Problems of the State Building Process: A Case Study of Belgium
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25007/ajnu.v10n1a814Keywords:
Belgium, State Building, Plural societyAbstract
Discussing the process of building the Belgian state raises many problems, which can be traced back to the variable of societal pluralism as a major variable and its role in the formation of political institutions in Belgium. This indicates that the national societal formation in Belgium had and still has a prominent role in managing political life in Belgium.
It can be said that the nation-state theory has become deficient in addressing the problems of states with pluralistic societal, national, religious, ethnic, and sectarian states, and this applies to the case of the Belgian state and society with a pluralistic nationalism.
Based on this, the united Belgian state, organized according to the principles of the constitution (February 7, 1831AD), transformed into a federal state on May 5, 1993. This is in response to the demands of its national components and in order to preserve the state from collapse.
The Belgian state, which gained its independence in (1831 AD), was a region of great importance for many years, and had fought many conflicts for land rights throughout history. It is bordered on the north by the Netherlands and the North Sea, on the east by the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg, and on the south and west by France. Its community is divided between three linguistic groups with different population densities. They are the Flemings group speaking the Dutch / Flemish language, with a population of 5.7 million, the Walloons speaking French with 4.2 million people, and the Germanovic group speaking the German language with a population of 60,000 thousand.
The relationship between the Belgian national components witnessed many tensions, which led to the instability that the Belgian state suffered from due to its failure to achieve integration within the framework of a simple unitary state, which called the Belgian government to change the form of the state into a federal state that corresponds to the divisions of the societal components.
The inconsistent societal formation which coincided with the identity crisis that the Belgian state suffered from since its inception prompted the application of the federal model of government to prevent the collapse of the state as a result of the Flemings 'demands for independence, and the Walloons' pursuit of separation from Belgium and joining France, to which they have a common origin, history and language.
The policy of decentralization at the federal level is considered an alternative commensurate with countries characterized by societal pluralism, and many countries have adopted it to address the problem of multiculturalism, including the Belgian Kingdom. This alternative has contributed to the success of the Belgian forces' attempts to achieve stability and contribute to the process of building the Belgian state.
The end. The federal alternative provides a space of freedom for the societal components to manage their local affairs, and at the same time reduces the extent of the state and increases its power, so that the state’s power in this case is distributed over more than one center, which reduces the concentration of power but does not affect the amount of power and capacity the state possesses. And that this rule is fixed in the natural sciences / physics as it applies in the field of political science within the framework of the process of building the Iraqi state. This is confirmed by the process of building the Belgian state
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