Recently, studies have burgeoned on the link between populism and demands for democratic reforms. In particular, scholars have been debating the link between populist citizens or voters and support for referendums. In this article, we examine voters of populist parties (Vlaams Belang (VB) and Parti du Travail de Belgique-Partij van de Arbeid (PTB-PVDA)) in Belgium in 2019 and we look at their attitudes towards various types of democratic reforms. We find that voters of populist parties differ from the non-populist electorate in their support for different kinds of reforms of representative democracy. Voters of VB and PTB-PVDA have in common stronger demands for limiting politicians’ prerogatives, for introducing binding referendums and for participatory budgeting. While Vlaams Belang voters are not significantly different from the non-populist electorate on advisory referendums, citizens’ forums or technocratic reform, PVDA-PTB voters seem more enthusiastic.

As a response to the perceived legitimacy crisis that threatens modern democracies, local government has increasingly become a laboratory for democratic renewal and citizen participation. This article studies whether and why local party chairs support democratic innovations fostering more citizen participation. More specifically, we analyse the relative weight of ideas, interests and institutions in explaining their support for citizen-centred democracy. Based on the Belgian Local Chairs Survey in 2018 (albeit restricting our analysis to Flanders), the central finding is that ideas matter more than interests and institutions. Ideology is alive and kicking with regard to democratic innovation, with socialist and ecologist parties and populist parties being most supportive of participatory arrangements. By contrast, interests and institutions play, at this stage, a minor role in explaining support for participatory innovations.

In international comparative research, a dominant image often emerges of Denmark as a frontrunner in innovative governance, gaining top results in international rankings.
Based on four recent examples of national public reforms, this article studies the dynamics of reform implementation in Denmark, which can be characterised as expeditious and efficient. Three explanatory factors are discussed: a political, systemic and managerial factor. What is Denmark, a country in many ways similar to the Netherlands, doing differently? The article concludes that, for the Netherlands, the guiding element of Danish public reforms can be found not in the results of these reforms, but in the efficiency with which they are implemented.

Citizen participation is firmly on the agenda of many Western policy makers. Numerous opportunities for individuals to participate in public decision-making have been created. However, few citizens use these opportunities. Those who do are often the highly educated, white, middle and upper classes that also tend to dominate other democratic spaces. Opportunities to become active can increase inequalities in terms of whose voices are heard in public decision-making. This fundamentally challenges the central democratic value of equality. Nevertheless, others can represent the interests of those who remain silent. Using the concept of representative claim this paper explores a variety of forms of representation (electoral, formal non-electoral and informal self-appointed) in the domain of social policy which is currently decentralized in the Netherlands. We conclude that especially informal self-appointed representatives such as medical professionals, churches and patient organizations can potentially play an important role in representing groups who often remain unheard in the public debate. They can therefore play an important role in ensuring the democratic quality of the decentralization process.

The Dutch Minister for the Interior Ronald Plasterk has proposed far-reaching reforms for the structuring of the Dutch nation state. These reforms include decentralising tasks to municipalities and merging several provinces. So far, these plans have met with criticism and derision. This article discusses the tensions included in Plasterk’s plans and proposes several strategies for how change could still be possible.

At the start of the century, the organisational fields belonging to the public employment service and social security, which previously were strictly institutionally separated with their rules and norms, have been brought under one umbrella or network structure in the Netherlands. We discuss how within this structure adaptive and reflexive forms of governance enhance information feedback and simultaneous learning processes both at the top and in the execution level of social security. Based upon document study, interviews and a case study of a sectoral experiment on integral service provision, we illustrate which learning elements occurred in bridging the planning and control cycle of New Public Management at the top with the horizontal mutual adjustment between organisations at decentral level.

This paper provides an overview of the results of Scandinavian research into the lobbying activities of interest organisations. The paper is based on the reports of Danish and Norwegian scholars. These studies suppose that an association exists between the downfall of corporatist decision-making and policy implementation (among others observed in the decreasing number of boards, councils, and commissions), the increasing influence of parliament, and the increase in lobbying by interest organisations. The most important empirical evidence for this association is presented and discussed.

This paper offers an introduction to the research theme of 'lobbyism'. Recent Scandinavian research shows that lobbyism is a modern mirror view of corporatism, which develops through changes in the structure of decision-making and implementation by interest groups and government. Three questions are put forward: (a) what is the empirical evidence for the phenomenon of lobbyism? (b) what potential contribution could the concept of lobbyism make to a better understanding of corporatism in the Netherlands? (c) what are, according to the theory of collective decision-making, the most important differences between influence strategies in corporatist negotiation structures, and those in lobby networks?

The 2006 provincial elections in Belgium were the first organised after the transfer of the bulk of competences on local and provincial government from the federal to the regional level. This means that the different regions have both the competence to redesign the institutional framework on provincial government and to change the electoral rules. The government has exercised its competence: some institutional and electoral rules are now different in the two regions. These elections were also the first after drastic reforms in the national political landscape (e.g., the democratic Flemish nationalist party split in different groups, nearly all the parties changed their name and different kinds of cartels and alliances between parties emerged, especially in the Flemish part of the country).
All over the country, the Christian democrats and the extreme right parties were the winners of the elections, while the ecologists suffered from a declining trend. For the other parties, results differ according to region. In the Flemish part of the country, the socialists joined the Christian democrats as winners, where in the Walloon provinces they lost votes. The Liberals however noticed declining vote shares in the Flemish provinces, while winning in the Walloon part of the country.
Because of the electoral design the evolution of the provincial political landscape offers an interesting electoral barometer of the upcoming federal elections. Provincial elections do not only ‘predict’ the political future of other levels however, they are path dependent in their own right as well. Historical, institutional, political and electoral forces all codetermine the actual outlook of current provincial events. The analysis for 2006 has once again confirmed this.

The article analyses the gender balance in local Belgian politics in the aftermath of the 2006 local elections. It offers a comparative perspective on the position of candidates, representatives elected and those holding office including data from the last three decades. The article also discusses the attitude of local party sections towards measures to foster a gender balance. The data show that local party sections more easily agree on parity at the level of candidates than that they support a real sharing of power at the level of the executive power. Local party sections do not support more than a guaranteed minimum presence of wo/men in the councils of eldermen. Furthermore, both at the level of candidates and at that of the executive the data reveal a final glass ceiling. Women have difficulties reaching the top positions on electoral lists as well as the top positions in the local executive power.

Although the 2006 local elections can hardly be described as ‘historical’, there is sufficient evidence to distinguish remarkable characteristics associated with this elections. For the first time in decades, turnout has been growing. This evolution can be explained by several factors. This article emphasizes besides the impact of changes in the electoral rules, transformations in demographic structure of the population and the stake of the elections the importance of the media campaign surrounding the elections. However, in spite of this (national) campaigns, there are more than enough indications that local politics keeps its local ‘nature’. Secondly, the 2006 elections were the first ones organised after the transfer of the responsibility for municipality legislation from the federal state to the regions. This means that each region designed its own local government architecture and electoral rules. Yet, in practice, the consequences of this transformations seem to be very limited. Thirdly, and particular in the Flemish region, ‘strong mayors’ arose from the ballot stations (with the Antwerp mayor as the most spectacular case). The consequences of this trend will in the future be the issue of a new debate concerning the relations between council, board of alderman and mayor.

This article investigates the link between state decentralization and party decentralization. We study the impact of the type (dual, integrative, asymmetrical) and degree of decentralization on two dimensions of the relationship between a party’s central party organs and its regional branches: the autonomy of the regional branches to manage their regional affairs and the degree of participation of the regional branches in the central party. We compare the organization of five state-wide parties in two decentralized multi-national polities, Spain and the UK. Our analysis of their party statutes partly confirms the link between degree and asymmetry of decentralization and party organization. However, the impact of the type of distribution of powers between the state and its regions is much less clear. This article shows the need to investigate the influence of other factors such as regional party competition and electoral rules on the type of central-regional relationships within state-wide parties.

An important element in the debate on the hollowed State is the extent to which the subsidiary idea caused a decrease in dominance of the central State and lead to a multifaceted process of decentralisation. A case in point is the recent regionalisation of the competency to organise local government in Belgium. Based on Page and Goldsmith’s three dimensions in intergovernmental relations between central and local government (functions, discretion and access), we test the discourse of the reform of the local government in Flanders to its practice. It is argued that the principles of a subsidiary founded municipal autonomy, a growing fiscal and functional discretion and a personal disentanglement of local and central decision-makers was inspired by northern European models of government relations. These, however, are only partially being confirmed by the praxis of the reforms, as the main principles of the existing southern European models persist.