In this paper we look at the way in which a wide range of interest groups have tried to influence political parties in Flanders. In order to test both aspects of the historic-institutional perspective and the rational choice perspective on party-group relations, we have analyzed the dissemination of in total 1569 memoranda by 616 interest groups over the six represented Flemish political parties in the 2013-2014 election year. We find that interest groups are very selective in the distribution of their memoranda to the different parties. Traditional parties seem more popular than new parties and political effectiveness seems to be the driver behind the selectivity of the large majority of the interest groups studied in this paper.

According to the advocates of the New Politics thesis youngsters are generally less interested in general elections, but are rather attracted by citizen-initiated referendums that are inspired by ecological, elite-challenging and pro-social motives. However, other scholars contend that the age-related differences that characterize participation in general elections are more or less universal because what really matters is how much is at stake. Yet, maybe a middle ground can be found between both perspectives if one explicitly takes into account the conditional nature of the New Politics theoretical framework. Based on exit-poll data regarding participation and vote choice in a Belgian citizen-initiated referendum in three different local contexts we test these conditional hypotheses. Our findings reveal that consistent with the New Politics thesis youngsters participate more and prefer pro-ecology, elite-challenging, and pro-social issue-frames, but only in ‘low stakes-contexts’ where no NIMBY-interests are at play.

Strengthening European citizenship is often considered as a ‘cure’ for the democratic deficit and the lack of legitimacy of the European Union. The present article focuses on the identity component of European citizenship, which is a core component of European citizenship. We distinguish two possible ways to strengthen European identity: a cognitive one (more knowledge about the EU leads to a stronger identity) and a utilitarian one (living in a member state that benefits more from its EU-membership leads to a stronger European identity). We test both explanatory models using a multilevel analysis on the data of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. 70,502 adolescents from 21 European member states were questioned in this study. Results indicate that knowledge about the EU only has a limited effect on European identity. The degree in which a member state contributes to the European budget does not seem to have an effect on the strength of European identity at all.

Various authors have claimed that postmodern concepts of citizenship have become more important in contemporary Western societies. The new generation of citizens are said to be more critical toward the political system, less likely to participate in conventional politics, but they remain strongly interested in politics and social life (Norris, Inglehart, Dalton). Michael Schudson developed the concept of a ‘monitorial citizen’, who is interested in politics, with high levels of political efficacy and who turns to political action if needed, but does not participate in traditional political organizations. Based on the European Social Survey (2004) we investigate whether this type of citizenship actually occurs in Belgium, and found that approx. 9 per cent of all respondents can be labeled as ‘monitorial citizens’. In accordance with the theoretical expectations, most of them are young and highly-educated citizens. A multivariate analysis shows that, controlling for education, ‘monitorial citizens’ also score relatively high on political trust.