Suchergebnisse

Résumé L'extension du réseau ferroviaire allemand dans l'Eifel au cours des années 1880-1890 a suscité très tôt les craintes des diplomates et des agents de renseignement français. Cette extension en soi, d'abord motivée par des intérêts économiques, n'aurait suscité aucun commentaire si elle n'avait été accompagnée de l'extension du réseau ferroviaire belge dans le Luxembourg. Dans un contexte explosif de tension entre la France et l'Allemagne (bellicisme du général Boulanger et incident Schnaebelé de 1887), les Chambres belges votaient la même année les crédits nécessaires pour fortifier la ligne de la Meuse et en interdire l'usage à tout belligérant. Un climat de méfiance subsiste quant à un accord secret belgo-allemand et transparaît à travers les articles de journaux ou les rapports secrets des attachés militaires. En 1893, la création du camp militaire d'Elsenborn à la lisière de la Belgique semble venir confirmer les appréhensions relatives à la violation prochaine, consentie ou non, de la neutralité belge par l'Allemagne. Selon l'historiographie française de l'entre-deux-guerres, Elsenborn aurait été constitué dans un seul et unique but : prendre la place forte de Liège par surprise, ce qui semblerait confirmé par l'adoption ultérieure du « plan Schlieffen ». Mais n'est-ce pas là faire preuve d'anachronisme ? Les recherches récentes ont en effet montré qu'aucun changement stratégique majeur ne s'était opéré dans le plan allemand à cette époque. Cependant, il y aurait là à tout le moins un début d'intérêt pour le territoire belge et, depuis ces nouvelles infrastructures, le passage par la Belgique devenait « techniquement » réalisable.

Belgium is often portrayed as a textbook example of peaceful federalization. Indeed, while the country was for over a century a unitary state, it went through a deep process of federalization in a few decades of time to form a federal state where substate entities enjoy substantial autonomy. Today however, a rather new debate among political elites has emerged: whether to refederalize some of the powers that have been devolved to the substate entities, the Regions and Communities. Such an idea has long been a taboo in federal Belgium, especially among Flemish elites, but the debate seems now more open than ever. In this context, however, little is known about how citizens see this question. Of course, there is a long tradition of surveys including questions on federalism and autonomy devolution. Yet, more qualitative data are needed to understand what motivates citizens' preferences for more or less autonomy devolution in federal Belgium. The objective of this paper is to explore and compare citizens' preferences on the Belgian federalization process. In particular, we analyse what motivates the opinion of Belgian citizens in favour of more or less autonomy devolution. To this end, three citizen forums focusing on federalism and democracy over 100 participants were organized in 2017-2018: one in Liège in French, a second one in Antwerp in Dutch and a third one in Elsenborn in German. Their aim was to collect data on all three language communities with an original research design. For several hours, they informed themselves on the topic and discussed federalism and democracy in Belgium. These forums were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Our results suggest that their opinions are justified based on two major argumentative themes: identity and efficiency. While one would expect the former to be of traditional importance, our analysis revealed that considerations about efficiency have taken over the lead among the arguments that citizens use to justify their opinions towards most of the scenarios. This can above all be understood given the advanced stage of the Belgian federalization process, for which considerations of identity are still latently important but explicitly not sufficient enough anymore to justify further dynamics.

Belgium is often portrayed as a textbook example of peaceful federalization. Indeed, while the country was for over a century a unitary state, it went through a deep process of federalization in a few decades of time to form a federal state where substate entities enjoy substantial autonomy. Today however, a rather new debate among political elites has emerged: whether to refederalize some of the powers that have been devolved to the substate entities, the Regions and Communities. Such an idea has long been a taboo in federal Belgium, especially among Flemish elites, but the debate seems now more open than ever. In this context, however, little is known about how citizens see this question. Of course, there is a long tradition of surveys including questions on federalism and autonomy devolution. Yet, more qualitative data are needed to understand what motivates citizens' preferences for more or less autonomy devolution in federal Belgium. The objective of this paper is to explore and compare citizens' preferences on the Belgian federalization process. In particular, we analyse what motivates the opinion of Belgian citizens in favour of more or less autonomy devolution. To this end, three citizen forums focusing on federalism and democracy over 100 participants were organized in 2017-2018: one in Liège in French, a second one in Antwerp in Dutch and a third one in Elsenborn in German. Their aim was to collect data on all three language communities with an original research design. For several hours, they informed themselves on the topic and discussed federalism and democracy in Belgium. These forums were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Our results suggest that their opinions are justified based on two major argumentative themes: identity and efficiency. While one would expect the former to be of traditional importance, our analysis revealed that considerations about efficiency have taken over the lead among the arguments that citizens use to justify their opinions towards most of the scenarios. This can above all be understood given the advanced stage of the Belgian federalization process, for which considerations of identity are still latently important but explicitly not sufficient enough anymore to justify further dynamics.