Ethnic leadership, ethnic communities’ political powerlessness and the state in Belgium

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Abstract
The article examines the relations between the Belgian state and political system on the one hand, and the ethnic communities of immigrant origin living in the country, on the other. It is argued that the political powerless‐ness of the ethnic collectivities has been reproduced by the Belgian state and polity: ethnic leaders have been neutralized in consultative politics, and ethnic elites have been promoted on the individual level. The case study presents the paradoxical position of the Italian community which is better off socially and economically than more recent immigrant groups like Moroccans and Turks but still absent as a group on the political scene in Belgium. The political exclusion of immigrant groups as such is analysed as a survival strategy by a state which feels subjectively threatened by the potential emergence of a new ethnicity related to immigrant population in the political life.

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