Traumatismes et rituels du nationalisme flamand

éclairage psycho-social d’anecdotes choisies de la crise politique belge

Abstract

As Robert Jervis famously argued, to look at political events without the help of psychological theories is a “drunkard’s search”, a search whose “logic” is that of easiness and not of pertinence. In this paper, we make ours this statement and consider that the recent political crisis in Belgium has to be understood – among others, of course – in psychological terms. More precisely, we argue that the psychological dynamics of Flemish nationalism impede the good resolution of the enduring political instability that recurrently handicaps Belgium.