Communautairy Problems: An Argumentative Analysis of the Belgian Political Crisis

Abstract

In 2011, Belgium broke the world record for longest time without a government. 249 days had passed since the 2010 elections, and still the victorious parties – the New-Flemish Alliance (N-VA) and the Socialist Party (PS) – had not succeeded in the formation of a new government. This paper presents an argumentative analysis of the above political crisis. It seeks to clarify this crisis by means of mapping the most important arguments presented, so that the argumentative bottlenecks may be identified and analyzed. The arguments and claims examined in this paper are those of the N-VA; a nationalist Flemish party. The reason for focusing on the N-VA is that the political deadlock that can be identified as the cause for the relevant crisis stemmed from one of their party goals; namely to transfer authority from the federal government to the regions of Flanders and Wallonia, so effectively separating the two politically. By focusing on this argument, it is investigated what the different premises are and whether these are legitimate. Eventually, this culminates in a final judgment as to whether the N-VA’s argument is sound.