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12 - Luxembourg 1945–1982: dimensions and strategies.
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- By Derek J. Hearl, University of Essex.
- Edited by Ian Budge, David Robertson, Derek Hearl
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- Book:
- Ideology, Strategy and Party Change
- Published online:
- 27 October 2009
- Print publication:
- 09 July 1987, pp 254-269
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
THE PARTY SYSTEM
Luxembourg is a small Grand Duchy of approximately 365,000 inhabitants situated between Belgium, Federal Germany and France. Its experience of competitive party politics goes back to the foundation of a ‘Catholic Action Committee’ to contest the 1848 elections in opposition to the then ‘Liberal’ hegemony in Parliament. The first socialist deputy was elected in 1896, while the country's first proper political party, the ‘Social Democratic Party of Luxembourg’, was founded in 1902. By 1914, the forerunners of today's three main parties, one Socialist, one Liberal, and one Christian-Democrat, were all fully organized. Since 1919 they have contested elections on the basis of universal suffrage, and have virtually monopolized Government. Of the others, only the Communists survived as a parliamentary party for the entire post-war period. However, they only participated in government once (the so-called ‘Government of National Union’ from 1946 to 1947). The Christian Social Party, CSV, led every post-war government until 1974; while the other two – the Socialists and Liberals – neatly alternated as the CSV's junior coalition partners in response to their varying fortunes at the polls.
As in Belgium, this deeply entrenched four-party system was rooted in a two-dimensional structure among the electorate which superimposed the newer socio-economic class cleavage upon the older clerical/anti-clerical one which had given birth to the original two-party system. Over the past twenty years, however, two important changes have taken place.
11 - Belgium 1946–1981.
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- By Derek J. Hearl, University of Essex.
- Edited by Ian Budge, David Robertson, Derek Hearl
-
- Book:
- Ideology, Strategy and Party Change
- Published online:
- 27 October 2009
- Print publication:
- 09 July 1987, pp 230-253
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
POLITICAL PARTIES IN BELGIUM
As with the Netherlands, Belgian politics were relatively straightforward until the mid-1960s. Following the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1919, the then two-party opposition between Catholics and Liberals gave way to a classic ‘two-and-half’ party system in which the Socialist Party replaced the Liberals as the Catholics' chief rival. With few exceptions, governments were coalitions between two of these three ‘traditional’ parties formed in response to their gains and losses at successive General Elections. Two major cleavages seemed to underpin this system – a ‘left–right’ socio-economic cleavage together with an older ‘clerical/anti-clerical’ division which had divided Catholics from Liberals ever since the foundation of the State in 1830. Both changed after the Schools Pact of 1958 and the so-called Loi Unique or economic austerity package introduced by the Eyskens (Christian–Social/Liberal) government in the wake of Congo Independence in the 1960s. The former was effectively a ‘truce’ between the three parties concerning the last major clerical/anti-clerical issue. The second threw into sharp relief the growing economic disparity between the country's two main language regions, Flanders and Wallonia. The sudden removal of the clerical/anti-clerical cleavage allowed what had hitherto been a submerged division to rise to the surface. This ran across all three traditional parties, and had rapid and profound effects upon the party system.
‘Community’ issues and associated sub-cleavages have progressively given rise first to new parties and then to forced divisions among the traditional parties – generally along language lines.