This article tries to analyse and improve the individual-level approaches to the study of public Euroscepticism in Belgium. In recent literature, three approaches focusing on instrumental, cultural and political cues can be distinguished. First, the utilitarian approach associates Euroscepticism with economic interests. Second, the cultural approach draws on cultural attitudes and affective identities. Third, the political approach associates support for European integration with political effi cacy and institutional trust. Drawing upon Belgian data from the IntUne Project 2007, the results show that negative evaluations of the benefits of European membership, social distrust in European fellow citizens and institutional distrust in the EU are the most important determinants of Euroscepticism, while education, national attachment, exclusive identity and political powerlessness have a minor impact.

This article examines legislative turnover and parliamentary career length in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives since Belgian independence in 1831. Early on a stable representative elite emerged, characterized by a relatively low turnover and an average parliamentary career of nearly ten years. This pattern has changed substantially in the second half of the twentieth century. The average career length in the Chamber is nowadays historically low, due to some extent to the practice of level-hopping. The distribution of career lengths is at the same time highly asymmetrical. The literature on parliamentary careers and turnover suggests three major explanatory variables: regime change, the evolution of political parties and of the institutional framework. In the Belgian case institutional reform and regime change generated merely temporary effects. The same goes for the rise of the organised mass party at the end of the 19th century. The drop in average career length after the Second World War corresponds with a tighter hold of political parties on the selection process of parliamentary candidates.

Nowadays, municipalities form strategies and interact with the challenges and opportunities offered by the context in which they operate. From now on, Flemish municipalities are even obliged by the municipal decree to draw up a multiannual strategic plan (albeit in a transitory phase for the current legislature). That plan must formulate a coordinating strategy for the municipality and must contain guidelines for policy. In our contribution we want to examine on the one hand the particular meaning of this strategic plan for local governments. Which contents are given to these plans? How did these plans came about? What is the further course of these plans? What is the possible infl uence of local finances? Etc. On the other hand, we also want to take a broader look: how do we place the strategic plan in the light of the challenge of broader strategy formulation and decision-making which plays a vital role in contemporary local government?
Starting from a case study in the city of Kortrijk that incorporates both research perspectives, we consecutively conduct an exploring study into this young practice of strategic planning in all Flemish municipalities. Thereby we use in both cases opinion research by interviewing/surveying some key actors (politicians and/or civil servants). They help us to (re-)construct a provisional picture of the contents, the lay out and the future possibilities of strategic plans in contemporary local government.

Over the past decade many Western local governments have been experimenting with initiatives inviting the participation of ordinary citizens in public policy-making. However recurrently popular the idea of such participation, its practice is usually quite disappointing. Few ordinary citizens take an interest in participating in policy-affairs, and official policy-makers, anyhow, often seem to lack the will or means to contemplate or adopt their policy-suggestions. Hence, policy participation by ordinary citizens has a strong tendency to “evaporate”. In this article I address the question why this might be so. Drawing from the literature and qualitative interviews, I suggest five broad causal mechanisms to account for the phenomenon of participatory evaporation. This phenomenon seems, in fact, so overdetermined that it is hard to think of the conditions under which policy participation by ordinary citizens might work at all.

The smallest parliament in Belgium is the one of the German-speaking community with its 25 members. It is responsible for only 74.000 inhabitants and nine municipalities, but it is nonetheless a fully fledged parliament and government. Due to its limited size and therefore little attention in media and political science, its functioning is quite unknown. This article describes the profile of its politicians and examines the legislative and controlling function of the Parliament, while considering its relationship with the Government. As in other parliaments, we expect a dominant government but due to some distinct characteristics, we expect this to be even truer for the German Community. Therefore, while explaining the results of our research, the emphasis will be put on these characteristics.

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.

Starting from principal-agent theory, this article analyses the conditions under which an EU negotiator enjoys a particular degree of negotiation autonomy vis-à-vis the member states he represents during multilateral environmental negotiations. A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of eight EU decision-making processes with regard to international negotiations leading to a multilateral environmental agreement indicates that the compellingness of the international negotiations explains the occurrence of negotiation autonomy. However, the international compellingness does not provide explanatory power to understand the particular degree of negotiation autonomy. To understand when an EU negotiator enjoys a high degree of negotiation autonomy, variables such as preference distances, information asymmetries and institutional density need to be taken into account.

For the European Union to exhibit some ‘actorness’ in the world of international relations requires it to have a certain amount of autonomy from its constituent members. This article analyses, in this respect, the degrees of freedom the Council Secretariat and the European Commission enjoy in the context of the CFSP. While this EU policy is generally known to be intergovernmental, both institutions arguably do have some political influence over the substantive outcomes. This is not the result of formal competencies institutionalized in the Treaties, but rather of an accumulated process and content expertise in these institutions, which can be transformed into political influence via informal means.

The EU is increasingly developing a grand strategy for framing its external policies in a coherent way. The European Security and Defence Policy offers the EU access to military instruments, enabling it to conduct civilian and military operations. This article investigates to what extent the EU can be qualified as a strategic actor, i.e. having a clear vision of how to act in the security domain and the will to do so. Furthermore, we evaluate whether past practices are leading to the framing of a EU strategic culture. As a test case we offer an in-depth analysis of the planning of EUFOR Tchad/RCA – the most recent and largest autonomous military operation the EU has conducted so far. This shows the progress the EU has made in developing its external posture, but also makes clear there exists a conceptual gap in terms of military strategy, where operational planning remains plagued by ad-hoccery.

This introductory article situates the three contributions to this special issue on ‘Europe and the world’ within the broader academic discussion on the European Union’s (EU) international role. It expands on the two central questions that run as a red line through this issue: what is the role and power of EU level players in the external policymaking process; what kind of power is Europe in the world? The fi rst part focuses on the explanatory power of rational choice theories and more particularly the principal-agent model when trying to understand the power struggle between the European and national level. The second part addresses the question whether the EU constitutes a sui generis type of international actor, as suggested by the Normative Power Europe hypothesis. With the articles in this special issue as a starting point, it points to the promises and pitfalls of the particular approaches for researching Europe’s international role and makes suggestions for future research.