Party Strategies, Voter Demands and Territorial Reform in Belgium

Abstract

This article examines the determinants of the positioning of parties on the question of territorial reform in Belgium. It argues that one cannot explain the high salience assigned to the issue of decentralisation among political parties by looking only at voter demands. Instead, it is the dynamics of party competition that has encouraged parties to adopt an electoral and territorial logic of action. The article shows that the main driver of territorial reform in Belgium has been the continuous relevance of regionalist parties in the Flemish party system, which have compelled mainstream parties to accommodate their demands for territorial autonomy, and, more recently, independence. Regionalist parties have capitalised on a strong sense of Flemish national identity, itself shaped by long-run structural factors. The article also shows that the adoption of an electoral and territorial logic has been strengthened by the split of the Belgian party system and the reinforcement of social cleavages, and, more recently, by the increasing competitiveness of elections and the opening up of party competition at multiple levels.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for the comments by the anonymous referees of the journal and especially for the guidance and advice offered by Simon Toubeau and Emanuele Massetti.

Notes

1 .This district covers the region of Brussels but also includes 35 local municipalities located around Brussels and in the Flemish region. Flemish political parties have since the 1960s asked for this district to be split along the language border into one district for Brussels and one for the province of Flemish Brabant.

2 .This differentiation of positions suggests that ideology exercises some influence on the position of parties, since the parties on the left (Groen and SP.a) continue to value social solidarity between regions. However, it is worth noting that the only party family that supports the status quo, the greens, is also that which maintains the strongest ideological and organisational ties with its sister party in the francophone community. Moreover, all parties of the traditional ‘spiritual’ families (socialist, Christian democratic, liberal) adopt pro-decentralist position, albeit to varying degrees on different issues, with the SP.a exhibiting concern for social solidarity and the CD&V focusing also on symbolic questions, like the splitting of the Brussels electoral district.

3 .These attitudes are, however, measured at election time and might not be deeply rooted. Moreover, it should be noted that while social and economic issues are the most important determinants of the vote, they are not unrelated to the debate on constitutional reform. More autonomy for Flanders is defended with recourse to economic arguments about obtaining greater financial resources and determining the direction of economic, welfare and fiscal policy. Similarly, the fear of further devolution voiced by Francophone parties is related to a fear of losing the resources generated by the mechanisms of solidarity embodied in the Belgian social security system.

4 .The minority protection devices put in place following the 1970s constitutional reform were: (i) the majorities required for ratifying constitutional amendments and special laws affecting the status of linguistic communities and the powers of sub-state entities (consisting of two-thirds of votes in both houses and a simple majority of each linguistic group) and (ii) the alarm bells that can be rung by one linguistic group concerning bills that threaten to harm its interests.

5 .A splinter of the VU called the Vlaams Blok (renamed Vlaams Belang in 2003) was created in 1978 on the basis of its challenge to the VU’s participation in power and its decision to accept compromises on matters of state reform – in particular the status of Brussels in the Belgian federal architecture. It remained very small until it adopted also a radical right ideology in the early 1990s.

6 .That is similar to a volatility index for comparing two consecutive elections. Here we sum the absolute value of the differences of the results per party family and divide the sum by two.

7 .Vlaams Belang has always been separatist, but that was not its only position and the responses of other parties to its electoral rise have been directed against its xenophobic stance rather than its claim for independence (Swyngedouw 1992).

8 .The timing was: federal in 2003, regional in 2004, federal in 2007, regional in 2009 and federal again in 2010.