Thèse de doctorat
| Résumé : | The central goal of this dissertation has been mapping, discussing and making sense of the political activities undertaken by Belgian Moroccan, Belgian Turkish and Belgian Congolese organisations based in Brussels. I therefore identified these organisations in the national register of moral personalities. I furthermore administered a standardised questionnaire among a representative sample of the registered organisations. I focused in this questionnaire on both what I call institutional and non-institutional political activities. In making sense of the political activities by ethnic minority organisations I started this dissertation with a focus on the hypothesis developed by the Dutch scholars Fennema and Tillie on the importance of the degree of ethnic civic community. They argue a positive association between a high level of collaboration within a particular ethnic minority associative field on the one hand and a high level of political participation that is observed among the associative elite on the other. They argue an aggregate effect following a high degree of ethnic civic community. It would not only affect the political activity undertaken by the organisations that are involved in the collaborations but also the political activity of those not involved and thereby it is thought to influence the level of participation of the entire ethnic minority associative field. To operationalise this hypothesis Fennema and Tillie designed an index for the measurement of the degree of ethnic civic community. They measure the level of collaboration among the ethnic minority organisations by mapping the interlocking directorates that occur in the ethnic minority associative field. They identify in other words the directors that are seating in the administrative board of more than one organisation. The index is composed by 4 different measures that are summed in one aggregate score. To discuss the aggregate effect they confront the ranking the ethnic minority group holds on both the index and on the level of political participation. For the Amsterdam case they find a strong parallel between both. They find the Turkish group to stand out compared to the Moroccan and Surinamese both in regard to the degree of ethnic civic community and concerning the level of political participation. During the process that has been this dissertation I gradually changed the initial hypothesis. I argue on the one hand that Fennema and Tillie put a too strong emphasis on the presence of interlocking directorates to operationalize the idea of ethnic civic community. I argue the importance to consider equally the collaborations that occur in the daily practice of the organisations. I furthermore argue the pertinence to discuss the collaborations that ethnic minority organisations establish with the Brussels mainstream autochthonous associative field. I argue on the other hand that they put too little emphasis on contextual elements. I argue the importance to consider characteristics of the political setting in which the organisations are operating and to the social inequality and power imbalances that characterises the relation between ethnic minority and majority groups. I equally argue the importance of considering the presence of other than social resources that characterises the ethnic minority associative field and to pay attention to the anchoring of the Belgian Moroccan, Belgian Turkish and Belgian Congolese group in the Belgian society. I basically argue that these contextual elements can interact with the ethnic civic community hypothesis. Based on these arguments I created a more complex research design in which I discuss both the importance of bonding and bridging social capital and in which I essentially argue the multidimensional relation between the two multi-facetted concepts of social capital and political participation. I argue that bonding and bridging collaborations can have a differential influence on the outcome of political participation according to the political activity that is considered. I argue that the direction of the relation is shaped by elements of the Brussels setting. I argue that the importance of the degree of ethnic civic community for the Brussels case could well be limited to the non-institutional dimension of political participation. I find for the Brussels case the Belgian Moroccan group to obtain the highest score on the index of ethnic civic community. The network of interlocking directorates is characterised by the presence of large clusters of interconnected organisations and a high level of connectivity. The Belgian Turkish and Belgian Congolese group share a second position in this regard. However I do not find the Belgian Moroccan associative field to be more politically active as compared to both other groups, neither concerning institutional political activities, nor regarding non-institutional activities. I observe in fact very few differences in the level of political participation across the three ethnic minority groups I study in Brussels. I do not find any statistical significant difference regarding electoral participation, involvement in consultation and the participation to claim making activities. I find only one significant difference between the groups and this concerns the presence of direct of particularized contacting of public or political authorities. However I do not find the Belgian Moroccan group to stand out in this regard. I find on the other hand the Belgian Turkish associative field to hold a first position. I do in other words not find a parallel between the ranking the three groups hold on the index of ethnic civic community and the ranking the Belgian Moroccan, Belgian Turkish and Belgian Congolese group show as for the level of political activities undertaken by the associative elite. I read in this result a strong empirical evidence to reject the Fennema and Tillie hypothesis. However I argue that comparing the rank order that the groups hold on both independent and dependent variable essentially equals confronting uni-variate analyses and therefore is not fit to study an association between both type of variables. A third variable could for instance act as a suppressor or mediator variable making it as such impossible to make sense of the presence or absence of a parallel. I therefore argue the importance of studying the individual effect prior to discussing the aggregate effect. I additionally discuss the individual association between being embedded in the network of interlocking directorates on the one hand and the outcome on the different indicators of political participation. I thereby pay attention to the particular position an organisation holds within the network but also to the possible interactions that can occur with other than social resources of an organisation. For the Brussels case I only find one main individual effect. I find being part of one of the larger components to reliably predict the outcome concerning the direct or particularized contacting of representatives of political institutions. I find this to be true for all three groups, but in particular for the Belgian Moroccan group. However the particular strong association I observe for the Belgian Moroccan organisations does not coincide with a highest group level of particularized contacting. On the contrary, I find the Belgian Turkish group to show a significant higher level of this type of political activity, followed by the Belgian Congolese. Based on these observations, I reject for the Brussels case the hypothesis on the aggregated effect following the size and structure of the network of interlocking directorates. I either do not find an individual effect or in case I find an individual effect it does not add to the understanding of the differences in the level of political participation I find across the three groups. If it is not the size and the structure of the network of interlocking directorates that allows to make sense of the level of political activity observed among an ethnic minority associative elite for the Brussels case, what is then? To answer this question I explore the individual effect of other types of collaborations and of other than social resources an organisation has to its disposition. Across these analyses, I find two independent variables to be of particular importance to understand the political participation by ethnic minority organisations. I find the information on receiving public funding and on being involved in collaborations with Brussels pro-migrant associative life to predict most reliably the outcomes on the different dependent variables on political participation except as for the variable on electoral participation. In uni-variate analyses I find moreover that these two resources attain relatively similar levels for the three ethnic minority groups. I understand the similarities I find across the three groups concerning the level of participation to consultation and to claim making activities strongly by referring to the predominant influence of these two resources. I note that the presence of these resources is strongly determined by the decisions that are made at the institutional level. I argue that the similar opportunities the Belgian Moroccan, Belgian Turkish and Belgian Congolese organisations meet within the Brussels institutional and political setting are strongly important in shaping the access to consultation and claim making. However I equally find that resources that are located within the ethnic minority associative field as for example the presence of an advocacy mission still adds to the understanding of these types of political participation, even after controlling for the information on public funding and contacts with the pro-migrant associative field. I argue notwithstandingthat top down processes in Brussems outnumber bottom-up processes to understand the participation of the ethnic minority organisations to consultative mechanisms and to claim making. The same can be argued concerning the involvement of the organisations in the electoral process. I find similar levels of electoral participation across the three ethnic minority associative fields. However I do not find an influence of public funding or of an embeddedness in Brussels mainstream autochthonous associative field in this regard. I do not find any of the selected independent variables to reliably predict the outcome on the dependent variable. In my entire database I find only one characteristic of the organisations to allow a reliable prediction concerning the outcome on electoral participation namely that on the presence of personal relations with Brussels political parties. I argue therefore that the link between ethnic minority associative life and the electoral process is structured not so much by a systematic knowledge of which are the larger, more established or more influential organisations but by processes of personal acquaintanceship. I interpret this result by referring to the presence of assimilationist perspective on integration that is predominant in Brussels. I argue that this predominant discourse creates obstacles for that leaders of strongly resourceful ethnic minority organisations are seen as more legitimate actors to access institutional political arena. To sum up, I understand the similarities that I find across the three group concerning the level of political participation by referring to both the similar opportunities and obstacles they meet in the Brussels context. A last question that then remains concerns the difference I observe between the group concerning the level of direct contacting of representatives of the institutional political arena. I understand the first position the Belgian Turkish group holds in this regard by referring to the Turkish migration history and the particular anchoring of the group in Belgian society. I refer in particular to the more collective integration strategy that characterises this group, as compared to both other groups. I understand the second position that is hold by the Belgian Congolese group by referring to the significant higher level of two resources that occur within the Belgian Congolese associative field. I find the significant higher level of advocacy organisations and of an organising along community interests to add strongly to the understanding of the higher level of direct contacting as compared to the Belgian Moroccan group. To end with I point to the fact that the differences I observe on direct contacting are all the more remarkable since the number of elected politicians of Moroccan origin in Belgium is strongly higher as compared to the number of elected politicians of Turkish and Congolese origin. I argue that the favourable position the Belgian Moroccan group holds at the individual level concerning the access to the institutional political arena is not repeated at the collective level. On the contrary I observe an inverse relation. I therefore argue that this difference in direct contacting between the Belgian Moroccan organisations on the one hand and the Belgian Turkish and Congolese on the other should at least partly be understood in terms of a compensatory mechanism for the lack of opportunities these communities hold at the individual level. This compensatory mechanism is supported and made possible by resources that are located within the ethnic minority associative fields. I find these resources however not to be social resources, but to concern the presence of a strong collective group identity and of an intrinsic political motivation. I started this dissertation with the hypothesis on the importance of internal collaboration to understand the differences and similarities in the level of political participation undertaken by the Belgian Moroccan, Belgian Turkish and Belgian Congolese associative field. However instead of bonding social capital I find the presence of public funding of bridging social capital and of characteristics of the Brussels context and of the ethnic minority groups to be of more importance for understanding both institutional and non-institutional political activities. However this does not mean that the level of internal collaboration is of no importance at all to make sense of the political activity undertaken by ethnic minority organisations in Brussels. Even after controlling for the presence of other resources, I find that the presence of internal collaborations adds to the contentious capacity of ethnic minority organisations. I find the presence of informal collaborations to add to the understanding of the presence of proclaiming activities. I find an embeddedness in the network of interlocking directorates to reliably predict the outcome on direct contacting. If it were not for the organisations involved in the network of interlocking directorates, the level of particularised contacting would be much lower in Brussels, in particular for the Belgian Moroccan group. Although the first position the Belgian Moroccan group holds on the index of ethnic civic community did not show to be a good predictor for finding a higher level of political participation among the Belgian Moroccan associative elite, it still is meaningful in the more restricted sense that the Belgian Moroccan network more strongly as compared to both other networks adds to the understanding of the level of direct contacting. To end with I find the hypothesis on the multidimensional relation between two multifaceted concepts of social capital and political participation to be confirmed for the Brussels case. Bonding and Bridging social capital relate differently to the outcomes on political participation according to the type of political activity. I moreover find the hypothesis on the importance of taking into account contextual elements to make sense of the direction of these relations to be equally confirmed. The interpretation of the empirical results I collected has not been possible without referring to characteristics of the Brussels context, of the three ethnic minority groups and of the particular anchoring of these groups in Belgian society. |
