IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/stpchp/978-3-319-14953-0_7.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Uncertainty and Cleavages at Stakes: Do the Belgian Constitutions of 1831 and 1993 Stabilize Political Power?

In: Behind a Veil of Ignorance?

Author

Listed:
  • Nathalie Schiffino

    (Université Catholique de Louvain)

  • Steve Jacob

    (Université Laval)

Abstract

In our modern States, Constitutions underlie political power and its institutional settings. Two different texts lay the foundation of the Constitutional history of Belgium: the Constitution of 1831 and that of 1993. Each arose during a period of historical change. In 1831, in the shadow of decolonization from the Netherlands, the Constitution created a unitary State. In 1993, in a context of the Europeanization of politics, the Constitution declared a federal State. Over the years, the Belgian polity has undergone dramatic changes. What is puzzling about Belgium is that the constitution-making process has consistently remained in a State of uncertainty. In spite of path dependency and lesson-drawing, constitutional lawmakers, it seems, have not been able to avoid drafting decisions under a veil of ignorance.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathalie Schiffino & Steve Jacob, 2015. "Uncertainty and Cleavages at Stakes: Do the Belgian Constitutions of 1831 and 1993 Stabilize Political Power?," Studies in Public Choice, in: Louis M. Imbeau & Steve Jacob (ed.), Behind a Veil of Ignorance?, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 121-133, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:stpchp:978-3-319-14953-0_7
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-14953-0_7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:stpchp:978-3-319-14953-0_7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.