In the literature on the impact of gender quota party magnitude appears as one of the most critical explanatory variables. A high party magnitude has long been argued to be a necessary condition for quota to be effective. However, recently a number of studies have shown that gender quota can be equally effective in the case of low party magnitude. An analysis of the Belgian regional elections for the years 1999, 2004 and 2009 shows that for quota to be effective it is crucial that they are tailored to the electoral system in which they are applied. Quota prove to be particularly effective when party magnitude is high while a placement mandate is effective when it covers a substantial part of the eligible list positions. We therefore conclude that effective quota can be designed for both high and low party magnitude.

Theories on ticket balancing assume that the success of a list in an open list PR system is related to the distribution of the candidates on the list according to variables such as age, gender, professional background and residence. To test these assumptions data were collected about 179 lists for the 2003, 2007 and 2010 federal and 2004 and 2009 regional elections, in the Flemish region of Belgium. A multivariate analysis shows that a list is more successful compared to the other lists of the party in the election if there are more incumbents and aldermen or majors on the list, and less young candidates. A similar analysis with the relative swing as dependent variable suggests that only the age and the number of aldermen or majors have a causal effect on the success. The success of a list does not seem to depend on the visibility of woman candidates, the professional profi les of the candidates, their geographical dispersion or the total campaign expenditures.

Some studies find that interethnic propinquity leads to ethnic tolerance, while others conclude that it underlies ethnic conflict. Using data on 50 Dutch cities in 2006 and 2010, this article assesses whether the consequences of interethnic propinquity for votes for Wilders’s PVV – the Dutch anti-immigrant party par excellence – are conditional on the economic and cultural urban contexts in which these contacts take place. In line with the ‘conflict hypothesis’ it is found that a higher level of interethnic propinquity leads to more support for the PVV in cities with a high level of unemployment and an intolerant cultural climate (as measured by the bohemian index and the gay-scene index), whereas the relationship is reverse in cities with low unemployment levels and a tolerant cultural climate (corroborating the ‘contact hypothesis’).