Subject of this article is the Belgian citizen's oppositional behaviour taken in the largest sense and considered as an opportunity to express his preferences. Starting from the supposition that a policy decision is not perceived as being conform to the citizens' interests or beliefs, attention is focused on their propensity to engage in oppositional action and their preferences for different means of expression.Such propensity appears to be rather limited and therefore one has also examined their belief in the success of (...) an oppositional action and their insight in contemporary societal problems.Those data are compared with the actual oppositional behaviour during the last five years, which was found to be even smaller than the propensity. Further, three scales are constructed, indicating similarities and dissimilarities, as far as means of expression are concerned, between the preferences of the whole population and the behaviour of the small number of opponents.In a second approach, the degree of politica! participation, dissatisfaction and information is successively examined in relation to the oppositional behaviour. This research reveals that each of these three elements induces a more intensive oppositional activity as well as a different behaviour concerning the use of oppositional means. Political participation however is the most infiuencing factor. Oppositional behaviour is a complex phenomenon. Information on the content of the oppositional action, not included in this inquiry, would complete this approach. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The concept of ‘intimate citizenship’ stresses the right of people to choose how they organize their personal lives and claim identities. Support and interest groups are seen as playing an important role in the pursuit of recognition for these intimate choices, by elaborating visible and positive cultures that invade broader public spheres. Most studies on intimate citizenship take into consideration the exclusions these groups encounter when negotiating their differences with society at large. However, much less attention is paid to (...) the ways in which these groups internalize the surrounding ideologies, identity categories and hierarchies that pervade society and constrain their recognition as full citizens. In contrast, this paper aims to emphasize the reproduction of otherness within alternative spheres of life, and to reveal the ambiguities and complexities involved in their dialectic relationship with society at large. To address this issue, the paper focuses on the role that ‘adoption cultures’ of Flemish adoptive parents with children from Ethiopia play in the pursuit of being recognized as ‘proper’ families and full citizens. The ethnographic research among adoptive parents and adoption professionals shows a defensive discourse and action that aims at empowering against potential problems, as well as a tendency to other the adoptive child by pathologizing its non‐normativity. By showing the strong embeddedness of adoptive families' practices of familial and cultural construction in larger cultural frames of selfing and othering, characterized by biologism and nativism, one begins to understand the limits of their capacity to realize full citizenship. (shrink)

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)

This study focusses on discourses on menopause through a critical reading of a selection of nine self-help books on the topic in the context of Dutch-speaking Belgium and the Netherlands. The aim is to explore whether self-help books constrain or facilitate the development of emancipatory discourses on menopause. We combine feminist critiques that identify the experience of menopause as a site of potential for revolt with insights from queer and critical new-materialist theorisation to probe the books’ emancipatory capacity. Our analysis (...) identifies three prominent discursive repertoires: a medical, psycho-therapeutic and spiritual repertoire. Anger and erotic power emerge as important themes, albeit differently framed dependent on the discursive repertoires that the books employ. We conclude that none of the books succeed in disrupting prevailing oppressive discourses that devalue ageing women. There are two important constraints, notably the books’ individualistic and depoliticised stance and their reductionist view on the biological body. As a way out, we propose a gaga feminist reading of menopause that looks at anger and erotic power as sites of ‘biopossibilities’ that may open space for overthrowing oppressive models of gender, sexuality and desire. (shrink)

Pork producers in Western Europe moreand more encounter a variety of societalconcerns about pork and pork production. Sofar, however, producers predominantly focusedon low consumer prices, therewith addressingjust one concern. This resulted in an intensiveand large-scale production system, decreasinglyrelated to the area of farm land, andaccompanied with increasing concerns aboutsafety and healthiness of pork, animal welfare,environmental pollution, and others.An overview was given of possible concernsabout West-European pork production with theconsumers, citizens, and producers, and thoseconcerns are traced back to the pork productionsystem. (...) The various kinds and qualities ofinformation about the pork production system onwhich possible concerns are based have beenworked out extensively in this paper. Knowledgeabout the aspects of pork production that cangive rise to concerns can be used in two ways.First, the communication about those aspectstowards consumers and citizens can be adjustedor extended to give them better possibilitiesto make food choices or to develop their ownopinions about pork production. Second,producers could change the pork productionsystem such that it better satisfies consumersand citizens. Such adaptations are wellpossible, as three pork quality schemes, whichhave been evaluated, illustrate. However, mostof these adaptations can only be carried out atthe cost of the present low consumer prices andwill not occur spontaneously on a large scale.Therefore, accounting for the type andrelevance of the concerns, legislation isnecessary to address societal concerns in abalanced way such that pork production systemsbecome acceptable for the majority of oursociety. (shrink)

The study of reciprocal altruism, or the exchange of goods and services between individuals, requires attention to both evolutionary explanations and proximate mechanisms. Evolutionary explanations have been debated at length, but far less is known about the proximate mechanisms of reciprocity. Our own research has focused on the immediate causes and contingencies underlying services such as food sharing, grooming, and cooperation in brown capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees. Employing both observational and experimental techniques, we have come to distinguish three types of (...) reciprocity. Symmetry-based reciprocity is cognitively the least complex form, based on symmetries inherent in dyadic relationships (e.g., mutual association, kinship). Attitudinal reciprocity, which is more cognitively complex, is based on the mirroring of social attitudes between partners and is exhibited by both capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees. Finally, calculated reciprocity, the most cognitively advanced form, is based on mental scorekeeping and is found only in humans and possibly chimpanzees. (shrink)