Giving Foreigners the Vote: Ethnocentrism in Dutch and Belgian Political Debates
Classical critical discourse analyses were used to examine processes of polarization in parliamentary debates on enfranchisement of foreign residents in the Netherlands & Belgium during the 1980s, revealing problems in crossnational comparisons of racism/ethnocentrism. It is noted that nonnational residents in the Netherlands were allowed to vote in municipal elections in 1985, but not until 1998 in Belgium. The dominant ideology thesis; Yasemin Soysal's (1994) theoretical framework on postnational membership; & Rogers Brubaker's (1992) theory of cultural idioms/national styles of thought were used to assess the importance of ethnocentrism in the debates & outcomes. The dominant ideology theory did not allow for variations at the level of theory & both Soysal & Brubaker rely on the assumption that unambiguous debate is directly translated into policy outcomes. It is contended that the local enfranchisement debate is not controlled by a single discourse or ideology, & is best studied as a struggle between different political discourses/ideological narratives. In particular, the impact of colonial history on conceptions of national identity is pivotal for understanding differences between Belgium & the Netherlands. 38 References. J. Lindroth