Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:26:42.114Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Impact of the Linguistic Cleavage on the “Governing” Parties of Belgium and Canada*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

David M. Rayside
David M. Rayside
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 61 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Here and elsewhere the terms “ethnic group” and “language group” are used interchangeably, primarily for stylistic variety. In principle, the two are not always coterminous, but as long as it is clear that in the present case the reference being made is to Flemings, francophone Belgians, English Canadians, and French Canadians, no confusion should be possible.

2 The modernization literature shows some ambivalence on this point. Writers like Black, C. E., in The Dynamics of Modernization: A Study in Comparative History (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1967)Google Scholar, and Coleman, James S., in Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1958)Google Scholar seem to argue that economic and social development leads to greater integration, although they are somewhat unclear about whether this applies to the assimilation of large cultural communities. Karl Deutsch, on the other hand, is fairly clear about excepting cross-cultural integration from his general views on the effects of “social mobilization”: “Language similarities or differences may be unimportant in the lives of two peasant villages isolated from each other; they may become more important when the sons of their peasants go to compete for jobs in the same industrial or mining area; and very important when their grandsons begin to compete with each other as shopkeepers or as candidates for white-collar jobs” (Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry Into the Foundations of Nationality [2nd ed.; Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1966], 174)Google Scholar.

3 By the 1971 census, 27 per cent of Canadians were of French mother tongue, 60 per cent of English, and 13 per cent of other languages, although because of the tendency for immigrants to assimilate to the English language, there is a somewhat higher percentage of English speakers than of English mother tongue. By using the criterion of “the language most often spoken at home,” 67 per cent is English speaking, 26 per cent French speaking, and 7 per cent speaking other languages. Deciphering ethnic group size and regional concentration is more difficult in Belgium, since there have been no linguistic questions in the census since 1947 and since there will be none in the foreseeable future. Although some Belgians argue that the 1947 figures are suspect, they give some indication of the regionalization of ethnicity. According to that census, 4.4 per cent of the four northern provinces (excluding Brabant altogether) was French speaking; 1.8 per cent of the southern provinces was Dutch speaking; and in the Province of Brabant (containing the capital region and a substantial portion of wholly Dutch-speaking territory) 49.6 per cent was Dutch speaking. The Belgian state now treats all residents of Flanders as Dutch speaking and all Walloons as francophone. In Brussels it is probable that about 80 or 85 per cent speak primarily French, although a large number of those who now use French are of Flemish origin.

4 Duverger, Maurice, Political Parlies: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, trans, by Barbara, and North, Robert (New York: Wiley, Science Editions, 1963)Google Scholar, book 1.

5 The single most useful introduction to Belgian politics in general and to the Belgian party system in particular remains Lorwin, Val R., “Belgium: Religion, Class, and Language in National Politics,” in Dahl, Robert A., ed., Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966)Google Scholar. Other useful sources include: Höjer, Carl-Henrik, Le régime parlementaire beige de 1918 à 1940 (Uppsala, Sweden: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1946)Google Scholar; Simon, A., Le Parti Catholique Belge, 1830–1945 (Bruxelles: La Renaissance du Livre, 1958)Google Scholar; Luykx, Theo, Politieke Geschiedenis van België van 1789 tot heden (2nd ed.; Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1969)Google Scholar; and Rowies, Luc, Les partis politiques en Belgique, dossiers du CRISP no. 7 (Bruxelles: Centre de Recherche et d'Information Socio-Politiques, 1975)Google Scholar.

6 See Maurice Duverger, Political Parties, 246–48.

7 There has long been a measure of confusion—inside Belgium and elsewhere—about when one can cease talking of “Flemish” and when one starts referring to “Dutch.” No attempt has been made here to address that issue or to make a precise distinction between the two. In most cases, “Dutch” will be used to refer to the language or dialects of Flanders, even if the term suggests in some contexts that there is more linguistic homogeneity than in fact exists.

8 Just over 2 per cent of the 1884 adult population had the vote.

9 Höjer, Le régime parlementaire beige, 10. Note here that a distinction must be made between the upper hierarchy of the Church and the lower clergy. In Flanders, the hierarchy was reluctant to support the “Flemishization” of education at all levels, continuing its opposition to the establishment of a wholly Flemish university until the 1930's. The same distinction must be made in Quebec, where the lower clergy has tended to be more nationalistic and less cooperative with the English than the hierarchy. In both places, the hierarchy appeared to be substantially out of touch with its following. That was especially so in Flanders, where a linguistic barrier separated the great majority of Flemings from their French-speaking Church leaders. To this effect, insofar as the Belgian case is concerned, see Zolberg, Aristide R., “Transformation of Linguistic Ideologies: The Belgian Case,” paper presented at the International Round Table on Multilingual Political Systems, organized by the International Political Science Association and the International Center for Research on Bilingualism, Laval University, Quebec, 27–31 March 1972Google Scholar, 8.

10 For a more detailed analysis of the Flemish nationalist movement, see Herremans, M.-P., La question flamande (Bruxelles: Meurice, 1948)Google Scholar, Clough, Shepard B., A History of the Flemish Movement in Belgium: A Study in Nationalism (New York: R. Smith, 1930)Google Scholar, and, for a more popularized account, Ruys, Manu, The Flemings: A People on the Move, A Nation in Being, trans, by Schoup, Henri (Tielt, Belgium: Lannoo, 1973)Google Scholar.

11 One of the most useful summaries and analyses of the recent history of language group conflicts in Belgium is provided in Cbppieters, Franz, The Community Problem in Belgium (Brussels: Belgian Information and Documentation Institute, 1971)Google Scholar.

12 For useful materials on the early development of Canadian parties, see Careless, J. M. S., The Union of the Canadas: The Growth of Canadian Institutions, 1841–1857 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972)Google Scholar; Bernard, Jean-Paul, Les Rouges: libéralism, nationalisme et anti-cléricalisme au milieu du XIXe siècle (Montréal: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 1971)Google Scholar; Neatby, Blair, Laurier and a Liberal Quebec: A Study in Political Management, ed. and with an introduction by Clippingdale, Richard T. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the first essays in Thorburn, Hugh G., ed. Party Politics in Canada (2nd ed.; Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall, 1967)Google Scholar.

13 The “Rouges” bore a strong resemblance to some early European Liberal parties, taking much of their inspiration from the radical individualism of the French and American revolutions. Their alliance with the Western Grits was long a tenuous one, since the latter tended to combine a radically individualist and democratic outlook with an anti-French-Canadian one. But informal cooperation still took place at least sporadically.

14 Even at the birth of the Union in 1841, the electoral franchise was already “broadly popular,” encompassing almost all household heads. Over 10 per cent of the adult population was enfranchised at that stage, while in Belgium as late as 1884 only 2.2 per cent had the vote. See J. M. S. Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 13f, and for more specialized information, Garner, John, The Franchise and Politics in British North America, 1755–1867 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969)Google Scholar and Ward, Norman, The Canadian House of Commons: Representation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959), 211–32Google Scholar.

15 See Cairns, Alan, “The Electoral System and the Party System in Canada, 1921–1965,” this Journal 1 (1968), 55–80Google Scholar. Cairns points out that in the election campaigns of 1921, 1925, 1926, King's Liberals recalled the Conservative policies during the conscription crisis of World War 1. See also, Siegfried, André, The Race Question in Canada, ed. and with an introduction by Underhill, Frank H. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966), 130Google Scholar.

16 Lijphart can in fact be criticized for tending to assume that mass-level hostility and political polarization continues to exist in the Netherlands. The accommodative strategies of Dutch elites may not in fact represent delicate balancing acts, but may instead reflect the overall moderation of the opposition of the four principal “zuilen.'” See Lijphart, Arend, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

17 See Appendix for more details about sampling and interviewing for this study and for the larger study from which it is drawn.

18 “Territorial” and “individual” approaches to linguistic legislation are discussed in “The Principle of Territoriality and the Principle of Personality in Multilingual States,” paper presented at the World Congress of the International Political Science Association,Montreal, 1973Google Scholar.

19 Hoffman, David and Ward, Norman, Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the Canadian House ofCommons, no. 3 in the Documents of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1970), 172Google Scholar. There is some other evidence that the Liberals house more anglophone “moderates” than other parties as far as ethnic group relations are concerned. Normand Duern canvassed members of the twenty-eighth Parliament on a variety of issues and included in a set of “agreedisagree” items the suggestion that “French Canadians haven't received full rights under Confederation.” Fifty-four per cent of the anglophone Liberals agreed with that claim, while only 20 per cent of the Conservative anglophones agreed. In the same survey, there were indications that anglophone Liberals were much more concerned about the English-French division in Canada and the dangers that it presented to the country than their Conservative counterparts. (Duern, Normand E., “Cohesion and Factionalism in Federal Political Parties,” M.A. thesis, McGill University, 1970)Google Scholar.

20 The impact of contact on linguistic orientations is not clear-cut. If it were, we would expect to find experienced MPs in Ottawa more understanding of and sympathetic than their juniors to French Canadians. But we do not find that—there is no significant correlation between experience in the anglophone contingent and pro-French-Canadian attitudes. What probably explains the lack of relationship is the tendency for younger parliamentarians to be more sympathetic than older colleagues to French Canada. The small number of respondents makes statistical control impossible, but it is plausible that the two factors “cancel one another out.” It is also possible that the “conversion” of anglophone MPs occurs very quickly—in the first year or so of parliamentary experience—especially in light of the intimacy of contact among members.

21 Substantial central control persists despite the appearance of regional structures ostensibly designed to allow for “cultural autonomy” and regionalization. The most straightforward account of the complex constitutional changes involved in this supposed regionalization is to be found in Senelle, Robert, “The Revision of the Constitution, 1967–1971,” Memo From Belgium, nos. 144–46 (January, February, March 1972)Google Scholar.

22 See Lieberson, Stanley, Language and Ethnic Relations in Canada (New York: Wiley, 1970), 169Google Scholar, 171; and Porter, John, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 285–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (Clement, Wallace, in The Canadian Corporate Elite: An Analysis of Economic Power [Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975]Google Scholar brings much of Porter up to date, indicating that inequality still exists in the country's boardrooms [chap. 6].)

23 Neatby, Laurier and a Liberal Quebec, 212.

24 In the survey of Canadian MPs conducted by David Hoffman and Norman Ward in 1964 and 1965, Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the Canadian House of Commons, there are a few indications of French-Canadian frustration at the slowness of anglophone progress in understanding the French fact in Canada. See, for example, 226.

25 The idea of bilingual districts does of course introduce a territorial component to the federal government's policies in the realm of French-English relations. It defines certain areas as suitable for a two-language capacity in federal government services, and leaves others as unilingual. The definition of district boundaries has been somewhat contentious within the federal Liberal caucus and the cabinet, which may explain the government's tardiness in implementing the report of the bilingual districts advisory board.

26 Table 2 gives some indication of the Bruxellois-Walloon divergence on Brussels-related issues. In reaction to the claim that Walloon economic development has not been sufficiently stimulated by the central government, 82 per cent of the Walloon Social Christian respondents agreed, whereas only one of the three Bruxellois agreed. Among Canadian Liberals, 56 per cent of the Quebecers agreed with a similar assertion, and while 36 per cent of the Ontarians agreed with it, none of the Westerners or Maritimers did. The responses of defeated parliamentary candidates may serve as a check on those responses, since there were few Maritime and Western MP respondents. Fifty per cent of the francophone Quebecer candidates agreed that Quebec economic development had not been sufficiently stimulated, and while 30 per cent of the Ontario anglophones agreed, only 15 per cent of the Maritimers and none of the Westerners agreed.

27 G. Bingham Powell, Jr., points to the importance of “lingering'” hostility in his study of a single Austrian town (Social Fragmentation and Political Hostility: An Austrian Case Study [Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1970].Google Scholar)