‘The Troublesome Word of Crisis’: Discourse on the Agricultural Crisis of the 1930s in the Belgian Parliament

Abstract

AbstractThe concept of a ‘crisis’ was omnipresent in the period of economic depression in the 1930s. What is more, the agricultural crisis was part of a never previously experienced despair in Europe and the whole of the Western world. Historians have extensively researched the crisis in agriculture, however, without reflecting on the consequences of the use of the concept and the discourse related to it. In this article – inspired by refreshing historical research on parliamentary practices – I investigate the language and figures of speech used in the Belgian Parliament to frame the agricultural question in a particular way. The case of Belgium is unique because farmers’ associations were well represented in parliament, in spite of the declining importance of agriculture in the active population and national economy. Since 1840 onwards, Belgian governments had embraced free trade and pursued an economic policy with little or no trade obstructions, dictated by the interests of the export industry. The depression of the 1930s urged a re-evaluation of the relationship between the state and the economy, which extended to agriculture. The Belgian free trade tradition – already exceptionally abandoned during and immediately after the Great War to cope with food scarcity – seemed to crumble during the interwar period as farmers’ associations asked for protectionist measures from 1929 onwards. This article contributes to our understanding of this paradigm shift from free trade towards agricultural protectionism. Furthermore, it gives an insight into the complexity of the interest groups campaigning for agricultural protectionism and using specific metaphors and discourse to influence politics.