Article in Sociology · August 000 doi: 10. 1177/S0038038500000304 citations 37 reads 5,200 author

it is incorrect to label the dispute as one between ‘Flemish’ and ‘Francophone’ in the sense

that ordinary citizens from each language group are antagonised towards each other, or

can even be readily mobilised on the issue. The dispute has been fought out in its most

recent form almost entirely between elected and non-elected party officials, with some

intervention from the media and interest group leaders.

The ordinary citizens may not be easily mobilised, but there are enough activists. A

recent press report about municipal politics in the periphery of Brussels (The

Independent, 9 July 1998) described how whenever the mayor opened a council

meeting it was disrupted by ‘extremists’ who had come from elsewhere ‘in coaches

and cars’. By creating public disorder the extremists forced the bystanders to take

sides.

To succeed, an ethnic mobilisation movement needs the active support of most

members of the group. It has to overcome the inclination of individuals to take a

‘free-ride’ on the back of others’ efforts, and so it will seek to close the exit option by

creating the equivalent of a trade-union closed shop (Olson 1965:75–87). Its leaders

will propagate optimistic assessments about the potential net benefit of collective

action. As they may have to defeat and suppress alternative political movements, the

first phase of mobilisation is often one of struggle between political rivals with one

movement seeking to limit freedom of expression at public meetings or in the mass

media.

Often it is easier to cultivate solidarity against an external enemy than to work for

a positive end (a theme of Bailey 1998). Few strategies are more effective in mobi-

lising ordinary citizens than reports that men on the other side have offended against

the rules of common humanity by committing atrocities. When describing varia-

tions in ethnic hostility in different parts of the former Yugoslavia, Glenny (1993:206)

maintained that group sentiment was related to local demographic ratios and

experience of atrocities during World War II: