Outline
My Ph D research is a study of political thought and discussion in Belgium between the years 1814 and 1839. Chronologically this includes three different parts: firstly, the years in which Belgium was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830); secondly, the years 1830-1831, when revolution led to Belgian independence; and thirdly, the first years of Belgium as an independent state, until 1839, when an international treaty finally secured its independence. This period in Belgian history has been mostly studied in terms of the transformation of the ‘Ancient Regime' into a modern state, the coming of Bourgeois society and of modern ideology. Within this perspective, the historical account normally concerns the period between the two Belgian Revolutions, the Brabant Revolution of 1789 and the Revolution of 1830. More recent historical scholarship still departs from the notion of transformation into modernity but shifted its focus of attention to ‘political culture' and ‘national identity'. I want to follow up on these shifts within Belgian historiography whilst taking into account some of the more recent methodological debates that unfolded in the broader historical field. It is my aim to place the historical transformation between 1789 and 1830 in a new perspective, by studying political ‘ideas in context'. I am therefore not looking at authors from the point of view of ‘were times were headed for', but by taking as the main focus of attention the actual oppositions that were unfolding, and by looking at how political concepts changed through their adaptation to immediate political challenges. This approach is indebted to the so-called Cambridge-school. The sources which I am using are different forms of printed material but mainly political pamphlets. A rigorous analysis of the pamphlet-material of the period has not yet been done, most probably because of the assumption that political debate was of little importance for the development of political thought. Pamphlets are not only useful because pamphleteering was the quickest way of spreading news also but because they reflect the way in which more elaborate ideas and theories were used, communicated and popularised.
My research follows up on previous research on political thought in Belgium which focussed on the time of the Brabant Revolution of 1789 (Geert Van den Bossche, Enlightened innovation and the ancient constitution: the intellectual justifications of revolution in Brabant , Brussels 2001). The lap of time between 1790 and 1814 is justifiable, in view of the relative silence in terms of political debate during the French period. The choice for a relative short period of time is also inspired by the intention of studying ideas in relation to short-term political challenges. However, the centrality of the Revolution of 1830 implies that my Ph D is not just a study of political thought, but also a study on the ideological origins of a revolutionary event. This bears certain methodological challenges in itself. I refer here to the debate on the historical interpretation of the French Revolution, and more precisely the implications of the ‘revisionist' writings of the François Furet-school in France . This concerns a debate on the question of the limits of historical representation of a revolutionary event. I see Keith Baker, author of Inventing the French Revolution ( Cambridge , 1990), as the main scholar to have dealt with these challenges from the perspective of intellectual history. But these more theoretically aspects should not come to overwhelmingly dominate my research. The conclusions I am heading for will first of all involve an assessment of political thought and politics in Belgium in the period of the Restoration in a comparative perspective. Secondly, the conclusions of my research, next to those of the earlier research mentioned on the Brabant Revolution of 1789, will hopefully open new ways to understand the transformation of Belgium into modernity.
