Kevin Meyvaert (@kevinmeyvaert.bsky.social)

The Belgian political space – two worlds, one nation? Voters in the predominantly Dutch-speaking Belgian region of Flanders are often assumed to be more conservative than those in predominantly French-speaking Wallonia. Yet as Daan Delespaul shows, there is reason to question whether the two regions constitute distinct political worlds. The structure of western European party systems has long been shaped by sticky political divides – termed cleavages – that originate in longstanding group conflict. Historically, these cleavages were based on a small number of social divisions (mainly on class and religion) that caused stable and durable alignments between parties and voters. Belgium has always been characterised as an archetypal https://www.byteseu.com/626352/