Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 21 Feb 2006
Political Identity, Territory, And Institutional Change: The Case Of Belgium
Political Identity, Territory, And Institutional Change: The Case Of Belgium
Page Range: 205 – 220
This article examines the interplay of political identity, territory, and institutional change in Belgium. Political mobilization has gradually reshaped the territorial constitution of political institutions, and with it, group identities. Politicians have chosen to abandon a unitary state structure and instead establish a federation of Regions and Communities, both of which are territorially delimited but have different functions. As contention over language policy and language-use assessment has grown, Belgians have decided to favor territoriality over language use in matters of governance. This decision has not been without significant effects on identity-based politics. The analysis presented here shows how group mobilization can alter the institutional and territorial structures of group interaction and that these structural changes affect future options available to groups.
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