Nieuwe sociale bewegingen in de Belgische politiek : Een impressie

Summary: New social movements and the political system in Belgium. Some impressionistic evidence.

In overviewing the (scant) empirical evidence gathered on and the literature
written about New Social Movements (NSM's) in Belgium this article tries to buttress three genera! propositions. First, the NSM' highlight a genera! tendency
among social movements today of a thoroughgoing dissociation of the mobilizational potential on the one hand and organizational ( decision making) power on the other hand. Second, the NSM's in Belgium have helped substantially in raising participation levels, broadening the action repertoire of the citizens and
changing the nature of participation. Third, although participation levels in Belgium are still beneath the West-European averages, the NSM's constitute in Belgium - with the New Right as their direct opponent - a new cleavage line in an
altogether weakening system of cleavages.