Introduction

The Belgian understanding of representation is intimately related to the conception of citizenship, which itself is connected to the specific history of the Belgian state. In 1830 Belgium became a unitary constitutional monarchy, but Belgian society has never been homogeneous. Its political and institutional landscape is characterised by a segmented pluralism, reflecting basic social cleavages. Religious and economic divisions played a predominant role until the 1960s when the cleavage between the Flemish and the Francophone language groups gained priority. Although both the economic and religious cleavages led to descriptive representation, it was above all the increasingly salient linguistic cleavage that led to a redefinition of the institutions of political representation. The federalisation of the Belgian political system, a process that started in the 1960s, led to an institutionalisation of the prevailing interpretation of citizenship (on the Belgian political system see Deschouwer 2002, 2004).

Belgian citizenship is believed to be embedded in its social groups. Like the Netherlands, Belgium is a consociational society that integrates social groups into processes of decision-making. Such recognition supports provision for descriptive representation according to which the membership of public bodies and elected assemblies should mirror the society by containing the salient groups, although not necessarily in proportional terms. Whereas segmentation of political and civil society is decreasing, the balanced representation of key social groups continues to be seen as an essential legitimising feature of the political system (Paye 1997).