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The Belgian political system is generally portrayed as being closed for outsiders. In this article we ascertain how the system responded to the challenge of the new social movements. The Belgian political elite developed a response strategy, based on thematical openness and actorial closure. The issues of the new social movements were admitted on the political agenda, but the movements themselves were excluded from access to the decision making process. Only those actors were allowed which were willing to accomodate themselves to the traditional elite consensus, based on neo-corporatism, pillarisation and a politically passive population. Confronted with this elite strategy, the new social movements were able to fulfil their agenda function (bringing new issues on the political agenda), but they had little opportunity for introducing new cultural codes into the political decision making process. This lack of innovation enhances the legitimation crisis of the Belgian political system.

An analysis of recent environmental legislation in Belgium (Flanders) shows that only small part of it originated from direct pressure by the environmental movement. Although in recent years environmental groups were admitted to a number of advisory committees, this did not really made them a more powerful politica!l orce. Four reasons can be given for this relative weakness: 1) like all new social movements, the movement bas a weak organisational structure; 2) it's focus is on local disturbances to the environment; 3) it's disruptive potential is limited, especially on the national level; 4) it has little format access to the decision making process. The main consequence of it's activities is an innovation of political culture. The movement is succesful in defining and constructing environmental problems, and forcing them on the public and political agenda, but it lacks the power to steer the decision making process on the issues it has created.

Tot in de jaren zestig werd politiek protest door sociologen behandeld als een vorm van deviant of irrationeel gedrag, dat psychologisch geïnterpreteerd werd. Nu benadrukken onderzoekers eerder het rationeel en innoverend karakter van politiek protestgedrag. De resource mobilization-aanpak heeft daarbij vooral oog voor de organisatorische aspecten van protest, terwijl de new social movement-school zoekt naar de macro-sociologische determinanten van protestgedrag. Binnen beide stromingen is er de afgelopen jaren een duidelijke trend om de politieke rol van sociale bewegingen te benadrukken. De positievere waardering van protestgedrag heeft onder meer te maken met veranderingen bij de sociale bewegingen zelf zoals de contestatiegolf van na 1965. Maar het duidt er ook op dat sociale wetenschappers zich niet langer identificeren met de belangen van de heersende elite, die bedreigd worden door het protest, maar met de contesterende groepen. De huidige theoretische benaderingen kunnen niet meer gebruikt worden als een legitimatie voor overheidsrepressie, maar legitimeren veeleer de aanwezigheid van politiek protest.

In studies on political decision-making, attention is often limited to domestic factors. However, this study demonstrates that international considerations can play a key role in the decision-making process. Since 1980, competence for environmental policy in Belgium is shared by the national government and the three autonomous regions. The 134 most important environmental measures which have been issued in Flanders since 1980, were studied, and international influence proved to be considerable. In 78 cases, the measure was brought into being due to the environmental policy of the European Community. In 39 cases, there were influences from other sources of international environmental policy. This left only 17 measures which had no clear connection with international environmental policy. It seems that policy scholars have not yet fully realized the extent of this shift of power from the national to the international level, and have rather neglected the international decision-making process.

In the spring of 1990, Belgian Parliament adopted a partial liberalization of abortion. Belgium is one of the last western countries to take such action. Public awareness on the issue fully developed in the early seventies, as abortion came to be regarded as a life-style issue. The rift between opponents and advocates of legal change coincides with the cleavage between catholics and non-believers in Belgian society, and this makes abortion a potentially disruptive issue for the political system. Therefore, Government avoided taking any decisions, and refered the question to a special commission, and later to Parliament. This resulted in a process of non-decisionmaking, which seems typical for the way a consensus democracy, like Belgium, tries to defuse highly disputed issues. The fact that abortion ultimately was partially liberalized, seems to reflect the dramatic changes that secularization bas brought to Belgian society the past decades.