Virginie Van Ingelgom

Social policy, legitimation and diverging regional paths in Belgium: Policy Feedback, Participation, Voting, and Attitudes

Do regional governments gain legitimation from their social policy? Does regional social policy exert an effect that feeds citizens’ preferences for the regional level of government? The issue of the feedback effect of regional social policy arises in a context where, over the last three decades, regional governments across Europe were entrusted with core social policy responsibilities in health care, education, labour policy and social assistance (e.g. McEwen and Moreno, 2005). Examining such feedback effects contributes to the analysis of democracy at the regional level (e.g. Loughlin, Hendriks and Lidstrom, 2010). The article addresses the legitimation effects of regional social policy by investigating the case of Belgium, more specifically, the two regional cases of Flanders and Wallonia. These cases provide something akin to a natural experiment, as the federalization of the country occurred concurrently to the development of diverging regional paths from what were once close starting points, that is, long-term convergence between Flanders and Wallonia existed until 1993. After this date, however, citizens in Flanders have increasingly shown both a preference for the regional level of government and a stronger identification with the region. Wallonia experienced opposite patterns: From 1993 on, citizens have expressed less support for the regional level and a decreased regional identification. The overall picture emerging from our analyses is one of long-run convergence between Flanders and Wallonia up to 1993, and divergence thereafter. To account for these contrasting evolutionary patterns, we contend that legitimation effects through regional social policy-making cannot be taken for granted. Specifically, this chapter argues that legitimation effects are dependent on three requirements that may or may not be met: First, regional social policy design must be distinct, standing out from previous policies; second, regional policies need to be supported by a public discourse; and, third, policies need to perform well and build performance satisfaction among citizens. In fact, there are strong differences regarding the three proposed requirements in Flanders and Wallonia. While each is fulfilled in the Flemish side of the country, none of them is in the French-speaking part. Simultaneously, we find contrasted systems of citizen evaluation and perception of regional governments in the two regions. The remainder of the chapter is organized as follows. The first section provides historical insights into government use of social policy as a legitimation instrument and elaborates on the theoretical argument we make. The second section presents the chapter’s methodology and data, and explains the choice of Belgium as a natural-like case study. The third section is dedicated to the empirical analysis. Following the presentation of the dependent variable, we report on whether the three requirements are fulfilled in the two Belgian regions. The fourth concluding section discusses the results and the possibility and difficulties to infer the operation of policy feedbacks from the empirics in the present cases.

Representation and Legitimation

The second item in our discussion schedule was designed to focus participants’ attention on the complexity of the political world of government and decision making in the specific context of the European Union (EU). The question posed was ‘Comment repartir le pouvoir en Europe?’/‘How should power be distributed in Europe?’ We gave our groups four options – the nations, the market, elected MPs and experts – inviting them to consider the advantages and disadvantages of power being wielded by each. In setting the question up this way we were, of course, following standard accounts of EU governance and legitimacy and adverting to the matter of democratic deficit.

When Ambivalence meets Indifference

In Chapter 1 we discussed the need for reconciliation of the findings of statistical analysis of Eurobarometer and similar surveys with the findings of recent interpretive analysis of interview and focus group data. In Chapter 3 we highlighted the uncertainty and indifference which characterised our participants’ reactions when they were asked to discuss European questions. In this chapter, we propose to analyse the particular category of citizens who, when they are surveyed by Eurobarometer, say that they evaluate their country’s membership of the European Union (EU) as being ‘neither good nor bad’.1 On average, they represent 30% of the European population and 33 out of the 133 participants in our groups.

Reflections on Design and Implementation

Generally speaking, we believe that the scientific character of social research mainly depends on the reflexivity involved in the research design and its implementation. So, we have decided to dedicate a whole chapter to methodological issues. More particularly, we aim to discuss, and we hope to cast light on, a recurring difficulty of cross-national qualitative methodology: the comparability of the data on which the analysis is based.

Concepts and Theory: Political Sociology and European Study

Citizens’ reactions to European integration have attracted a good deal of attention from social scientists over the last decades. Work conducted by researchers in the academic field of european studies has partly been inspired by the search for ways to solve Europe’s so-called democratic deficit. In most of this work, citizens’ opinions of the European Union (EU) or the integration process are analysed in relation to expectations regarding citizens’ support and legitimating attitudes (Van Ingelgom, 2010). Our standpoint in this book is mainly empirical, although it also takes into account the implications of sociological analysis of citizens’ political understanding and behaviour for democratic theory. European studies largely relied on statistical analysis of survey data before undergoing a qualitative turn by the end of the 1990s. Mixed methods are usually received positively in this field, as in other public opinion research areas (Risse, 2010). But, with regard to European attitudes, the discrepancy between the findings from the two distinct methodological traditions has become so striking that work is needed to reconcile them. This book aims to take a step in that direction. Contrary to other recently published works based on qualitative research (White, 2011; Gaxie, Hube & Rowell, 2011) Overlooking Europe was not conceived as an alternative to statistical research but rather as a complement to it.

Conclusion: Citizens Talking about Europe

Between December 2005, when our project really began in Paris, and June 2006, when the last of our focus groups was carried out in Oxford, 411 people applied, or volunteered, to take part in our groups, and in the end 172 actually participated (including those in the groups which have been discarded from this analysis) (See Table 6.1). Since January 2006, the European Commission has probably interviewed more than 800,000 Europeans. Eurobarometer surveys are conducted in all member countries every six months. This raises some obvious questions. What justifies our spending so long on our corpus of data – even though the 133 participants in the 24 groups whose data we have analysed translate into 3,000 pages? One reason why Europe is a good topic for in-depth interview or focus group research is that a lot of stuff happens there, so citizens and other participants are frequently cued for attentiveness and opinion formation. But the stuff that has happened since the financial crisis of 2008 might be thought to be game changing – hasn’t our research effectively been made obsolete?