Prochain Séminaire CESPOL

Since the early 1990s, Belgium experienced significant changes in electoral politics. These changes concern the electoral rules (larger constituencies, introduction of an electoral threshold, of gender quota, public party finance and spending caps, and higher impact of preference voting), the party system (increasing fragmentation, volatility, issue and protest voting), trends towards the personalisation of politics, and the creation of an important new career track, i.e. the regional parliaments directly elected since 1995.

This article asks about the effects of electoral change on personal vote seeking behaviour. Theoretically, it assumes negative effects for two main reasons. First, electoral change renders it more difficult for Belgian candidates to target a distinct geographic constituency and hence to engage in individualised face-to-face vote seeking activities. Second, many of these changes reinforce the oligarchisation of party organisations, which can be expected to promote party rather than candidate centred campaigns.

Empirically, it aims to understand the variation in the level of personal vote seeking with regard to the campaign and party context. As we lack genuine longitudinal data on this matter, the analysis needs to be conducted in cross-sectional ways based upon data flowing from the first and a second wave of the Belgian part of the Comparative Candidate Survey conducted in 2007 and 2010. We will refer to the 2007 results, but not engage in a truly longitudinal analysis, not only because the time span is too short, but also because of the fact that the 2007 elections were “regular” elections giving parties and candidates ample time and resources to develop a party vs. candidate centred campaign, while for the 2010 early election came somehow a surprise as the Flemish liberals “pulled out the plug on the “BHV issue”.