Blue collars striking the Red Flag: formal and descriptive representation of the working class in the Belgian House of Representatives 1946–2007

Abstract

In this article the effect of ideological changes in political parties (catch-all process) and in their recruitment patterns (professionalization) on the party affiliation of working-class politicians is investigated in Belgium, both for Members of Parliament (MPs) and for candidates. The disappearance of the link between the working class and social-democratic parties due to enlargement of the parties’ focus coincides with a decline in formal and descriptive representatives of that class in such parties. This could be problematic for the substantive representation of working-class interests. The relatively high number of working-class representatives in extreme right parties do not necessarily defend all working-class interests.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Robert Myttenaere, Jean-Claude Vanden Broeck and Lutgarde Aerts from the Services of the House of Representatives and Filip Strubbe from the National State Archives for their cooperation and assistance in conducting this research. We are also grateful to Thomas Vanhoutte and Malicorne Buysse for gathering the data and putting them into electronic files. Helpful comments on earlier versions were given by Karen Celis, Petra Meier, the participants of a workshop on political parties at the Flemish-Dutch ‘Politicologenetmaal 2010’ in Leuven and two anonymous reviewers of this journal.

Notes

1. Phillips, Politics of Presence.

2. For example, Rule and Zimmerman, Electoral Systems; Dahlerup, ‘Electoral Gender Quotas’; Togeby, ‘Political Representation’.

3. For example, Anthias, ‘The Material and the Symbolic’; Liddle et al., ‘Gender, Class and Power’.

4. Norris, ‘Legislative Recruitment’; Costa and Kerrouche, Qui Sont les Députés français?

5. Phillips, Politics of Presence, 178.

6. Manza and Brooks, ‘Class and Politics’, 201.

7. Wauters, ‘Bringing Class (Back) in’.

8. Meier, ‘Evidence of Being Present’.

9. Best and Cotta, Parliamentary Representatives.

10. Norris, ‘Legislative Recruitment’.

11. Krook, ‘Candidate Gender Quotas’.

12. Pitkin, Concept of Representation, 113.

13. Celis, ‘Substantive Representation’; Owens, ‘Black Substantive Representation’.

14. Phillips, Politics of Presence.

15. Williams, Voice, Trust, and Memory.

16. Pantoja and Segura, ‘Does Ethnicity Matter?’

17. Manza and Brooks, ‘Class and Politics’.

18. For example, Clark and Lipset, ‘Are Social Classes Dying?’; Pakulski and Waters, Death of Class.

19. For example, Marshall, ‘John Goldthorpe’; Goldthorpe and McKnight, ‘Economic Basis’.

20. Klandermans, ‘Does Class still Unite?’

21. Strangleman, ‘Networks, Place and Identities’; MacKenzie et al., ‘“All that is Solid?”’

22. De Weerdt and De Witte, ‘Maatschappijbeelden’, 134–8.

23. Cotta and Verzichelli, ‘Paths of Institutional Development’.

24. Norris, ‘Legislative Recruitment’.

25. Best, ‘Cleavage Representation’.

26. Katz, ‘Problem of Candidate Selection’.

27. Meier, ‘Mutual Contagion Effect’.

28. Matland and Studlar, ‘Contagion of Women Candidates’; Caul, ‘Women's Representation’.

29. Cotta and Verzichelli, ‘Paths of Institutional Development’, 454–5.

30. Kirchheimer, ‘Transformation of West European Party Systems’; Katz and Mair, ‘Changing Models’.

31. Przeworski and Sprague, Paper Stones; Ilonszki, ‘Socialist and Communist Members of Parliament’.

32. Volkens, ‘Policy Changes’.

33. Houtman et al., Farewell to the Leftist Working Class.

34. For example, Clark and Lipset, ‘Are Social Classes Dying?’

35. Van der Waal et al., ‘Class Is Not Dead’.

36. Lipset, ‘Democracy’.

37. Kitschelt, Radical Right.

38. Best and Cotta, Parliamentary Representatives.

39. Cotta and Verzichelli, ‘Paths of Institutional Development’.

40. Vander Weyden et al., ‘De Sp.a-Leden Doorgelicht’.

41. Fiers and Secker, ‘A Career through the Party’.

42. Katz, ‘Problem of Candidate Selection’.

43. Meier, ‘Evidence of Being Present’.

44. Best and Cotta, Parliamentary Representatives.

45. ISCO88 is an abbreviation of International Standard Classification of Occupations. It is an international classification system of occupations, according to which a specific code can be assigned to every single occupation. This coding scheme has been developed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

46. ESeC-codes refers to the European Socio-Economic Classification system, a conversion system of occupations into social classes developed within the 6th European Framework Program. For a more extensive description of this method, see Wauters, ‘Bringing Class (Back) in’; Harrison and Rose, European Socio-economic Classification (ESeC) User Guide.

47. Data for 1977 and 1978 are absent since these data could not be located in the House of Representatives or in the National State Archives.

48. Cotta and Verzichelli, ‘Paths of Institutional Development’.

49. Cotta and Verzichelli, ‘Paths of Institutional Development’.

50. Wauters et al., ‘Giving More Weight’.

51. In Belgium, there are no national parties. Parties are organized on the regional level. As a consequence, there are French-speaking and Flemish parties, which function autonomously from each other. Therefore, we use the term ‘party family’. A ‘party family’ includes regional parties with the same party ideology. The liberal party family, for instance, includes liberal parties in Flanders and Wallonia.

52. Although the French-speaking social-democratic party manages to hold its traditional electorate and to keep traditional economic topics high on the political agenda (see Coffé, ‘Social Democratic Parties’), there is no difference in the amount of working-class MPs compared with the Flemish social-democratic party. For the candidate lists, the Flemish social-democratic party even obtains a higher score than the French-speaking one.

53. Dubrow, ‘Enhancing Descriptive Representation’; Ilonszki, ‘Socialist and Communist Members of Parliament’.

54. Phillips, Politics of Presence.

55. Coffé, ‘(Small) Entrepreneurs First!’