We introduce the Relational Responding Task (RRT) as a tool for capturing beliefs at the implicit level. Flemish participants were asked to respond as if they believed that Flemish people are more intelligent than immigrants (e.g., respond “true” to the statement “Flemish people are wiser than immigrants”) or to respond as if they believed that immigrants are more intelligent than Flemish people (e.g., respond “true” to the statement “Flemish people are dumber than immigrants”). The difference in performance between these two (...) tasks correlated with ratings of the extent to which participants explicitly endorsed the belief that Flemish people are more intelligent than immigrants and with questionnaire measures of subtle and blatant racism. The current study provides a first step towards validating RRT effects as a viable measure of implicit beliefs. (shrink)

The «law of weak parliaments» states that parliaments with small competences only attract weak candidates, which in turn weakens the parliament even more.Research concerning the Belgian delegates to the European Parliament from 1952 to 1979, confirmed this law, but also qualified it by showing that the downward trend can be crosscut when the parliament gains importance as an institutional platform for a social movement, in this case for the European integration.

The government-opposition scheme of a two-party system does not function that clearly in a multiparty system which is the case in Belgium. To examine to what extent the opposition parties in a multi-partysystem are functional for policymaking, the period 1965-1971 was chosen for Belgium, providing a complete scale of government and opposition parties.A content analysis of all political parties' platforms in 1965 permits to determine the policy objectives, classified in policy areas, so that at the end of the six years (...) a survey could be made about the completely andpartly realised planks of the platforms according to government and opposition parties, according to the party-strength which was congruent with the duration of government participation. In Belgium a distinctioncan also be made between the traditional opposition parties and the nonelitist opposition parties, which during the given period were not accepted as possible government parties by the political elite.To obtain a correct evaluation of the realisations, the approach took successively into account the absolute number of platform-planks, the number of specific items of a party and the degree of importance andsocial repercussion of the distinct planks that could be realised.Although respectively for 6, 4 and 2 years in the government the CVP, the BSP and the PVV realise approximately the same number of planks. The non-elitist opposition party Volksunie realised a smaller butstill considerable number of objectives. So did also, but to a smaller extent the RW, KP and FDP. The interpretation of these results could be the loss of distinctiveness of the government-opposition scheme in amultiparty system, the elite-consensus in Belgium, the function of the «zweeppartij» strategy and the definition of the opposition in terms of action. (shrink)

La dissolution assez inattendue des Chambres, le 24 septembre 1971 impliquait une promesse d'élection directe du gouvernement. Cette promesse s'est cependant vite volatilisée. Des élections calmes et traditionnelles ont pris le relais, le gouvernement ayant choisi uniquement le moment le moins défavorable pour les partis de la majorité.La composition des listes s'effectue dans un plus grand calme que de coutume et se déroule davantage par le biais de petits comités ou d'assemblées peu nombreuses. Cependant un grand changement de personnel se (...) réalise par le retrait plus au mains forcé de 65 parlementaires sortants; ce chiffre est, d'après la tradition établie depuis plusieurs élections, très élevé.En dehors de Bruxelles la campagne est calme. Une personnification se manifeste de plus en plus, aussi bien en Wallonie qu'en Flandre.En ce qui concerne la personnification, Bruxelles a une longueur d'avance. Le penchant pour l'«argumentation» symbolique est une autre caractéristique de la campagne. On ne s'oppose pas sur les points litigieux, on ne les expose même pas.Les résultats électoraux en W allonie et à Bruxelles diffèrent fondamentalement de ceux de la Flandre. En Wallonie et à Bruxelles de grands changements se font jour : le P.L.P. est le grand perdant tandis que le F.D.F./R.W. sort des élections en grand vainqueur. En Flandre, par contre, il y a peu de changements dans les chiffres globaux, mais de région à région de petits gains et de petites pertes sant enregistrés.Ceux-ci cependant vont dans des sens divers et même souvent radicalement opposés. L'explication de ces changements reste encore à fournir. Une fois de plus, le nombre des votes blanc et non valables à augmenté. La composition de la Chambre des Représentants et du Sénat issue de ces élections ne permet qu'une bipartite entre C.V.P. -P.S.C. et P.S.B. Les trois partis traditionnels possèdent encore numériquement plus des 2/3 des sièges. Certaines complications dans la réorganisation de l'Etat établie par la révision constitutionnelle, se font déjà entrevoir. Et cela n'est qu'un des problèmes que ces élections ont portés à l'attention de l'opinion publique. (shrink)

The amalgamation of the municipalities has had profound effects on the municipal character in Belgium : the village has disappeared as a political entity. The «municipality» since 1976 is at least the political and administrative amalgamation of a number of villages.The effect of this amalgamation on the municipal council elections is expressed first of all in the shift in the election form. Uncontested elections disappeared in 1976. The exclusively local election form occurred rarely in 1976, even though this form was (...) still the most common in 1970. However, the mixed election form increased very considerably. Parallel with the amalgamation of the municipalities, the national party pattern penetrated increasingly into the municipal polities : there occurred a gradual «nationalisation» of the municipal polities. The «urban citizens» became more «state citizens», also in municipal matters. Regarding direct municipal executive appointment, the amalgamation led to a less far-reaching and less decisive character of the input, which are characteristics that also tend to follw the national pattern more strongly. The number of municipalities in which no coalition executive needed to be formed clearly declined in 1976.The amalgamation has reduced the uniqueness of the municipal council elections and the decisionmaking capacity of the urban citizens and introduced more national political content. (shrink)

The Belgian electorate has the possibility not only to decide on the number of seats for the different parties, but also to appoint the members of parliament. By making insufficient use of the preferential vote, the electorale however denies itself the power to choose members of parliament. In a quasi-experiment the difference in the selection of members by the political parties and by the electorale is examined for the period 1949-1987. The Difference is small, tending to lower the more the (...) electorate use the preferential vote, which is the key to that autonomous selection. A puzzling result, which can be understood taking into account that the growth of the preferential vote is nearly exclusively given to or attrackted by the candidates leading the party lists. A striking illustration of the difficult emancipation of the electorate. (shrink)

The evaluative conditioning effect refers to the change in the liking of a neutral stimulus due to its pairing with another stimulus. We examined whether the extinction rate of the EC effect is moderated by feature-specific attention allocation. In two experiments, CSs were abstract Gabor patches varying along two orthogonal, perceptual dimensions. During the acquisition phase, one of these dimensions was predictive of the valence of the USs. During the extinction phase, CSs were presented alone and participants were asked to (...) categorise the CSs either according to their valence, the perceptual dimension that was task-relevant during the acquisition phase, or a perceptual dimension that was task-irrelevant during the acquisition phase. As predicted, explicit valence measures revealed a linear increase in the extinction rate of the EC effect as participants were encouraged to assign attention to non-evaluative stimulus information during the extinction phase. In Experiment 1, Affect Misattribution Paradigm data mimicked this pattern of results, although the effect just missed conventional levels of significance. In Experiment 2, the AMP data revealed an increase of the EC effect if attention was focused on evaluative stimulus information. Potential mechanisms to explain these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Les uns sont fascinés par la hardiesse et la constance de sa pensée, les autres la rejettent au motif que sa métaphysique est extravagante et son raisonnement obscur. Mais alors, quel profit tirer de la lecture de l'œuvre de Plotin? Mieux que tout autre, Plotin réussit à faire le point sur les doctrines philosophiques qui l'ont précédé, y compris le scepticisme. Et il y parvient avec une perspicacité et une originalité exceptionnelles, tout en restant un strict partisan du platonisme. Interpréter (...) Plotin dans sa confrontation avec ses prédécesseurs, c'est prendre part à un passionnant débat et soumettre à une évaluation les acquis et les limites de chacun. Telle est la démarche à laquelle invite ce livre qui est consacré à la théorie du savoir. Après que le doute sceptique ait ébranlé les théories antérieures, Plotin innove en faisant coïncider savoir objectif et connaissance de soi. Ce geste théorique, ses antécédents et ses conséquences sont au cœur de ce travail de recherche"--P. [4] of cover. (shrink)

Der Band untersucht die fünf Stellen des Hebräerbriefes, die herkömmlicherweise als Hinweise auf die Parusie Christi gedeutet werden (Hebr 1,6; 9,28; 10,25.36-39; 12,25-29). Ausgangspunkt ist die Feststellung, dass eine apokalyptische Rede von der Parusie zur übrigen Denkweise des Schreibens nicht recht passen will, die eher von einer mittelplatonischen Ontologie geprägt ist. Zur Auflösung dieser Spannung werden in Teil I die problematischen Stellen des Hebräerbriefes textimmanent analysiert und in Teil II mit relevanten Texten von Philon, Plutarch, Seneca und Alkinoos in Verbindung (...) gebracht, die ebenfalls eingehend analysiert werden. Teil III führt schließlich die Ergebnisse der ersten beiden Teile zusammen und macht eine mittelplatonische Umformung des Parusiegedankens durch den Autor des Hebräerbriefes plausibel. (shrink)

Unlike France, Denmark, Sweden, Austria and other E.U. countries Belgium has not yet organised a referendum on European policy matters, however important these may be. So one is constrained to opinion polls and survey data to grasp the attitude of the Flemish community towards European integration. Five important policy matters are examined: the introduction of the euro, the involvement in E.U. countries, the enlargement of the E.U., the institutional design and the position ofthe Flemish community in the E.U. At the (...) end, with about 20 % of the electorale trying to follow the intricate European polities, on the whole public opinion on Europe in Flanders seem to be a mixture of unfamiliarity, indifference, resignation and acceptance of the policy advocated by the elitist consensus in Belgium on these matters. The missing impetus is the incentives provided by a referendum to become concerned with the complex policy-making and policies in Europe. (shrink)

Results from an opinion poll, held in mid-year 1975, with a representative sample of Belgian citizens, show that the oppositions the citizens perceive, are partly of a universal nature and partly specifically Belgian. Those who have gat power vs. those who have not, young vs. old, male vs. female are oppositions that complement more specifically Belgian conflict dimensions : socio-economic problems, religion, ethnicity. The political parties are instrumental towards some poles on such confiict dimensions, but the instrumentality is not yet (...) proportionalto the share of the poles in the total population; moreover, it is quite weak towards some poles. The image the public has about the power hierarchy in Belgium appears to coincide rather adequately with a ranking on the power hierarchy as established by the top-participants. People do realize who really is powerful. Besides, the basic institutions of parliamentary democracy are fundamentally recognized and accepted. One finds indeed quite unambiguous appreciations of the individual and social rights and freedoms, of the institutionalization of conflict solution and of the maintenance of the political entity. (shrink)

The existing models for the formation of governmental coalitions as far as Belgium is concerned do not score high in predictability. A more complex model, covering three fields, seven vectors and one strong actor among a limited number of decision-makers, fits much better. A prerequisite for a coalition is a majority within the elitist parties in parliament. Favoring coalition formation are the decision-making capabilities of the cabinet, the elitarian consensus on the basic values prominent in and for the Belgian society, (...) the programmatic similarities and affinities of the political parties and their capacity to manipulate issues. Hampering coalition formation are the development of partisan options, the polarization of issues, and the internal dissensions within the political parties. This model stresses the combined action of strong structures and actors, paramount in Belgian society. (shrink)

Although communication and discussion between rank and file members and the party leadership are at the heart of party congresses, most parties meet a lot of difficulties in organising truly democratie party conferences.The party leadership has a natural tendency to try to influence the decision-making process. In this article, we identify thirteen conditions fora democratic party conference. They vary from the decision whether or not to organise a conference, over the conference' s theme and the designation of the chair of (...) the conference on to the electoral formula to accept amendments to the proposed resolutions. The thirteen conditions stem from avery long and extensive participatory observation, combined with the analysis of numerous party conferences in Belgium, over the last couple of decades. This enables also to point out some shifting tendencies in the Belgian party congresses since World War II. (shrink)

Now being one of the 10 most important urban centres, Leuven provides a good case to study the determinant elements that have inspired the policy of mergers of communes in Belgium in 1975.Technocracy, consultation of the municipal councils concerned, preferences of the population, the opposition in parliament have all had very little or no influence at all on the eventual decision-making.On the contrary, specific pressure groups, supervision authorities, the extent to which one tried to anticipate the 1976 local elections, and (...) the power position of the majority parties have substantially infiuenced the merger map. Thus, these decision-making elements contain a considerable distortion - in terms of actual realization - of the official ideology behind the mergers, i.e. to make the municipal executive power more efficient. (shrink)

The Belgian polyarchy has developed into a «particracy» in which the political parties have a preponderant impact on the political decisionmaking.As in every polyarchy, the political parties fulfill a set of vital functions in the Belgian system. But that does not explain its «particratie» particularity. The particracy arises as a consequence of four factors. The parties are fixed by the «zuilen» into an «internal-imperialistic» role. The power of the parties increased considerably, an increase of which the politization of the instruments (...) for, and the agencies of, policy is one of the most important, together with the capability of making and unmaking issues. The impact and power of the opponents of the parties in the decision-making process have been diminished to a considerable extent. This weakening involves the king, the parliament, theadministration, the electorate, and, ultimately, the cabinet because of the growing impact of the parties on policy design and policy output as well as on the appointment of ministers. Finally, the choice of the consociational pattern of politics of accomodation by the elite indicates the instrumental function of particracy in Belgian politics. (shrink)

[1] Textteil : Grundlagen, Prozeduren, Evaluation -- [2] Anhang : Interviewleitfaden, Tonbandtranskript und Auswertungsbeispiele.

Dieser Kommentar zur Hegel'schen Philosophie des Geistes stellt ihre Struktur und die Hauptlinien ihrer Argumentationen heraus. Dazu stutzt sie sich auf eine Wort-fur-Wort-Analyse derjenigen Paragraphen der Berliner Enzyklopadie, in denen Hegel die Grundbegriffe und die Hauptubergange seiner Geistesphilosophie ausfuhrt. Die Rekonstruktionen des Hegel'schen Begriffs des Geistes, seiner Psychologie, seiner Auffassung des Verhaltnisses zwischen subjektivem, objektivem und absolutem Geiste sowie die ausfuhrliche Diskussion der Kapitel uber die Religion und das absolute Wissen ermoglichen eine neue Interpretation der Schlusse, mit denen die Enzyklopadie (...) endet. (shrink)

Zuerst im 2CV, dann im umgebauten VW-Bus: Das Zürcher Fotografenpaar Margrit und Ernst Baumann, 1929 bzw. 1928 geboren, begann in den 1950er-Jahren rund um den Erdball zu reisen. Ihre Fotografien publizierten sie in Zeitschriften und Zeitungen wie Stern, Neue Zürcher Zeitung oder Das gelbe Heft und brachten so die Welt in die Wohnzimmer. Kosmopolitan und neugierig kamen sie zu Motiven mit Seltenheitswert: Farbporträts von Che Guevara gehören ebenso dazu wie Reportagen über die letzten Kopfjäger im ecuadorianischen Urwald. Ein Schwerpunkt dieser (...) reich bebilderten Doppelmonografie ist ihre Reise entlang der “Panamericana” 1957-1959, die Süd- und Nordamerika verbindet. Sie fotografierten Reportagen, Porträts und Landschaftsbilder und drehten den wohl ersten Farbfilm über den legendären Verkehrsweg. Dieser Film und ein Filporträt über die beiden Fotografen sind dem Buch auf DVD beigefügt. Das Buch präsentiert Funde aus ihrem Fotoarchiv - viele Bilder erstmals im Originalausschnitt - sowie Publikationen in Zeitschriften. Der Historiker und Schriftsteller Wilfried Meichtry erzählt vom ereignisreichen Leben des Paars, das sich zeitlebens als journalistische Handwerker verstanden hat. Der Fotohistoriker Markus Schürpf ordnet ihr Werk in die Foto- und Pressegeschichte ein, Nadine Olonetzky verfasst Begleittexte zu den Bildern. Eine Entdeckung in der Schweizer Fotogeschichte. (shrink)