Carl Devos

DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL CAPITAL BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL ENVIRONMENTS

ABSTRACT: In the literature, several contradicting views can be found concerning rural–urban differences in individual social capital. This study combines a literature review with an empirical examination of the different points of view, applying multilevel modeling techniques on data collected from 2,332 students living across 216 municipalities. In general, social capital appears to be higher among students from municipalities in central agglomerations than among those from more rural municipalities. This effect could not be observed with respect to social capital from the family, but was established regarding social capital from friends and acquaintances. In addition, we found that living in an urban environment is associated with more pronounced socioeconomic inequalities in social capital from friends.

The Future of Belgian Federalism as Seen Through the Eyes of the Social Partners: A Continuing Obstacle to Social Policy Decentralization?

In this article, we take a look at the discussion on the devolution of social policy. Despite the pressure of strong nationalist movements to decentralize socio-economic matters, the federal welfare state does not erode. In their study up to the early 2000s, Béland and Lecours explain this relative standstill by pointing to the institutionalization of neo-corporatistic organizations. These organizations, which are strongly involved in the management of the welfare state, have not split along language lines and prevent the decentralization of socio-economic policies in order to preserve their power. Based on empirical evidence, this paper shows that federal social partners are an important obstacle to social policy decentralization in Belgium while the regional social partners have differing opinions on the devolution debate.

The Process of Rescaling Interests in the Belgian Context: The Impact of Regional Governmental Strength

Abstract To what extent do interest groups adapt to a changing institutional environment? That is the central question of this article. Keating [2014. Introduction: rescaling interests, Territory, Politics, Governance 2(3)] distinguishes three drivers that can force interest groups to rescale: a functional, an identitarian and an institutional driver. The focus of this article is on the last driver of rescaling and on the assumption that interest groups increasingly operate on a regional scale when regional governments acquire more power. This ‘isomorphism hypothesis’ is tested by analysing the adaptation of the principal labour and business groups in Belgium. We found that in Belgium, this hypothesis only accounts for a number of cases. The Belgian rescaling process is not only the result of institutional changes but also a response to economic differences between Flanders and Wallonia, as well as to the increasing salience of the language cleavage. Groups were rescaling even before the gradual federalization of the state started, but federalization has accentuated this process.

What's in a name? Current effects of family politicization on legislative candidates’ career start in Belgium

Abstract In this article we measure the effect of inherited political capital in the form of family politicization on legislative candidates’ recruitment age and early careers. We differentiate the concept of family politicization between a narrow (i.e., party political) and a broad (i.e., non-party-political) interpretation. Results indicate that narrow family politicization is the only type that plays a role in speeding up political recruitment. However, only the route to candidacy is affected by family politicization, whereas for the route to power other factors absorb this effect, mainly the candidates’ pre-electoral party engagement. This implies that candidates from narrowly politicized families do not merely rely on inherited political capital to get elected, which rejects a popular opinion. On the other hand, the result that parental talking and brokerage professions speed up the candidates’ election, indicate that the home environment does not play a neutral role in the early career path either.

Perfect match or missing link? An analysis of the representativeness of trade union representatives in Belgium

Insights from the representation literature were applied to industrial relations in order to study the representativeness of union officials. Based on a member-survey in a major Belgian trade union, we found that union representatives mirror quite well their followers in descriptive (except for gender) and substantive terms (issue congruence).

Left, right, left. The influence of party ideology on the political representation of ethnic minorities in Belgium

The scholarly literature on ethnic minority representation often points to the “political opportunity structure” – particularly that of political parties – to explain the prevalence of ethnic minorities in elected politics. Informed by the literature on women in politics, this article examines how the ideology of political parties affects the representation of ethnic minorities. This article is based on a qualitative case study of 2 major Belgian cities and includes 33 semi-structured interviews with ethnic minority councillors, candidates, members of ethnic communities, and party representatives. Interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory approach. We found party ideology to affect the support parties received from ethnic minority voters and candidates; party ideology does not, however, influence party strategies to enhance ethnic minority representation. Overall, political parties do not seem to invest in their ethnic minority candidates and councillors.

The Main Determinants for Subjective Well-Being: A Quest for the Holy Grail?

Governments consider the enhancement of the quality of life as an implicit touchstone of the effects of their policies. Whether and to what extent the quality of life is improved through government intervention is a question that’s rather difficult to answer. The two main reasons for this are, on the one hand, the measurement of policy effects, and on the other hand, the interpretation of the concept “quality of life”. In our contribution, we focus on the use of subjective indicators, i.e. the study of the “perceived quality of life” or the “subjective well-being”. We used the framework of resource-theory on subjective well-being as a basis for our analysis of the main determinants of the general subjective well-being, people’s evaluation of life as a whole. In order to study this, we set up a face-to-face survey research design. More specifically, our analysis applies to the empirical data of 1873 adult citizens spread over the three biggest Flemish cities (Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges). In order to find these main determinants of the general subjective well-being, we took a wide range of variables into account and, applying a multivariate regression analysis, we tried to determine their relative importance. The main objective of our enquiry was to investigate to what extent government policy can enhance the perceived quality of life.

The EMU and the Regional Policy Agenda: a General Exploration

A decade ago, globalisation was considered as one of the most influential restraints of national and (micro-) regional policy. For many years, that buzzword shaped popular perceptions that the world was heading for a fundamental shift, a kind of all-changing ‘great transformation’ (Polanyi 1944). Several authors and actors believed that in the 21st globalisation-century, neither time nor place, neither history nor geography would matter, that capital would ‘source all over the globe’, along and across borders, looking for the ultimate cost-reducing site. In this battle of all against all, no single political authority would be immune to the disciplining force of globalisation, so the story goes. In order to keep one’s head above water, the rigid and corpulent states —especially the European ‘Keynesian’ welfare state— should transform themselves towards a more adjusted form of political authority, if they were to survive the ‘contexte nouveau’ (Lafay 1996). After all, globalisation was setting states against states, (micro and macro) regions against regions. ‘You can run, but you can’t hide’ or ‘there is no alternative’ were popular mantras symbolising the state of mind of those days.