The article deals with the relationship between Islamic fundamentalism and the political participation of women. Firstly, it is discussed at length which political role women play in theories on Islamic fundamentalism. According to some scholars, it is indeed paramount to eliminate where possible, existing stereotypes which state that women are solely ‘placed’ in the private domain by fundamentalists. Secondly, the article examines the extent of actual political participation in a context of Islamic fundamentalism, more specifically the Islamic Republic of Iran. Models of political participation are often implicitly based on formal (electoral) forms of participation. However, women often remain invisible in these kinds of models. Consequently, the article centres on a possible broadening of the notion ‘political participation’ and the incorporation of new forms of informal political activities in the analysis of political participation.

This article explains Belgium’s European policy regarding the CAP reforms of 1992 (MacSharry Reforms) and 2003 (Mid Term Review). It addresses the question whether this policy has changed and, if so, what the conditions of policy change are. We argue that Belgium has a two-track policy regarding the CAP reforms. The first track has a conservatist content, stating that Belgium is not in favour of the proposed reforms. The second track is a the more reformist one, given the untenability of the CAP in the light of the simultaneous global GATT, WTO and/or enlargement negotiations. It is argued that the political colour of the Agriculture Minister influences partly the first track, while the relative importance of the global negotiations over the CAP reform negotiations affects the second track. Moreover, we conclude that the involvement of the Flemish and Walloon Region has not led to a deadlock in the internal policy-making process in Belgium.

This article explores whether the development of a common European asylum policy, and the construction of a directive on minimum standards for the granting of refugee status, is dominated by a security discourse. In such a security discourse, asylum is considered a cross-border threat to the realization of the internal market and the internal stability of Member States. While the social construction of asylum as a problem puts pressure on the traditional humanitarian framework on which international refugee protection is being based. The tension between these two approaches seems to result in a restrictive European common asylum policy, with a focus on control and prevention of migration into the EU. In this article, we analyse the tensions between the security and the humanitarian discourse in primary and secondary sources, using the model of Laclau and Mouffe. We conclude that while creating a common asylum policy, a securitization process is present.

The decline of traditional class voting is at the centre of the Class Politics debate. From the framework of traditional class analysis a labourer’s right wing vote appears ‘unnatural’. A right wing vote is thought to damage the interests of the economically precarious groups. This paper attempts to understand the phenomenon of so-called unnatural voting behaviour starting from the populism concept. From a theoretical literature study we analyse the relationship between populism and attitudes regarding the economic left-right cleavage. We argue that right-wing populism appeals to a cry for equality, yet at the same time mobilises this sentiment against the institutions of the welfare state. In that way populist right parties succeed in attuning their economic discourse to the socio-economic attitudes of broad layers of the population, including economically precarious categories. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis is tested on the case of Flanders.