Régis Dandoy

Regional and National Elections in Western Europe. Territoriality of the Vote in Thirteen Countries

In the post-war era one of the most significant transformations in the democratic process throughout Western Europe has been the widespread introduction of regional elections. Symptomatic of this decentralization has been the shift of various legislative powers to regional governing bodies. As a result, electorates throughout Western Europe now have more opportunities to express their preferences and air their grievances across electoral arenas while the dynamics of electoral competition have become increasingly multifarious and complex. Voters can now use regional elections to articulate their discontent with the policies of the national government or can elect based on the political offer in the regional electoral arena. This book brings together leading experts on elections who analyze differences between regional and national electoral outcomes in thirteen West European countries between 1945 and 2011. It extends existing insights by providing new empirical evidence and by presenting alternative accounts for differences between the regional and national vote across Western Europe.

Electoral Cycles and Turnout in Multilevel Electoral Systems

This article differentiates between three ways in which electoral cycles may impact on participation in elections. First, it identifies a simultaneity effect – turnout increases to the extent that elections are held on the same date. A second effect is voter fatigue – turnout declines when another election has just been held before. Poll voting is a third effect. It suggests that turnout increases when another election is to be held shortly after. On the basis of a novel dataset that includes 2,915 regional elections held in 317 regions and 18 countries from 1945 to 2009, evidence is found for all three effects. The results point towards a basic dilemma in multilevel electoral systems: increase turnout by holding elections on the same date but accept high vote congruence across elections or decouple election cycles, which decreases vote congruence but lowers participation rates.

Introduction: Territoriality of the vote. A framework of analysis

Over the last 40 years the institutional landscape in Western Europe has changed considerably. One of the most notable transformations of the state concerns processes of decentralization, federalization and regionalization. This development is well documented by the regional authority index (RAI) developed by Hooghe, Marks and Schakel (2010). For the 13 Western European countries which are the subject of research in this book, they observe that each of them underwent regional reform except for the Swiss cantons and the Faroe Islands. Not only has the authority exercised by regional governments increased but the biggest driver of this growth of regional authority has been the proliferation of elected institutions at the regional level (Marks et al., 2010).

The preservation of social security as a national function in the Belgian Federal State

Chapter 1 Exploring the Territorial Politics of Welfare Chapter 2. Devolution and the Preservation of the British Welfare State Chapter 3. Welfare Management in the German Federal System: the Emergence of Welfare Regions? Chapter 4. Territorial Politics and Welfare Development in France Chapter 5. Spain, From State Welfare to Regional Welfare? Chapter 6. From the Southern to the Northern Question. Territorial and Social Politics in Italy Chapter 7. The Preservation of Social Security as a National Function in the Belgian Federal State Chapter 8. Changing Political Contexts in the Nordic Welfare States. The central-local relationship in the 1990s and beyond Chapter 9. Nationalism and Social Policy in Canada and Quebec Chapter 10. European Social Policies and National Welfare Constituencies: Issues of Legitimacy and Public Support Chapter 11. European Integration and Social Citizenship. Changing Boundaries, New Structuring?In this chapter we will mainly focus on one of the most important aspectsof the current Belgian political debate: social security. Besides the basicimportance of such social programmes for wealth redistribution andsocio-economic equality, the issue of social security in Belgium is closelyrelated to territorial and ethno-linguistic politics. Social security has beenlinked to the unification and centralization of the different social regimesthroughout the whole country (see pp. 000–0). The economic crisis exac-erbated the first decentralization claims and social security became acentral element of inter-regional relations in Belgium, in both economicand political terms, through the issue of fiscal transfers and Flemishdemands for the regionalization of competencies and institutionalreforms (see pp. 000–0). In the final section (pp. 000–0), we consider theimpact of territorial identity and public opinion on the social securitydebate, drawing conclusions on the role of social security in shaping theinstitutional future of Belgium.The decentralization process in Belgium has been incremental and isongoing. The transformation of Belgium from a unitary to a federal statebegan in 1970. This federalization led to the Belgian state transferringcertain competencies, among which some directly connected with welfarematters, to the federated entities. There are two different kinds of feder-ated entities: three communities (French, Flemish and German-speaking),which are responsible for cultural, social and education matters; and threeregions (Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels-Capital) governing matters con-cerning economic and regional development, environment protection,public transportation and housing. Consequently, public budgets wereattributed to federal entities and dispersed through a complex distribu-tion scheme.

Parliamentary Questions in Belgium: Testing for Party Discipline

This contribution seeks to explain the numbers of written questions in the Belgian House of Representatives (1995–2007). Important variations over time, party and coalition formula have been observed and ‘classic’ explanations – such as the size of the parliamentary party group, the linguistic group or the majority vs. opposition status of the party – only partly explain these observed variations. It is argued here that parliamentary party group unity and discipline is an important factor in shaping patterns of questioning. The findings of the statistical analysis confirm that disciplined and cohesive parties are more active in questioning the government than other parties.

Conclusion: Regional Elections in Comparative Perspective

The 13 country studies presented in this book have analyzed the territorial heterogeneity of the vote in regional and national elections with the main aim of studying regional election results on their ‘own terms’ rather than solely from a second-order election perspective. Each chapter has explored the explanatory power of regional institutions and territorial cleavages with regard to regional electoral behavior (top-down approach), but the country experts have also provided additional causes or explanations for diverging regional party systems (bottom-up approach). In addition, all authors have looked at five aspects of electoral behavior which constituted the ‘backbone’ of the analytical framework for all country chapters. First, the authors looked at congruence between the regional and the national vote. Congruence of the vote was differentiated into three indicators: party-system, electorate and election congruence. In a second step, they assessed how far differences in the vote could be related to second-order election effects (turnout in regional and national elections and change in vote shares between regional and national elections) or to regionalized electoral behavior (congruence between regional and national governments and non-statewide party (NSWP) strength in regional and national elections).

Belgium: Towards a regionalization of national elections?

Regional elections are not a new political phenomenon in Belgium. This small European country witnessed its first regional elections in 1974, two decades before the transformation of the unitary state into a federal state. Despite the early introduction of regional elections, the study of elections at this policy level remains up to now relatively rare. The exceptions are mainly to be found in the election reports published by the journal Regional & Federal Studies (e.g. Versmessen, 1995; Deschouwer, 2000; Coffe, 2006; Brack and Pilet, 2010). The reasons for ignorance about the political science literature on this topic are threefold.

The electoral performance of the Belgian Green parties in 2014

The elections of 25 May 2014 in Belgium have been called the ‘mother of all elections’ by the media. On the same day, about 6.7 million voters elected their new representatives for the regional, community, federal, and European parliaments: depending on language and residence, each had three or four votes. The legislative term for the federal parliament changed from four to five years and now coincides with the five-yearly regional and European terms. The electoral system is based on proportional representation with semi-open lists; voters may vote either for their preferred candidate(s) or for the entire list. European citizens are allowed to vote in European elections, and Belgian citizens living abroad are allowed to vote in federal elections. Since the previous regional (2009), federal (2010), and European (2009) elections, Belgium had undergone important changes in its structure and institutions. First, regions and communities have increased autonomy, receiving new competences, including family allowances, labour market regulation, health care, and road safety, as well as increased financing and more fiscal autonomy. The Brussels region received specific additional financing and constitutive autonomy (the region can now reform its own institutions). Second, the federal Senate has been profoundly reformed; its members are no longer directly elected, but are designated by the members of the regional parliaments. Consequently, regional elections have become more important. Parties in Belgium are clustered in two separate party systems, according to language: the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) party system and the French-speaking party system, which broadly corresponds to the Walloon and Brussels regions. Each party family is represented on both sides of the linguistic border, and there are two Green parties: the Flemish Groen and the French-speaking Ecolo. Since their creation at the end of the 1970s, the two Belgian Green parties’ electoral performances have three characteristics. The first is symmetry: the Green parties experience a similar electoral fate and almost always win or lose elections together. Second, the electoral results of the Green parties are characterised by considerable instability over time, important electoral successes being followed

The Future of Belgian Federalism: An Analysis of Party Preferences

This article studies the political discourses regarding the future of Belgian federalism since the year 2000. Analysing party manifestos, it intends to identify patterns of preferences about the long-term evolution of Belgian institutions and the distribution of competences. The quantitative and qualitative analysis shows that the systemic duality of Belgian federalism largely explains the preferences of political actors: French-speaking parties overall oppose the broad state reform that the Dutch-speaking parties collectively support. Yet, each party has a specific position on the decentralization cleavage and a vision of Belgian federalism that cannot be reduced to its linguistic affiliation.

The success of the regionalist parties in the 2014 elections in Belgium

Abstract In May 2014, and for the second time in her political history, regional, federal and European elections were organized simultaneously in Belgium. In the direct follow-up of the sixth state reform, which increased the powers and autonomy of the Belgian Regions and Communities, these elections were crucial for the future of the country and for the multi-level coalition formation at the regional and federal levels. The political campaign was dominated by socioeconomic issues and demands for further autonomy, particularly in the Flemish region. Regional electoral results confirmed the success of the regionalist parties in Flanders, but also in Brussels and in the German-speaking Community. These successes allowed regionalist parties to enter all regional and federal governments—often as the dominant party—with the exception of the Walloon and the French-speaking Community cabinets.