In this article, the use of interactive features on the websites of Dutch local (branches of) political parties during the campaign for the 2010 local elections is investigated. We distinguish between features that are directed to increase political discussion and those that are used for political mobilisation. A content analysis of 1403 party websites demonstrates that websites of the social-liberal party D66 are the most interactive, followed by the Socialist Party. Furthermore, for elections in larger municipalities, more interactivity is used on the parties’ websites. Overall, the use of both types of interactive features is rather limited. Finally, a positive association between interactivity and election results, while controlling for previous elections and national trends, is established. These results point to the importance of (online) political campaigning in the context of local elections.

In this article we address two questions considering the Flemish regional elections of June 2009. First we determine whether this campaign can be called a negative campaign and what amount of negativity it contained. Second, we want to know what the consequences of negativity were on voter preferences. Our research, based on a newspaper analysis, shows that the campaign contained an average amount of negative campaign messages compared to campaigns in other political systems (United States, the Netherlands and Denmark). We calculated effects on voter preferences by means of the PartiRep Belgian Voter Survey of 2009, a survey with a unique three wave panel design. The results demonstrate that negative campaigning seems to have been effective in 2009. Parties with negative campaigns attracted more attention from voters and also seemed to gain during the campaign. Personal attacks on opponents, on the other hand, did not have an effect on the electoral appeal of a party. Incumbent parties even lost votes when they launched personal attacks. The results suggest that, in the Flemish context, an attack on the opponent’s program or governmental record can be effective, but that personal attacks are not rewarded by the voters.

During the last decades, election campaigns in Western Europe have undergone major changes. In response to an altered electoral market, political parties have started to campaign more offensively, making use of campaign tactics such as negative campaigning. Negative campaigning strongly conflicts with the political culture of consensus and cooperation that is inherent to many West European political systems, especially in the Netherlands, in which coalition building has always been a necessity. Taking the Netherlands as a case-in-point, this article demonstrates that even in a consensual multiparty system like the Dutch one negative campaigning is on the rise. Indeed, by exploring the last four election campaigns this study demonstrates that negative campaigning is part-and-parcel of the Dutch electoral politics ever since 2002.

Populist parties are often associated with extremism. However, the term ‘extremism’ is usually ill-defined and value-laden. Conceptual analysis will help to define populism as well as extremism in a more precise and value-neutral sense. Empirical analysis of the programmes of six Dutch and three Flemish parties suggests that populism does not entail extremism, even if it can be combined with it. The Centre Party and Centre Democrats as well as the Socialist Party and the Flemish Bloc may have displayed extremist as well as populist tendencies at some point. Yet the (more or less) populist parties Liveable Netherlands (Leefbaar Nederland), the List Pim Fortuyn, the Freedom Party, the movement Proud of the Netherlands (Trots op Nederland) and the List Dedecker should not be considered extremist.

Compulsory voting was abolished in the Netherlands in 1970 without a thorough debate about the likely consequences. On several occasions, I have recommended its retention in countries that have it and its introduction in countries that do not have it. Compulsory voting has a positive effect on turnout and is a guarantee for equal electoral participation by different groups in society. However, the debate is far from closed. In particular, the relationship between compulsory voting and type of democracy (majoritarian vs consensus democracy, majoritarian vs proportional electoral systems) requires further research.

Arend Lijphart has generated recent discussion on the topic of compulsory voting within political science. He also notes that there was not a broad discussion in The Netherlands concerning the repeal of compulsory voting in 1970 and asks whether there would have been more discussion if the members of Parliament had been aware of the consequences of repeal (i.e. lower turnout, class and age discrepancies in turnout). And could political scientists have warned members of parliament of these consequences? Our contribution examines the contents of the parliamentary debates over compulsory voting, in particular at the time of repeal. It concludes that the arguments in Parliament centered on the rights and duties of a citizen in the state and that there was little or no discussion of the consequences of repeal. Data were available that could have made it possible for political scientists to make fairly accurate predictions concerning the consequences of appeal. This, however, was not an element of the parliamentary debate.

In the Netherlands, the rise of new parties such as the Lijst Pim Fortuyn, the Partij voor de Vrijheid, lead by Geert Wilders and the movement Trots op Nederland, lead by Rita Verdonk, have attracted much attention. In an attempt to interpret and explain the (temporary) advance of these parties, both commentators and political scientists have often used the notion of populism. In most commentaries however, it remains unclear what the term exactly means and whether it has any explanatory value. The aim of this article is to investigate whether Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders and their movements may actually be labelled as populist. By discerning the presence of the features of an ideal-typical populism in discourse and performance of both politicians their ‘degree of populism’ is measured. The differences in degree of populism also helps to explain why Geert Wilders and his party proved (thus far) more successful and durable.

This article addresses the impact of intermunicipal cooperation on the administrative power of municipalities. It focuses on a specific form of intermunicipal cooperation in the Netherlands, which is called ‘WGRplus’. This concerns the intermunicipal cooperation in the major urban regions in the Netherlands. In this article administrative power is not used as a fixed and quantifiable concept, yet as a process that might contribute to the performance of individual municipalities. It is argued that intermunicipal cooperation strengthens the possibilities of municipalities to address social challenges. The cooperation is considered to be successful and rewarding. It also stimulates the cooperation with relevant social organisations. Yet this form of intermunicipal cooperation has a weak democratic and political profile. Next year the Dutch government will conduct a thorough evaluation of this specific form of intermunicipal cooperation. This is still necessary because the evidence that the administrative power of the municipalities benefits from this specific form of intermunicipal cooperation is not absolutely convincing.

This special issue of Res Publica about administrative power of municipalities in the Netherlands and Flanders, Belgium, focuses in particular on the meaning of cooperation for the strengthening of administrative power. Until recently discussions on administrative power concentrated mostly on the possibility of the merger of municipalities. The three contributions to this issue demonstrate that different kinds of cooperation are a fair alternative for the strengthening of administrative power of municipalities.

This article investigates the cross-national prevalence of five news frames in quality papers’ coverage of the Treaty of Lisbon (EU Constitution). Three frames were identified in earlier studies: economic consequences, conflict, and human interest. Two additional frames were identified and composed: power and nationalization. During the seven-month period leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon (December 2007), we analyzed 341 articles from four quality papers: Le Monde (France), De Volkskrant (The Netherlands), De Standaard (Dutch speaking community of Belgium), and Le Soir (French speaking community of Belgium). Our results show that although significant differences between newspapers were found in the amount of framing, overall they reflected a similar pattern in the adoption of the news frames. The economic consequences frame, followed by the power frame, appeared most prominently in all of the newspapers’ coverage. However, the conflict and nationalization frames recurred in a significantly lesser degree. These findings indicate that the meaning behind the Treaty of Lisbon as a symbol of supra-national unity could have led to a shift from a domesticated, conflict oriented coverage as found in previous studies to a more unified portrayal of the EU within and between the quality papers under study.

Since the nineties of the last century, there has been a modest rise of local referendums in the Netherlands. This article describes the important role played by independent local referendum committees, one of the most remarkable characteristics of the recent Dutch referendum experience. Their task is among others to advice about the wording of the question, to supervise the organisation of the referendum and the campaign and to handle complaints. The need to use an independent body to support the referendum process is missing in countries as Switzerland and the United States. The lack of referendum experience and the lack of confidence in Dutch local authorities forced them to introduce independent local referendum bodies. The role of these institutions fits in the traditions of the Dutch consensus democracy to engage experts to depoliticise delicate political problems.

Belgium did not organise a referendum on the European Constitution, like the Netherlands, even though there were some initiatives to make it legally possible. In the Netherlands there is also more experience with referenda at the local level. For decades there has been a debate about how to make it legal at the national level, but after many attempts, there is still no law that makes referenda possible at that level. The aim of this article is to compare Belgium and the Netherlands in order to identify similarities and differences. Some explanation can be found in the past, which clarifies why Belgium is reluctant to referenda and why at the local level this tool is not as often used as in the Netherlands. The main conclusion is that in spite of the referendum on the European Constitution in the Netherlands and the more frequent use of local referenda in that country, the political classes in Belgium and the Netherlands are comparable in their reluctant attitude towards this consultation of their citizens. Both countries continue to evaluate referenda as not in accordance with the system of representative democracy.

This special issue about the practice of local referendums in the Netherlands and Flanders, Belgium, focuses in particular on the relationship between referendums and the consensus model of democracy. On the one hand, referendums are widely conceived of as a typical majoritarian device. On the other hand, the legal possibility of referendums forces political elites to reach broad agreement, in order to prevent a popular vote in which decisions would be recalled. The three contributions to this issue demonstrate that consensus democracy influences the debate about referendums in the legislative, as well as how the practicalities are organised, in more varied ways. Studies of independent referendum bodies in the Netherlands and question wording in referendums in Flanders show that the nature of consensus democracy enables both countries to find solutions to potential problems, but also brings new problems. Guidelines for how these may be prevented in future referendums are provided.

According to many observers, contemporary politicians too often are being swayed by the issues of the day. Elected representatives are supposed to permanently monitor public opinion in general and opinion polls in particular and to act accordingly. An analysis of in-depth interviews with Dutch MPs and a content analysis of an important, long-lasting debate in Dutch Parliament indicates, however, that this popular claim is a misconception. Elected representatives disagree on the content and manifestations of ‘public opinion’ and seldom take it into consideration in their role as representatives. Moreover, public opinion is taken seriously only if it is well-considered and based on substantive knowledge and conclusive arguments.

In national elections the results tend to become more ‘nationalized’: a homogeneous party offer all over the territory, less variation in the results per constituency and more homogeneous electoral swings. This article investigates whether this nationalization can also be witnessed at local elections. It focuses on two indicators: the party offer and the voting behaviour. The party offer is the presence of the national parties on the local ballot paper, while the voting behaviour looks at patterns of homogeneity across the municipalities.
The answer to the question of nationalization is mixed. The Flemish and Walloon local elections display the same long-term trend as the national elections, but they keep their own local character. The heterogeneity of the local party offer clearly demonstrates the local specificity of the local elections, and consequently the voting behaviour also differs from the voting behaviour at national elections. We also find that the local elections in Wallonia are less nationalized than in Flanders.
Although the local character of the local elections remains important, the newer parties – Ecolo and Groen! – show until 2000 a clear trend towards nationalization. Especially the extreme right Vlaams Belang shows positive scores on all indicators of nationalization since its first local appearance in 1982.