Preference votes constitute one of the key features of (open and flexible) PR-list electoral systems. In this article, we give an extensive overview of studies conducted on preference voting in Belgium and the Netherlands. After elaborating on the definition and delineation of preference voting, we scrutinize studies about which voters cast preference votes (demand side) and about which candidates obtain preference votes (supply side). For each of these aspects, both theoretical approaches and empirical results are discussed and compared. At the same time, we also pay attention to methodological issues in these kinds of studies. As such, this research overview reads as an ideal introduction to this topic which has repercussions on many other subfields of political science.

In this article, we propose an in-depth exploration of blank and null ballots in the recent 2018 local elections in Wallonia (Belgium). In the official results, both blank and null ballots are merged together and are classified as invalid votes. After obtaining the authorization to access genuine electoral ballots, we study the votes which were not considered for the composition of local councils in detail. The dataset is a representative sample of 13,243 invalidated ballots from 49 Walloon municipalities. We first describe how many of these invalidated ballots are blank and how many are null votes, as well as the nature of the nulled votes (unintended errors or intentionally spoiled ballots). Second, we dig deeper into the differences between ballots that have been intentionally invalidated by voters (blank votes and intentional null votes) and ballots non-intentionally invalidated. Our results show that most of the ballots (two-thirds) are null ballots and that among them, half are unintentional null ballots. Finally, we show that contextual (socio-demographic and political) factors explain the variations in intentional and unintentional null votes across municipalities.

Even though many municipalities use a variety of means to improve turnout in local elections, citizen participation in local elections is a point of concern in many Western countries, including the Netherlands. Our research question is therefore: How effective are municipal efforts to improve turnout in (Dutch) local elections? To this end, we collected data from three sources: (1) a survey sent to the municipal clerks of 389 Dutch municipalities to learn what they do to improve turnout; (2) data from Statistics Netherlands on municipalities’ socio-demographic characteristics; and (3) data on the turnout in local elections from the Dutch Electoral Council database. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, we found that the direct impact of local governments’ efforts to improve turnout is low. Nevertheless, some measures seem to be able to make a difference. The relative number of polling stations was especially found to impact turnout.

The increased complexity of multilevel democracies makes the evaluation of the performances of the government an increasingly difficult task for citizens. Multilevel governance involves information costs, which makes it more difficult for citizens to give clear responsibility for government tasks to the correct level of government. This article contains the first study that is focussing on the responsibility perceptions in the Netherlands. The authors do not just look at who citizens hold responsible for certain government tasks, but they also look at the consequences of these perceptions for the mechanism of accountability. The satisfaction of citizens are with the policy in a particular area should only influence the political support for the level of government they hold responsible. Results of the research are that in line with this perspective a strong correlation exists between satisfaction with the pursued policy and trust of the citizens in this government, in proportion as they hold a level of government more responsible. On the other hand there are large differences between citizens, that correlate with their level of education. So there are also large groups of citizens for whom it is not possible to keep governments responsible for the policy pursued, because they simply do not know which government is responsible.

In this paper, I study gender-based voting behavior in the Belgian proportional electoral system. In particular, I investigate two possible causes for why voters experience the need to simplify their voting decision by using a gender-cue. First, in line with the findings of previous studies, I find that voters with lower levels of political sophistication who are less able to collect and process political information, are consequently more likely to use the sex of a candidate as a shortcut. However, the effect of political sophistication on gender-based voting behavior is limited. Second, based on the literature, I expect that the low information context of the second-order European elections would cause both high and low information voters to become more reliant on gendercues to simplify their voting decision and by extent would cause the effect of political sophistication on gender-based voting to diminish. Against theoretical expectations, I find that the effect of the electoral context is negligible.

In this article we show that theories and methods from psychology are valuable for public administration scholars and practitioners. We advocate the development of an interdisciplinary approach entitled ‘Behavioral Public Administration’. It is not the intention that Behavioral Public Administration replaces traditional public administration research. It is an addition. We start with an analysis of the background of Behavioral Public Administration research via a historical overview of the work of Herbert Simon among others. After that, we demonstrate that Behavioral Public Administration can be valuable (a) to test public administration theories and refine these; (b) to encourage methodological sophistication of public administration research; and (c) to improve the interaction between science and practice. We hope that this article contributes to a fruitful conversation that leads to a scientific and practical research area where public administration scholars and psychologists work together and learn from each other.

In this paper we investigate the effect of political sophistication on turnout and whether this effect differs in second-order national elections. Political sophistication is thought to influence turnout because the more sophisticated voters have access to more information about the electoral and the party system. In this paper, we start from the expectation that these effects should be even stronger in the context of secondorder national elections, where information about the stakes of the election is not readily available. We analyse citizens’ willingness to turn out to vote at different levels of government in Belgium and the Netherlands. The results show that a higher degree of political sophistication increases the probability to turn out at the national as well as the European level. Our expectation that this effect would be larger at the European level, however, is not supported by these results.

The Dutch electorate is the most volatile of Western Europe. At its height in 2002 more than 30 percent of the seats in the Dutch Lower House changed to another party. But what does the increased electoral volatility mean? Are volatile voters whimsical, behaving randomly like drift-sand? Or are volatile voters emancipated, no longer committed to a single political party but still loyal to their own preferences?We answer these questions by analysing the 1VOP panel data set, which covers 55.847 adult respondents who participated in at least 2 of the 58 waves between November 2006 and June 2010.First, we assess the presence, frequency, and direction of changes in voters’ party preferences. More than half of the respondents (52 percent) changed party preference at least once. However, they mostly stick to one of two ideologically coherent party blocks.Second, we explain why some voters are more likely to change party preference than others. Especially middle groups are volatile: people with modal income and average levels of education, and people who position themselves in the political center. However, the lower educated are more likely to switch between dissimilar parties. These findings support the view that increased volatility reflects voter emancipation.

The number of preference votes for the candidates running in the October 2006 local elections in the thirteen main cities of Flanders is largely determined by the position on the list and the previous political mandate. A multivariate analysis shows that an executive function on the local level yields a comparable electoral bonus as a national mandate. The campaign expenditures also have a significant effect. There is a spending limit, but the candidates on average spend only 22% of what they are allowed to. Christian-democratic candidates generally spend the most, with the liberals ranked second. The gender, age and professional status of the candidates have at most a very marginal effect on their electoral score, controlling for the other relevant variables. Candidates with a foreign name obtain a somewhat better result on average, but this is particularly the case with candidates running for the socialist party.