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In visual narratives such as comics, national images are actually depicted. While Franco-Belgian comics have been the subject of detailed studies regarding the national stereotypes they convey, Flemish comics have been largely ignored. This article focuses on three albums of the Flemish comic series "Suske en Wiske", in which the heroes travel to a fictitious Eastern Bloc country, Japan, and China. It will examine how both heteroimages and auto-image are presented (visually, textually, and as part of the plot), and how comic characters may combine contradictory ethnotypes. As it will turn out, in the early album (1945) ethnotypes are perpetuated, whereas in later ones (1984, 2008) they are rather undermined.

Studies on strategic parliamentary opposition often focus on broader behavioral patterns or party‐level variation. This article analyzes differences at the individual level, more notably between male and female opposition members of parliament. Using rational‐choice perspectives of opposition activity and theories of gendered political behavior, we hypothesize that female opposition members focus less on ideological conflicts (with or between coalition parties) and more on their party's core issues. Furthermore, we expect them to more frequently target female ministers, in part because of the nature of their respective portfolios. Our analysis of all parliamentary questions tabled by opposition members in the Belgian Federal Parliament between 2007 and 2019 (N = 48,735) suggests that female members of parliament seem more likely to focus on issues that are salient to their party and less on conflictual matters between coalition partners. These results provide new empirical insights into strategic opposition behavior and gendered differences in the legislature.

This contribution sheds light on the link between affect and protest behaviors. Using data from a voter survey conducted around the 2019 elections in Belgium, we examine two dimensions of affect: a vertical one, i.e., negative and positive emotions towards politics in general, and a horizontal one, i.e., affective polarization towards fellow citizens. Our findings make three important contributions. First, we identify five distinct classes of respondents depending on their emotions towards politics (apathetic, angry, hopeful, highly emotional, and average). Second, we demonstrate that the combination of both anger and hope is more strongly associated with protest action than anger alone. By contrast, apathy, characterized by an absence of emotions towards politics, is negatively related to protest behavior. Third, we show that affective polarization is a key driver of protest behavior per se. We also show that the two dimensions of affect have distinctive effects. Yet they interact: Affective polarization towards political opponents compensates for the absence of emotions towards politics in general.

Objective: we explore migrant-native differentials in the uptake of formal and informal childcare and whether this is induced by lower demand for childcare versus differential access to (in)formal childcare compared to natives. Background: The rise in female labour market participation in recent decades has challenged parents to negotiate work and family responsibilities and organise childcare. Belgium is among the European countries with the highest availability of formal childcare, but maternal employment and uptake of childcare are substantially lower in migrant populations. Methods: Combining linked microdata from the 1991 and 2001 censuses with contextual data on childcare availability at the municipality level, we use multinomial logit models to study childcare use and type of childcare arrangement among parents having a young child in 2001. As access to childcare and maternal employment are mutually endogenous, we use estimated employment opportunities. Results: We find considerable migrant-native differentials in childcare use, as well as substantial differences between first and second generation migrants. Second generation mothers of Turkish, Moroccan and Eastern-European background are less likely than natives to use childcare, and more likely to rely on informal arrangements if childcare is used. Controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and differential availability of (in)formal childcare largely accounts for differences in childcare use, but Turkish and Moroccan women remain less likely to use care and first generation Turkish mothers remain more likely to use informal care as opposed to formal childcare. Conclusions: While differences in socio-demographic characteristics, labour market opportunities and availability of (in)formal care provide a partial explanation, partial migrant-native differentials in childcare use persist for specific groups, suggesting that other factors inhibit the uptake of formal childcare., Fragestellung: Wir untersuchen in diesem Beitrag die Unterschiede in der Inanspruchnahme von Kinderbetreuung nach Migrationshintergrund. Dabei unterscheide wir zwischen formeller Kinderbetreuung ("crèche" und Tagespflege), informeller Betreuung (Familienangehörige und Freunde) und "kombinierte" Arrangements informeller und formeller Betreuung. Wir kontrollieren für sozio-demographische Merkmale des Haushalts, mütterliches Erwerbsverhalten, regionale Kinderbetreuungsquoten und Verfügbarkeit von nahen Familienangehörigen als Proxy für informelle Betreuung. Hintergrund: Belgien ist eines der europäischen Länder, das sich durch eine hohe Verfügbarkeit institutioneller Kinderbetreuung auszeichnet, wobei allerdings die Müttererwerbstätigkeit wie auch die Inanspruchnahme institutioneller Kinderbetreuung unter der Migrantenpopulation relativ niedrig ausfällt. Methode: Als Datenbasis dienen Mikrodaten, die mit dem Zensus aus den Jahren 1991 und 2001 verbundenen wurden, die Informationen zu lokalen Kinderbetreuungsquoten enthalten. Als Methode wurden multinomiale Logit-Modelle geschätzt, wobei die abhängige Variable die Art des Betreuungsarrangements von Eltern abbildet, dessen jüngstes Kind im Jahr 2001 geboren wurde. Da Kinderbetreuung und Müttererwerbsverhalten endogene Prozesse sind, haben wir in den Modellen für das geschätzte Erwerbsverhalten nach Migrationshintergrund kontrolliert. Ergebnisse: Die Analysen zeigen, dass vor allem nicht-europäische Migranten seltener Kinderbetreuungsarrangement nutzen als Einheimische, wobei sich diese Unterschiede auch in die zweite Generation forttragen. Wenn Kindebetreuung in Anspruch genommen wird, wählen europäische Migranten eher formelle, hingegen nicht-europäische Migranten eher informelle Arrangements. Die Unterschiede im Erwerbsverhalten erklären zu einem großen Teil die Unterschiede zwischen Migranten und Einheimischen in der Nutzung institutioneller Betreuung. Schlussfolgerung: Während sich die Unterschiede in der Kinderbetre

Was verraten literarische Übersetzungen über die komplexen kulturellen und historischen Verflechtungen von Belgien und Deutschland? Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage bezieht die Autorin erstmals beide belgischen Ausgangssprachen - Französisch und Niederländisch - in ein innovatives Forschungsformat ein. Durch detaillierte Übersetzungsanalysen von Texten namhafter Autor*innen wie Hugo Claus und Amélie Nothomb gibt sie Aufschluss über epistemische Konfigurationen im deutschen Zielkontext. Über Bilder der Fremdwahrnehmung und Selbstidentifikation bildet sie die Wirkmacht sozio-historischer Diskurse auf belgische Literaturen ab und verdichtet diese zu Tendenzen der Translationsdynamik.

With a growing Muslim population, many European countries need to integrate Muslims into their societies. One aspect that can hinder successful integration are substantial differences in human values. This is because such values are consequential for attitudes as well as behavior. We compare basic human values between Muslim immigrants and non-Muslim natives in four European countries with distinct immigration histories and integration politics: Belgium, France, Germany, and Sweden. For most insightful comparisons, we contrast values of Muslim immigrants with those of Christian natives as well as those of non-religious natives. We employ data of more than 50,000 individuals based on the first eight waves of the European Social Survey. Our findings reveal significant differences in value priorities between Muslims, Christians and non-religious individuals in all four countries. Amongst other things, Muslim immigrants score particularly high in conservation values (security and tradition/conformity). At the same time, they also score higher in self-transcendence values (benevolence as well as universalism). While many of these findings are in line with theory and previous research, the higher score in universalism is unexpected. A potential explanation is the combination of religious traditionalism and discrimination experiences. In other words, religious traditions are associated with more conservative views, but being subject to marginalization can still result in an appreciation of equal opportunities. We find only limited support for differences in hedonism. Religiosity correlates with values of tradition/conformity for Muslim immigrants as well as for Christian natives. Thus, accounting for religiosity renders differences in these values between Muslims and other groups statistically insignificant. While most of these findings hold in all countries, differences are most pronounced in Sweden and lower in the other three countries, which is also true after accounti

Belgium has implemented, following the example of other countries, in-work benefit policies since the early 2000’s, with the objective of increasing employment rates and fighting poverty. Belgian in-work benefits differ from most other in-work benefits as eligibility requires low hourly earnings. We study the effects extensions of those benefits would have both on labour supply and welfare, using a random-utility - random-opportunity model estimated on cross-sectional SILC datasets. Results show that further increasing the benefits would slightly increase labour supply and welfare of low-to-middle income deciles, but at very high net cost per job created. We compare our results with existing research and explain some mechanisms that possibly led to an underestimation of negative intensive margin labour supply responses in previous simulations.

The basic cognitive skill of numeracy is a recognized form of human capital, associated with economic and social well being for individuals and for nations. In this study, we explore how occupational complexity relates to proficiency in numeracy, among adults in full-time employment. We operationalize occupational complexity by constructing three measures of task complexity: complexity with data, complexity with people and complexity with things. Data from the international OECD survey of adult skills, 2012, is employed to investigate both the distribution of these three dimensions of occupational task complexity and how these relate to numeracy in 13 countries. The analysis indicates that data occupational complexity predicts numeracy scores, when controlling for age, gender and educational level. The findings open for a hypothesis that occupational activities may enhance basic skills in adult populations. If elaborated and supported through further studies this finding has practical implications for workplace organization and contributes to theoretical understandings of the development of basic skills in adults.

This chapter describes the process by which a cross-border metropolitan region develops, using the example of the Greater Region. Between 2008 and 2010 the idea of a cross-border, polycentric metropolitan region in the Greater Region was investigated and further developed within the ESPON project 'Metroborder'. In recent years, driven by policy declarations, strategic approaches for implementing this metropolitan region have been developed. A Spatial Development Strategy of the Greater Region with a focus on the metropolitan dimensions of the sub-regions provides the foundation for this. The issue of governance in relation to the crossborder interactional area (in the narrower conception of this area) is also discussed.

This chapter presents the foundations of spatial planning in the sub-regions of the Greater Region and the Upper Rhine region. It provides a picture of current developments concerning the guiding principles for spatial development and introduces the existing spatial structures of these border regions. Furthermore, the planning systems in Belgium (Wallonia), Germany, France and Luxembourg are described, and differences are identified that necessitate ongoing discussions between the partners about planning traditions and (new) strategies of spatial development.

The present study aimed to predict job control (i.e., task discretion) based on class and occupation with skill use as a (hypothesized) mechanism in four Western European countries by using the OECD adult skill survey (PIAAC). The countries were Denmark, Belgium, Italy, and the United Kingdom (UK). The study used a Bayesian approach that included multilevel models combined with measurement models. The study uses the international standard classification of occupations with two digits (clustering variable) as well as the European socioeconomic classification (ESeC) measured with three social classes. The results indicate that greater worker technical skills (computer use) and social skills (e.g., negotiate and influence) predict higher levels of job control. Social classes interact with skills to predict job control (except Belgium). Occupational computer skills predict job control (in Belgium and Italy). In conclusion, the study supports predictions by neo-Durkheimians, neo-Weberians, New Structuralists, and relational approaches to inequality.

This paper presents an introduction to forms of cooperation on European, intergovernmental, federal state, regional and municipal levels. The EU Community Initiative INTERREG is described as a significant funding instrument for cross-border cooperation. This excursus thus provides background knowledge for many of the papers in this volume.

Cultural tourism is one of the most quickly growing tourism segments. Cultural heritage is an important resource for developing cultural tourism. In rural areas, tourism plays an important role in safeguarding employment, income and supply structures, but in contrast to the situation in urban regions, resources for developing cultural tourism are scarcely used. As the border regions are largely rural in character, the question arises as to the role cultural tourism and cultural heritage currently play there. This paper investigates the use of cultural heritage in the tourism sector in the border areas of the Greater Region and the Trinational Metropolitan Region of the Upper Rhine and uses this as a basis for proposals concerning the further utilisation of cultural heritage as a resource for developing tourism.

Luxembourg is characterized by phenomena of mobility that include cross-border commuters and residential migrants. While both groups have been mainly examined from a socioeconomic perspective, this paper adopts a sociocultural approach. We will focus on the question of the extent to which cross-border mobility in everyday life promotes cross-border lifeworlds. This will involve examining people's social contacts at their place of work and/or place of residence as well as the spatial organization of practices of the everyday life of both groups. The paper gives insights into everyday lives at the EU's internal borders, whose organization into nation states is subordinate and at the same time constitutive.

Active labour market policies, like training, aim to increase the employability of unemployed population subgroups. Research indicates that the most vulnerable groups - such as women of migrant origin - are less likely to participate in the most effective programmes. Prior studies have established that household composition affects the labour market outcomes of women without and with a migration background. In contrast, research has not addressed the potential relevance of household composition in relation to women's training uptake. Using hazard models and longitudinal microdata from the employment office and social security registers, we analyse the extent to which women's household composition such as the presence and the origin of their partner or the presence of children is associated with the uptake of occupation‐specific training in Flanders (Belgium). Our results suggest that, even when we control for previously identified determinants of training uptake such as the human capital of unemployed women, training uptake in most groups varies by household composition. More specifically, the results suggest that women with a partner of non‐migrant origin show higher cumulative uptake than women with a migrant origin partner or single women, and that the presence of children in the household reduces women's training participation. Furthermore, household composition is found to be a stronger differentiating factor in uptake for migrant origin women than for non‐migrant origin women.

The recent history of the Greater Region has been strongly characterised by fossil fuels. The area thus faces significant challenges as a model region in terms of the cross-border activities necessary to meet the requirements of climate protection and the energy transition. Based on the targets defined in Europe, this paper presents examples of approaches to action and projects undertaken in the field of energy in the Greater Region. Experiences gathered in the area - including those of the authors - reveal the need for action, firstly in relation to the implementation of structures and networks, and secondly to the potential development of research excellence in the field of energy/climate protection. As relevant actors in the energy transition, the municipalities have a particular role to play here.

In the context of demographic change and the associated shrinking and aging of the population, the safeguarding of public services in rural areas faces great challenges. Rural border areas find themselves in a unique situation due to their location, and must overcome additional challenges if they want to cooperate with their neighbours in the provision of public services. This paper examines cross-border cooperation in public service provision in rural areas of the Greater Region. The area examined here comprises the German territorial authorities on the German-French border within the Greater Region. An analysis of the responsibilities for and understanding of public services in Germany and France, a concise inventory of education and healthcare services, a written survey of German territorial authorities in the German-French border area, and case studies of projects (e.g. INTERREG A projects) are used to demonstrate the successes, problems and opportunities of cross-border approaches.

In recent years cross-border vocational education and training has become increasingly significant due to the intensification of European integration and increased cross-border relations, as well as demographic and economic disparities between neighbouring border regions. This paper reviews past and present forms of crossborder cooperation in vocational education and training in the Greater Region. The most recent framework agreements on vocational education and training form the focus of discussion. The question of whether the Greater Region can be described as a cross-border vocational education and training area is also addressed.

The institutionalisation of border regions has a long history. Initial forms of cooperation usually emerged in relation to a specific event. The 1970s were decisive for the emergence of cross-border organisations in both the Greater Region and the Upper Rhine region. Over the decades the structures were consolidated, although regionally specific adaptations and developments continue both on a conceptual and practical level. The European INTERREG A programme has played a significant role in improving cross-border cooperation, and INTERREG continues to be an important factor in the implementation of cross-border projects. Efforts to further develop the institutional framework and cooperation structures in recent years demonstrate that there are still many challenges but also unexploited potential in the Greater Region and the Upper Rhine region.

Collective housing (CH) is undergoing a revival in Belgium. Since 2009, the Flemish Government Architect and his team have been advocating CH, stressing its importance as a task for architects given the demand for affordable housing and the need to reduce the environmental impact of housing. This support for CH has converged with the work of the non-profit citizen organization Samenhuizen ("Living together") and the ad hoc initiatives taken by individual households and architects. In the Netherlands too, where there is a longer tradition of CH, the phenomenon is once more on the rise because of the housing crisis. As it is a developing topic, the terminology used for CH is also evolving. Drawing on publications on the subject in both Belgium and the Netherlands as well as on interviews with relevant stakeholders, this article sheds light on two widely published cases in both countries (pioneering and current, greenfield and conversion). These cases are compared in regard to thematic areas, based on an extensive literature study on collaborative housing by Lang et al. (2018). In addition to such aspects as the balance between "individuality" and the "collective" we compare the role played by architects in both countries. Besides similarities, we show that the historical context, and especially the housing policy of each country, has a great influence and that the role of the architect is essential in the development of older and contemporary cohousing projects.

The built and living environment in the Flemish region in Belgium is evolving noticeably. It is densifying at an ever‐faster pace and, along the way, becoming increasingly unfamiliar to its inhabitants. Many people face profound difficulties in autonomously and positively dealing with such drastic changes, causing their feeling of home to waver. Triggered by these challenges and supported by the local authority of a Flemish town, the experimental and co‐creative art project Mount Murals set out to stimulate new embodied interactions between and among local residents of various ages and backgrounds and with their built environment. These include remembering place‐related sentiments, being aware of body language that plays between participants while co‐creating and sensing an invigorating stimulus when seeing results. Awakening intrinsic appreciation in people for their own environment and associated social relationships stimulates an inclusive dealing with estranged relationships in space. Referring to the relational neuroscience principles attachment, co‐creating and co‐regulating as a modus of relational resonating, we explore how and under which conditions Mount Murals’ co‐creative art trajectory supports an evolving embodied place attachment, an essential element of the sense of belonging, in participants. By embedding assets inherent to art creation in action research and starting with meaningful everyday objects, Mount Murals carries forward an art expression that considers the co‐creation process and its co‐creative products as equally important.

Researchers on inequalities in representation debate about whether governments represent the preferences of the rich better than those of less affluent citizens. We argue that problems of high- and low-status citizens are treated differently already at the agenda-setting stage. If affluent and less affluent citizens have different priorities about which issues should be tackled by government, then these divergent group priorities explain why government favours high- over low-status citizens. Due to different levels of visibility, resources and social ties, governments pay more attention to what high-status citizens consider important in their legislative agenda and pay less attention to the issues of low-status citizens. We combined three types of data for our research design. First, we extracted the policy priorities (most important issues) for all status groups from Eurobarometer data between 2002 and 2016 for 10 European countries and matched this information with data on policy outcomes from the Comparative Agendas Project. We then strengthen our results using a focused comparison of three single country studies over longer time series. We show that a priority gap exists and has representational consequences. Our analysis has important implications for the understanding of the unequal representation of status groups as it sheds light on an important, yet so far unexplored, aspect of the political process. Since the misrepresentation of political agendas occurs at the very beginning of the policy-making process, the consequences are potentially even more severe than for the unequal treatment of preferences.

Research on public opinion and international security has extensively examined attitudes toward nuclear weapons, but the diffusion of basic knowledge about nuclear weapons among the everyday citizens has nevertheless been mostly missed. This study proposes a working definition and advances a measurement model of knowledge on nuclear weapons in the general public. It analyzes data from two novel surveys conducted in 2018 (N = 6559) and 2019 (N = 6227) where respondents from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom answered a web survey on attitudes and factual knowledge on nuclear weapons. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic models are used to examine the dimensionality and to assess the measurement invariance of a scale of knowledge about nuclear weapons. A bifactor measurement model, where a strong general factor represents the construct of interest and specific factors account for the presence of testlets due to questionnaire design, is established and validated. Configural, metric, and scalar invariance are established across the eight samples. The findings indicate that knowledge about nuclear weapons in the general, non-expert public can be reliably measured cross-nationally.

This study explores whether the diffusion of gender-equitable attitudes towards female employment is associated with fertility. We argue that any positive effect on fertility requires not only high levels of gender-equitable attitudes overall, but also attitude convergence between men and women. We analyse 27 countries using data from the World Values Surveys and European Values Studies. We find support for a U-shaped relationship between changes in gender role attitudes and fertility: an initial drop in fertility is observed as countries move from a traditional to a more gender-symmetric model. Beyond a certain threshold, additional increases in gender egalitarianism become positively associated with fertility. This curvi-linear relationship is moderated by the difference in attitudes between men and women: when there is more agreement, changes are more rapid and the effect of gender egalitarian attitudes on fertility strengthens.

Die Raum- und Identitätsforschung arbeitet mit Unterscheidungen und Relationen. Diese sind als heuristische Instrumente besonders in Grenzregionen gewinnbringend, wenn soziale und geopolitische Markierungen auseinanderfallen. Die Beiträge des Bandes setzen hier an. Anhand empirischer Erhebungen in Deutschland, Frankreich, Belgien und Luxemburg untersuchen sie Raum- und Identitätskonstruktionen in grenzüberschreitenden Bezügen, wie sie sich in alltäglichen, institutionellen und medialen Praktiken manifestieren. Die Ergebnisse werden mit sensiblem Blick für quer liegende Räume und Identitäten diskutiert und an gouvernementale Fragen der Normierung und Subjektivierung rückgebunden., Empirical inquiries about space and identity as a result of social practice in the border regions between Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

Cultural impacts in planning increasingly receive attention from both academics and practitioners around Europe. However, comparative planning cultures studies face the challenges of lacking systematic comparison and empirical evidence, especially at the micro level of planning actors’ behaviour in interaction. This article aims to fill these gaps by (1) operationalizing the concept of planning culture; and (2) measuring and comparing it. We base our operationalization on the culturized planning model (Knieling, J., & Othengrafen, F. (Eds.). (2009). Planning cultures in Europe: Decoding cultural phenomena in urban and regional planning. Farnham: Ashgate). We complement its explanatory power by building a link between planning culture and planning outcome through attitudes of planning actors. This article focuses on three attitudes: risk, trust and co-operation. To measure and compare these attitudes, we adopt three experimental economic games and conduct an experiment with public and private planning practitioners in three European countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway. Both cross-country and public-private differences in these attitudes are tested in the experiment. Our experimental findings suggest that Dutch planning actors value risk aversion and trust; Norwegian planning actors value cooperation; while (French-speaking) Belgian planning actors do not value these variables that much.