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. |
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Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 3 2019 |
Keywords | voting, elections, blank vote, invalid vote, abstention |
Authors | Jean-Benoit Pilet, Maria Jimena Sanhuza, David Talukder e.a. |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Article |
How to Improve Local TurnoutThe Effect of Municipal Efforts to Improve Turnout in Dutch Local Elections |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 3 2019 |
Keywords | turnout, local elections, get out the vote, campaign, the Netherlands |
Authors | Julien van Ostaaijen, Sabine van Zuydam and Martijn Epskamp |
AbstractAuthor's information |
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. |
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Split-Ticket Voting in BelgiumAn Analysis of the Presence and Determinants of Differentiated Voting in the Municipal and Provincial Elections of 2018 |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 3 2019 |
Keywords | split-ticket voting, local elections, voting motives, Belgium, PR-system |
Authors | Tony Valcke and Tom Verhelst |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article tackles the particular issue of split-ticket voting, which has been largely overlooked in Belgian election studies thus far. We contribute to the literature by answering two particular research questions: (1) to what extent and (2) why do voters cast a different vote in the elections for the provincial council as compared to their vote in the elections for the municipal council? |
Research Notes |
Sub-Constituency Campaigning in PR SystemsEvidence from the 2014 General Elections in Belgium |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 3 2019 |
Keywords | Sub-constituency campaigning, PR system, political advertisements, election campaign, content analysis |
Authors | Jonas Lefevere, Knut De Swert and Artemis Tsoulou-Malakoudi |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Sub-constituency campaigning occurs when parties focus their campaign resources on specific geographical areas within an electoral district. This behaviour was traditionally thought to occur only in single-member plurality elections, but recent research demonstrates that proportional systems with multi-member districts can also elicit sub-constituency campaigning. However, most studies of sub-constituency campaigning rely on self-reported measures of campaigning, not direct measures of campaign intensity in different regions and communities. We present novel data on geographical variations in the intensity of Flemish parties’ campaign advertising during the 2014 general elections in Belgium, which provides a direct measure of sub-constituency campaigning. Our findings show clear evidence of sub-constituency campaigning: parties campaign more intensely in municipalities where they have stronger electoral support and in municipalities with greater population density. |
PhD Review |
‘Romani Women in European Politics: Exploring Multi-Layered Political Spaces for Intersectional Policies and Mobilizations’PhD by Serena D’Agostino (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), supervisors: Karen Celis, Ilke Adam. |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 2 2019 |
Authors | Peter Vermeersch |
Author's information |
Article |
Split Offer and Homogeneous Response in BelgiumThe Conceptual and Empirical Limitations of (De)Nationalization |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 2 2019 |
Keywords | (de-)nationalization, voting behaviour, party offer, voter response, methodological nationalism |
Authors | Luana Russo, Kris Deschouwer and Tom Verthé |
AbstractAuthor's information |
By examining the Belgian case, this article aims to show that methodological nationalism is strongly present in the literature on nationalization of party offer and voting behaviour. In nationalization studies, Belgium is often presented as a typical example of a denationalized country. This is true for the party offer, as it is de facto split between the two language groups since the 1980s, and therefore also voter response at the national level. However, voter response within each separate subnational party system is very homogeneous and shows interesting differences between these party systems that inform us about important electoral dynamics. We argue, on the basis of our results, that rather than stretching the concept of nationalization, it is preferable and justified to treat the concepts of nationalization of the party offer and homogenization of voter response as analytically distinct and not as two sides of the same coin. |
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Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 2 2019 |
Keywords | radical right-wing populist parties, economic policies, welfare chauvinism, populism, deserving poor |
Authors | Simon Otjes |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article examines the economic agenda of the Dutch Freedom Party. It finds that this party mixes left-wing and right-wing policy positions. This inconsistency can be understood through the group-based account of Ennser-Jedenastik (2016), which proposes that the welfare state agenda of radical right-wing populist parties can be understood in terms of populism, nativism and authoritarianism. Each of these elements is linked to a particular economic policy: economic nativism, which sees the economic interest of natives and foreigners as opposed; economic populism, which seeks to limit economic privileges for the elite; and economic authoritarianism, which sees the interests of deserving and undeserving poor as opposed. By using these different oppositions, radical right-wing populist parties can reconcile left-wing and right-wing positions. |
Article |
Consensus Democracy and Bureaucracy in the Low Countries |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 1 2019 |
Keywords | consensus democracy, bureaucracy, governance system, Lijphart, policymaking |
Authors | Frits van der Meer, Caspar van den Berg, Charlotte van Dijck e.a. |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Taking Lijphart’s work on consensus democracies as our point of departure, we signal a major shortcoming in Lijphart’s focus being almost exclusively on the political hardware of the state structure, leaving little attention for the administrative and bureaucratic characteristics of governance systems. We propose to expand the Lijphart’s model which overviews structural aspects of the executive and the state with seven additional features of the bureaucratic system. We argue that these features are critical for understanding the processes of policymaking and service delivery. Next, in order to better understand the functioning of the Netherlands and Belgium as consensus democracies, we provide a short analysis of the historical context and current characteristics of the political-administrative systems in both countries. |
Literature review |
Consensualism, Democratic Satisfaction, Political Trust and the Winner-Loser GapState of the Art of Two Decades of Research |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 1 2019 |
Keywords | consensualism, majoritarianism, political trust, satisfaction with democracy, Lijphart |
Authors | Tom van der Meer and Anna Kern |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Lijphart (1999) argued that citizens tend to be more satisfied with democracy in consensual democracies than in majoritarian democracies and that the gap in democratic satisfaction between the winners and the losers of elections is smaller under consensualism. Twenty years on since then, this article takes stock of the literature on consensualism and political support. We find considerable ambiguity in the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence provided in this literature. Finally, we speculate on possible reasons for this ambiguity. |
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Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 1 2019 |
Keywords | Belgium, political parties, party membership, political participation, political representation |
Authors | Emilie Van Haute and Bram Wauters |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Belgium has long been described as a typical case of a consociational or consensus democracy. This article aims at identifying whether political parties in Belgium share the internal characteristics of parties in consensus democracies: passive mass memberships, the importance of purposive and material incentives for joining, and representation of a clear subculture in the social and attitudinal profiles of their members and via overlapping memberships with related organizations. We mobilize longitudinal party membership data and party member surveys conducted in three different time periods. We show that pillar parties still exercise their role of mobilization and representation of societal segments, but these segments tend to become smaller over time. New parties offer alternative options of mobilization and representation, although not always in line with the specific institutional arrangements of consociational democracy. |
Article |
Transformative Welfare Reform in Consensus Democracies |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 1 2019 |
Keywords | consensus democracy, welfare state, social investment, transformative reform, Belgium and the Netherlands |
Authors | Anton Hemerijck and Kees van Kersbergen |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article takes up Lijphart’s claim that consensus democracy is a ‘kinder, gentler’ form of democracy than majoritarian democracy. We zoom in on contemporary welfare state change, particularly the shift towards social investment, and argue that the kinder, gentler hypothesis remains relevant. Consensus democracies stand out in regard to the extent to which their political institutions help to overcome the politically delicate intricacies of governing for the long term. We theorize the features that can help to solve the problem of temporal commitment in democracy through processual mechanisms and illustrate these with short case studies of the contrasting welfare state reform experiences in the Netherlands and Belgium. |