ABSTRACT
Ethnic conflict in Belgium has been intense, but peaceful. Its roots are linguistic: a majority of the population speaks Dutch, but the official language in the nineteenth century was French. Ethnic demands and conflict management strategies were initially non-territorial, but increasingly acquired a territorial aspect. The fact that Dutch-and French-speakers were to a large extent territorially segregated facilitated this evolution. At a later stage, ethnic conflict also acquired a socio-economic dimension. The increased territorial emphasis in ethnolinguistic politics had made the emergence of economic ethnonationalism easier and was in its turn reinforced by these later developments.
