Modernization and Ethnic Conflict in Belgium

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Abstract
In the specific context of Belgium, this article expounds and tests the thesis that regional (ethnically defined) contrasts in time sequence and rate of modernization have given rise to two distinct types of nationalism, one ‘cultural’ and the other ‘economic’, whose different origins and goals are reflected in the nationalist parties' loci of electoral support. The data provide considerable support for this thesis. But they also show the character of the parties' support to have become paradoxically less distinctive as ethnic hostilities escalated. It is suggested that this development reflects the influence of two changes in the political context of ethnic politics in Belgium, the defensive, accommodative reaction of the established, unitarist parties and the changing electoral strategies of the nationalist parties themselves.

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