grands changements se font jour : le P.L.P. est le grand perdant tandis que le F.D.F./R.W. sort des élections en grand vainqueur. En Flandre, par contre, il y a peu de changements dans les chiffres globaux, mais de région à région de petits gains et de petites pertes sant enregistrés.Ceux-ci cependant vont dans des sens divers et même souvent radicalement opposés. L'explication de ces changements reste encore à fournir. Une fois de plus, le nombre des votes blanc et non valables à augmenté. La composition de la Chambre des Représentants et du Sénat issue de ces élections ne permet qu'une bipartite entre C.V.P. -P.S.C. et P.S.B. Les trois partis traditionnels possèdent encore numériquement plus des 2/3 des sièges. Certaines complications dans la réorganisation de l'Etat établie par la révision constitutionnelle, se font déjà entrevoir. Et cela n'est qu'un des problèmes que ces élections ont portés à l'attention de l'opinion publique. (shrink)

This study aims to state the relation between the nature of municipal elections and the degree of urbanisation of the municipalities.In Belgium the municipal elections show a very great diversity in their electoral figures. Five categories of electoral figures are frequent : elections without competition,totally local electoral figure, predominantly local electoral figure, mixed electoral figure, predominantly national electoral figure.The two existing operationalizations of urbanisation in Belgium are used for the urbanisation degree of the municipalities : that of W. Van Waelvelde (...) and H. Van der Haegen as well as that of I. De Lanoo,U. Claeys and M. Sansen. The frequency of the different types of electoral figures at the municipal elections, seen in the categories of urbanisation according to both above mentioned operationalizations, indicates a positive relation between growing urbanisation and the shifting from local to predominantly national electoral figures. This does not mean that the predominantly national electoral figure can be found exclusively in the highest category of urbanisation, nor that the exclusively local electoral figure and the elections without competition can only happen in rural regions. But it is a fact that the gravity-centre of the rather national electoral figures lies in urbanised municipalities and towns, whereas the gravity- centre of local electoral figures lies in rural municipalities. See graphic I and graphic II.As the used, urbanisation-operationalizations are not totally unidimensional, this research can furnish only an argument for H. Bahrdt's thesis of the «Verfall der kommunalen öffentlichkeit» and for the parallel hypothesis of the tenuous zone, formulated by Sj. Groenman. (shrink)

The amalgamation of the municipalities has had profound effects on the municipal character in Belgium : the village has disappeared as a political entity. The «municipality» since 1976 is at least the political and administrative amalgamation of a number of villages.The effect of this amalgamation on the municipal council elections is expressed first of all in the shift in the election form. Uncontested elections disappeared in 1976. The exclusively local election form occurred rarely in 1976, even though this form was (...) still the most common in 1970. However, the mixed election form increased very considerably. Parallel with the amalgamation of the municipalities, the national party pattern penetrated increasingly into the municipal polities : there occurred a gradual «nationalisation» of the municipal polities. The «urban citizens» became more «state citizens», also in municipal matters. Regarding direct municipal executive appointment, the amalgamation led to a less far-reaching and less decisive character of the input, which are characteristics that also tend to follw the national pattern more strongly. The number of municipalities in which no coalition executive needed to be formed clearly declined in 1976.The amalgamation has reduced the uniqueness of the municipal council elections and the decisionmaking capacity of the urban citizens and introduced more national political content. (shrink)

The government-opposition scheme of a two-party system does not function that clearly in a multiparty system which is the case in Belgium. To examine to what extent the opposition parties in a multi-partysystem are functional for policymaking, the period 1965-1971 was chosen for Belgium, providing a complete scale of government and opposition parties.A content analysis of all political parties' platforms in 1965 permits to determine the policy objectives, classified in policy areas, so that at the end of the six years (...) a survey could be made about the completely andpartly realised planks of the platforms according to government and opposition parties, according to the party-strength which was congruent with the duration of government participation. In Belgium a distinctioncan also be made between the traditional opposition parties and the nonelitist opposition parties, which during the given period were not accepted as possible government parties by the political elite.To obtain a correct evaluation of the realisations, the approach took successively into account the absolute number of platform-planks, the number of specific items of a party and the degree of importance andsocial repercussion of the distinct planks that could be realised.Although respectively for 6, 4 and 2 years in the government the CVP, the BSP and the PVV realise approximately the same number of planks. The non-elitist opposition party Volksunie realised a smaller butstill considerable number of objectives. So did also, but to a smaller extent the RW, KP and FDP. The interpretation of these results could be the loss of distinctiveness of the government-opposition scheme in amultiparty system, the elite-consensus in Belgium, the function of the «zweeppartij» strategy and the definition of the opposition in terms of action. (shrink)

The existing models for the formation of governmental coalitions as far as Belgium is concerned do not score high in predictability. A more complex model, covering three fields, seven vectors and one strong actor among a limited number of decision-makers, fits much better. A prerequisite for a coalition is a majority within the elitist parties in parliament. Favoring coalition formation are the decision-making capabilities of the cabinet, the elitarian consensus on the basic values prominent in and for the Belgian society, (...) the programmatic similarities and affinities of the political parties and their capacity to manipulate issues. Hampering coalition formation are the development of partisan options, the polarization of issues, and the internal dissensions within the political parties. This model stresses the combined action of strong structures and actors, paramount in Belgian society. (shrink)

Within the Belgian political system political issues are hard to deal with. The institutions do not provide a problem-solving mechanism : no ref erendum, no direct election of a one-party cabinet. Moreover, electoral campaigns usually involve a lot of heterogeneous issues and almost never focus upon a single one. Active political participation of citizens is, by definition, selective and, compared with electoral participation, limited, although, the number of people taking part in a political demonstration is sometimes considerable. An investigation of (...) the Belgian political elite shows that active political participation, sparked off by a single issue, can be considered as one of the most polyarchie types of political decision-making in Belgium. This involves an increase of tension and conflict, a slowing down of the process of decision-making and a selective accessibility to this type of participation. Belgian politicians try to avoid these difficulties by either opting for non-decision or consociational politics. (shrink)

The Belgian polyarchy has developed into a «particracy» in which the political parties have a preponderant impact on the political decisionmaking.As in every polyarchy, the political parties fulfill a set of vital functions in the Belgian system. But that does not explain its «particratie» particularity. The particracy arises as a consequence of four factors. The parties are fixed by the «zuilen» into an «internal-imperialistic» role. The power of the parties increased considerably, an increase of which the politization of the instruments (...) for, and the agencies of, policy is one of the most important, together with the capability of making and unmaking issues. The impact and power of the opponents of the parties in the decision-making process have been diminished to a considerable extent. This weakening involves the king, the parliament, theadministration, the electorate, and, ultimately, the cabinet because of the growing impact of the parties on policy design and policy output as well as on the appointment of ministers. Finally, the choice of the consociational pattern of politics of accomodation by the elite indicates the instrumental function of particracy in Belgian politics. (shrink)

According to an opinion poll which was carried out in the middle of 1975 with a representative sample of Belgian citizens, the problems which most imposed themselves about that time were economie problems, viz.inflation and employment. These two problems were perceived as the most pressing by the more active part of the population as well. However, the solutions that citizens favour for a broad range of problems are not logically consistent, and demonstrate that many citizens have but very little insight (...) in the problems' structure. Yet, those who do feel more concerned, generally favour the same solutions as does the average citizen ; there is no polarization to be noticed.Considerable differences are brought forward by splitting up the results in two main regions : Flanders vs. Wallonia. The ethnic and linguistic difference appears to be also a political difference as far as problem-solving is concerned. The type of solutions citizens favour also shows that the stereotype «conservative Flanders» vs. «progressist Wallonia» is not valid any longer. (shrink)

The available studies and opinion polls are examined for indications of the degree and the content of political knowledge of the Belgian citizens. Political knowledge differs strikingly depending on the components of decision making : political parties, office bolders and their competence, power relations, institutional settings, pressure groups, corporatism and policy measures. Proceeding from personification to content and from more important to less important aspects, the knowledge declines noticeably. A marked portion of the populationshows a lack of even the most (...) elementary knowledge. (shrink)

The great promises that "Statistik" yielded in the 19th century in Belgium, did not materialise. At least as far as political statistics are concerned. In the second half of the 20th century the output was rather limited and thus very incomplete, not very professionally conceived and elaborated, disorderly provided, strongly related to an outrunned institutional approach and thus quite conservative in its orientation, veiled in inaccurate categories with the static view rather dominant. Therefore, starting from a global approach of the (...) 3 P's, a rebuilding is necessary. This should provide for an inventory of existing statistical data and -above all -a masterplan to achieve a straightforward view on the 3 P's in Belgium: polity, politics and policy. A polyarchy has the right and the need to in depth information that is as complete as feasible. Statistics are very handy tools to provide this information to both policymakers and citizens. (shrink)

A simpte solution for polyarchies which have not yet solved the problem of electing democratically a government and which have to cope with the problem of multipartism is proposed. The technique proceeds as follows : in a first round the electorate can make a choice between different candidates for the prime ministership. The candidate who obtains an absolute majority forms a government.If no candidate obtains an absolute majority, which is the most likely outcome, the two best placed candidates participate in (...) a second round. However, each of these candidates now presents a complete government coalition to the electorate. The voters can choose between those two coalitions. The coalition with the majority of the vote becomes the government. The criticism against this proposal is being investigated. The new technique is illustrated on the basis of the political situation in Belgium. (shrink)

Şia anlayışında dördüncü imam olarak kabul edilen Ali b. Huseyn Zeynulabidîn’in yazdığı iddia edilen es-Sahifetu’s-Seccadiyye isimli dua konulu eser, Şia âleminde Kur’an-ı Kerîm ve Hz. Ali’ye atf edilen Nehcu’l-Belağa kitabından sonra gelen üçüncü önemli kitaptır. Toplam 54 dua metninden oluşan bu eser, sadece bir dua kitabı olarak ele alınmamış aynı zamanda ahlak, akide, fıkıh, sosyoloji, psikoloji ve edebiyat alanlarına da kaynaklık etmiştir. Eser üzerine onlarca şerh, haşiye, makale, akademik araştırmalar yapılmış ve eser, Türkçe, İngilizce, Farsça, Urduca gibi birçok dile çevrilmiştir. (...) Bu çalışmalar, eser etrafında önemli bir literatür oluşturmuştur. Biz bu çalışmamızda Tabakatu E‘lâmi’ş-Şî‘a, A‘yânu’ş-Şî‘a ve ansiklopedik tarzda yazılmış olan ez-Zerî‘a ilâ Tesânîfi'ş-Şî‘a isimli kaynak eserlerden aynı zamanda Mektebetu’l-Melik Fehd, Mektebetu’l-İskenderiye ve Mektebetu Mısrı’l-‘Âmme gibi yüzbinlerce kitabı içeren kütüphanelerden yararlanarak es-Sahîfetu’s-Seccâdiyye üzerine özellikle Arapça yapılmış çalışmaları incelemeye aldık ve eser etrafında gelişen literatürü tespit etmeyi amaçladık. (shrink)

I've got a "predecessor", and what a fine one too!" Circumstances of the creation of Nietzsche's "Zarathustra" The name of SSpinoza appears in the notes of F. Nietzsche from the beginning of the eighties. Basing on information contained in K.Fisher's History of Philosophy he hails the sage from den Haag as his predecessor. In the course of next few years the greatest works of Nietzsche are written and his professional, personal and health matters become very complicated. At the end of (...) his life embittered, lonely and deeply misunderstood Nietzsche pens remarks concerning Spinoza's writings once again - this time drastically different in style and the judgement of their worthiness. As both of the philosophers use the term of "power", both reject personalised God and propose the reversion of the hierarchy of the moral values, many researcherswere inspired by Nietzsche's notes to investigate the connections of the two philosophies. However, is the connection real, or is it but an illusion, a delusion of a link caused by the use of similarndevices and terms in different contexts? How did such a radical change in Nietzsche's views come to pass - a change of views not only of Spinoza's philosophy, but of Schopenhauer's and Wagner's musical work as well? The answers to those questions may be sought with use of Jung's theory of archetypes, as an example. In reference to Nietzsche's biography it shows one of the possible interpretations of his approach to the persons mentioned. (shrink)

Pathogenic bacteria frequently target the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria in order to exploit host functions. ER‐mitochondria inter‐organelle communication is topologically sub‐compartmentalized at mitochondria‐associated ER membranes (MAMs). MAMs are specific membranous microdomains with unique regulatory functions such as lipid synthesis and trafficking, calcium homeostasis, mitochondrial morphology, inflammasome activation, autophagosome formation, and apoptosis. These important cellular processes are all modulated by pathogens to subvert host functions and promote infection, thus it is tempting to assume that pathogenic bacteria target MAMs to subvert (...) these different pathways in their hosts. First lines of evidence that support this hypothesis come from Legionella pneumophila. This intracellular bacterium secretes an effector that exhibits sphingosine‐1 phosphate lyase activity (LpSpl) that seems to target MAMs to modulate the autophagy response to infection. Here we thus propose the concept that MAMs could be targeted by pathogenic bacteria to undermine key host cellular processes. (shrink)

Lidé s různými politickými názory interpretují klíčové pojmy politiky odlišně. Mají různé koncepce těchto pojmů, protože mají různou odpověď na politickou otázku: Co dělat? Mít stejný pojem znamená idenfikovat stejnou praktickou otázku, mít různé koncepce tohoto pojmu pak znamená mít jinou teorii toho, co je správná odpověď na tuto otázku, tedy jinou teorii toho, co máme dělat. People of different political persuasions interpret key concepts of politics in different ways. They have different conceptions of these concepts because they answer differently (...) on the political question: What to do? To have the same concept means to identify the same practical question, to have different conceptions of this concept means to have another theory of the right answer for this question. (shrink)

Study of Mīmāṃsāpādukā of Veṅkaṭanātha, 1268-1369, on Mimamsa and Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy.