The Belgian politico-administrative relationship is known for its large ministerial cabinets who operate as interfaces between ministers and civil servants. According to Dierickx & Majersdorf (1994) ministerial cabinets are the central nodes in the Belgian policy-making networks, reducing the policy role of civil servants and shielding them from all relevant policy-making interactions. They found that pressure groups hardly ever turned to civil servants and stated that civil servants lived in an administrative beguinage. This article tests whether the conclusions of Dierickx & Majersdorf (1994) are still valid. Next, it seeks to explore the policy-making interactions of both actors in a more detailed way, since Dierickx & Majersdorf (1994) only measured the frequency of their contacts, not the direction, goal and/or content of the interactions. Based on a unique written survey-research among top civil servants and ministerial advisers, we discuss the role differences with regard to their interactions in four ‘arenas’

This paper analyzes the way the Flemish administration dealt with the competence transfer in the field of agriculture it experienced in 2001-2002. The main research question goes as follows: “Which factors have an impact on a successful competence transfer in the context of a state reform”. This research shows that the decision-making process has a negative impact on that success because of the difficulties the administration experiences with the translation of the vague political compromises in the law. On the other hand, there is evidence that the change management willingness and capacity of the ‘receiving’ Flemish and ‘losing’ federal administration have a positive influence on that success.

Downs (1957) has proposed that new political parties may be formed in order to change the policy positions of established parties. Rather than seeking to implement their own manifestos directly from government office, some new parties may seek to influence the manifestos of established parties in order to see their policy goals realized. While the notion is old, it has not been studied extensively. This paper seeks to find out under what conditions established parties take over policy positions specific to new parties. It looks at two points in time when an established party can do so: in anticipation, i.e., before a new party enters parliament, and in reaction, i.e., after a new party has entered parliament. To this end, the paper will study the anticipatory behaviour and reactions of all established parties to all new parties entering the Dutch political system since 1946.

In the run up to the elections, parties have several ways of communicating with voters. In the current paper, we focus on one piece of the puzzle: advertisements of political parties in the mass media. More specifically, we are interested in the choice of candidates within these ads. In countries where parties are the dominant actor, they are faced with a choice: not all candidates can be promoted in the campaign, as this would be too costly and inefficient. Thus, the first question we want to answer is what factors determine candidate choice in political ads? Secondly, does candidate choice in political ads have an effect on the subsequent coverage in media as well? Agenda setting research has shown that as far as issues are concerned, ads do set the media agenda. We investigate whether this also holds for candidate choice. The results indicate that both internal party hierarchy, as well as external visibility of candidates determines candidate choice in political ads. Furthermore, the agenda setting effect of political ads is confirmed as well.

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.

Political parties are the building blocks of representative democracy since they traditionally perform roles that are considered essential for the functioning and well-being of democracy. In the study and evaluation of the democratic system as a whole, as a general rule, parties are treated as unitary actors. Most political parties, however, are membership organizations and their external functioning is partly dependent on internal affairs, including the behavior and opinions of their members. In this paper we open the black box of parties and show on the basis of a 2008 survey among seven political parties how united or divided ordinary Dutch party members are with respect to various political issues and orientations. It is shown that most parties are rather united on most issues. They are least united on two of the most pertinent issues of today’s politics, i.e. the integration of ethnic minorities and European integration.

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.

This article details metaphor styles in Belgian-Flemish political discourse. Some scholars complain about uniformity and colorlessness of the modern political discourse. In this 'sound bite culture', metaphor plays, nevertheless, a major role. Sound bites were, in fact, found to rely upon these traditional elements of style. The present, empirical, article examines variety in metaphor used by Flemish politicians. The first part consists of a quantitative metaphor analysis of written press interviews with male and female politicians. The second part presents the results of in-depth interviews with politicians on the subject of their own and colleagues' political (metaphor) style strategies. The conclusion confronts politicians' impressions with our findings on political (metaphor) style in Flanders.

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.

Compulsory voting does not only increase voting turnout; it is also expected to have positive spill-over effects. Supposedly, citizens who are obliged to cast a vote will be more engaged in politics than citizens who are allowed to avoid politics. This article reviews the main arguments for this expectation. A rival expectation is formulated based on the idea that enforcements, duties and sanctions are likely to decrease the willingness of citizens to participate politically. A cross-national multi-level empirical test – covering turnout and political participation in twenty established democracies – shows that compulsory voting indeed increases voting turnout. Yet neither positive nor negative spill-over effects for other modes of political participation can be detected. Apparently, the consequences of compulsory voting are restricted to turnout.

Belgium is one of the advanced Western democracies with compulsory voting. There is continuing scholarly and societal debate on this feature of the electoral system, however, both form a normative and an empirical perspective. One argument in favor of compulsory voting is that it more or less guarantees the inclusion of all citizens of the political system, at least at election time. This paper addresses this argument in an empirical way on the basis of a 2007 survey from Flanders, by analyzing the potential drop outs at various layers of the political system and in different geographical locations in the case of the abolition of compulsory voting. It concludes that without the system of compulsory voting some particular groups of citizens will turn out in lower numbers than other groups. In the explanation of these diverging levels of turnout individual level characteristics are most important, e.g. political powerlessness, level of education, gender, age, as well as societal involvement and political preference. As a result of the abolition of compulsory voting the Flemish electorate will show itself in a differing electoral order of battle.

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.