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Recently, scholars have propagated a 'claim-based' approach towards the study of women's substantive representation. In this article, we challenge the relativism of such a 'claim-based' approach and explore the relevance of the concept of 'responsiveness' as a democratic criterion. We do so, more specifically, through a study of Muslim women's substantive representation in the Flemish headscarf debate. We identify claims to speak for Muslim women formulated by (1) political parties and (2) Muslim women and (minority) women's associations and examine the congruence between their respective claims. The important incongruence found between the claims formulated by right-wing and liberal parties and those of Muslim women/women's associations provides empirical backing to the acclaimed relevance of a relational evaluation of women's substantive representation. We conclude that the criterion of responsiveness is invaluable because it allows us to evaluate if actors' claims to speak for women account for women's capacity to speak for themselves. Adapted from the source document.

Following some general observations on the growing secularization of Western societies & after producing statistical data documenting the percentages of Muslim populations in Belgium & the Netherlands, three major issues are addressed from a Belgian perspective: (1) Islam bashing in the context of the recognition of freedom of religions & worldviews in a modern democratic society, (2) policies & attitudes toward visible religious symbols worn in public places; the banning of the hijab (the headscarf worn by Muslim females) in Antwerp public schools, & (3) the degree of separation between state & religion in Belgium. It is argued that the Islamic religion should not be associated with violence, terrorism, or oppression of women; Islam should be integrated on equal rights with other religions into the Belgian society, while emancipative & liberal movements within it should be actively supported. The banning of head scarves for Muslim teachers & students in Flanders is assessed from the broader perspective of similar policies, either implemented or planned, in France, Germany, & other European countries. Articles from the Belgian constitution are quoted to illustrate that the separation between state & religion in this country is incomplete; although the government adopts a neutral stance toward all worldviews, the state recognizes six official religions whose practice is partially supported with tax-payer's money & their clergy receive state pension; the favoring of the Catholic Church in this arrangement is pointed out. It is concluded on a general note that despite the secularization of the society, religious issues figure prominently in the public sphere. Z. Dubiel

The present article discusses the differences between the Islam debate in the Netherlands and its European neighboring countries and whether the Dutch perception of Muslims, Islam and themes related to fundamentalism and terrorism differ from those in other countries. The article explains that the decrease in tolerance as experienced over the last years is only partly similar with developments in other West-European societies and structures the discussion around 4 subjects: essentialist monists (rejecting the presence of Islam and Muslims in Western societies); evolutionary monists (rejecting the integration of the Muslim culture in a western society, but not the Muslims); essentialist pluralists (multicultural aspirations, rejecting western superiority and welcoming Islam and Muslims without far stretching adaptation by the cultures involved); and evolutionary pluralists (integration of the autochthonous and foreign culture). The article concludes by stating the Dutch multiculturalism will remain through a rapid cultural modernization of the country on the one hand, and an only partly assumed World War II trauma on the other. O. van Zijl

Social mechanisms that have generated the social construction of threatening immigrants in Europe are described, focusing on the situation in Flanders, Belgium, using Pierre Bourdieu's (eg, 1985 [see abstract 86Q6505]) semiotic-praxiological theory of the construction of social space & the genesis of social groups as a theoretical framework. Similarities between historical & socioeconomic conditions in the 1930s & 1980s are related to the repeated emergence of the theme of the "migrant problem" in political discourse; at the end of the 1930s, it referred exclusively to the Jews who had migrated from Eastern Europe & Germany, whereas in the 1980s, it was used for Muslim (Turkish & Moroccan) guest workers hired in the 1970s. It is argued that, in both cases, the discourse of the threatening immigrant attempts to redraw the social space by targeting the economic, & hence, the cultural & social, capital of the target groups. Socioeconomic change is used to legitimize anti-Judaism/-Islamism, resulting in a (cultural) racism that fuels ethnonationalism. 35 References. Adapted from the source document.

The author introduces the article by describing why the term Jihad-terrorism shouldn't be used (it's not an ideology, but a method; the term hammers on an intrinsic link between Islam and violence). The Belgian international attitude stresses that a wrong perception within European policy will actually lead to an anti-Western radicalization, and that terminology is part of that. The article continues with four EU anti-terror strategies: proactive: prevention and protection; reactive: prosecution and response. Regarding suppression of radicalization and recruitment, three factors are mentioned: facilitating factors within a globalized world (travel and communication, money operations, internet availability); an anti-western enemy perception; structural environmental factors, the so-called root causes (social circumstances, democratic imperfection, modernization badly directed, economic and political perspectives, unsolved conflicts, lack of education). Two additional principles for Belgium: 1) fundamental rights and freedoms; 2) suppression of Jihad-terrorism in cooperation with Muslim countries. References. O. van Zijl