ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of existing literature on populism in Belgium. The Belgian political system is to a large extent organized along linguistic lines, divided between Dutch speakers and French speakers. Research on the media and populism consists of two partly overlapping strands of analyses: populist parties and the media, and the populism of the media. A substantial body of electoral and broader sociological research in Belgium covers the voters of the radical right Vlaams Belang (VB) and Front National and of the newer and more volatile neoliberal, populist, right-wing parties mentioned earlier. In Belgium, the notion of populism has been most explicitly developed in the political context, but a broader definition of the term has been common in nonacademic circles and has also been developed in some academic work. A number of recent developments in the Flemish political landscape are important to our understanding of populist parties and the concept of populism.
