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Many Western parties have opened up the process of leadership selection to party members under the noble premises to democratize the party. Yet, this might just be window-dressing as party leadership selection is often a coronation rather than an open contest. We argue that the preparation phase preceding the actual election phase is crucial in understanding the balance between the impact of party members and the steering of the party elite. This study compares the preparation phase of two leadership contests after losing elections in one party, the Flemish Christian-democratic party in Belgium: one with a single candidate and one with an exceptionally high number of candidates. Our analysis, based on 22 in-depth elite interviews, demonstrates that leadership elections are influenced by a cluster of different influencing actors, but in particular by what we label the “last person standing” whose candidacy is identified as the most effective mechanism to influence the nomination process. Other (slightly less effective) influencing mechanisms include encouragements, discouragements and the diffusion of an ideal profile for the future party leader.

While the knowledge on how candidate selection happens begins to be rather organised, remarkably little attention has been paid to the selection criteria for candidates, “which one might have supposed was central” (King in Stark 1996, 124). Why do selectorates prefer some candidates and put others aside? What drives them? The dearth of knowledge of why some aspirants are chosen over others is puzzling when we consider the growing gap between citizens and elites together with the importance for the elected assemblies to be representative. This paper aims to investigate the informal selection criteria and questions on what basis political parties make their selection choices. Considering that selectorates may rely on individual characteristics of the candidates, but in a list system, that they might also want to ‘balance the ticket’, this research tackles criteria both at the individual and the aggregate levels. Based on the party strategic goals’ framework (Sjoblom 1968), the competition between aspirants at the selection stage is expected to revolve around the criteria of acceptability, electability and competence, in that order of importance. I study the case of the Belgian francophone green party Ecolo, where the selection process involves both an exclusive and an inclusive selectorate. In-depth interviews with party selectors constitute the empirical basis of the analysis and deepen our knowledge as to whether some profiles of citizens are more likely to be selected, and thus face better chances to enter the parliament.

For the last twenty years, political scientists in French-speaking Belgium have been federated under the French-speaking Belgium Political Science Association (ABSP) which is the IPSA representative for Belgium and heir of the once unitary Belgian Institute for Political Science. ABSP just celebrated its 20th anniversary and published a book in French that offers the state of the discipline in terms of teaching, research, and service: L’ABSP: 20 ans de science politique en Belgique francophone (Reuchamps et al. 2017). No fewer than 43 political scientists from all Belgian French-speaking universities and from the different fields in the discipline contributed to this edited volume. In this chapter, we build on these insights to present the state of political science in French-speaking Belgium in regards to the digital (r)evolution. Based on longitudinal data and perspectives about teaching, research, and service, we seek to assess how political science evolves in our – small – part of the world, with a special focus on how it has embraced (or not) the digitalization trend in the discipline., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The paradox of federalism lies at the heart of linguistically divided democracies: it is both a solution to reach compromises and yet it can foster additional tensions. With a long-started opposition between Flemings and Francophones that led to six State reforms in fifty years, Belgium provides a case in point to study how discourse and political change interact. Building on an interdisciplinary political science and linguistics approach, this paper draws on discursive institutionalism and investigates discourses on Belgian federalism, relying on 81 television debates from the 1970's until 2016 (22 hours of video data) from the francophone public broadcaster in Belgium, RTBF. Our corpus is a solid indicator of the progressive - albeit not without political tensions - transformation of the Belgian system. A quantitative and qualitative content analysis helps identify the selling points used to defend/criticize the complex and technical State reforms, and present them to the public to make it more or less desirable. Our analysis (1) considers the evolution of discourses on Belgian federalism longitudinally and thus allows questioning if and how elite discourses evolved alongside State reforms and also, if and how discourses vary depending on the kinds of actors (journalists, politicians, representatives from the civil society) and across actors (Flemish vs. French-speaking politicians and between political parties). (2) It compares the discourses before and after the main reform phases and discusses how discourse may influence change (and vice versa). The paper offers an original approach to analyze how political elites communicate on and perceive evolutions of federalism.

A revised version of this paper has been published in: "Basic Income Studies : an international journal of basic income research" - Vol. 13, no. 2, p. 1-16 https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal:206958 Many studies in cognitive linguistics have highlighted the important role of metaphors in political discourse, and more specifically their ability to frame complex concepts (Lakoff 1996). The key question is however under which conditions different framings lead to different representations of such complex political issues. Using an experimental design, this paper tackles the question of the framing impact of metaphors by focusing on the opportunity to implement a basic income (BI) system in a given polity. We take advantage of the preliminary stage of the BI debate in Belgium to study the influence of discursive strategies on the opinion formation process of individuals. As De Wispelaere and Noguera (2012) highlighted, the framing of the BI proposal may significantly increase its psychological feasibility. Carefully choosing the arguments employed to address this question can help avoid triggering negative perceptions and ensure positive attitudes toward this policy. While most studies on the BI so far have been either normative or descriptive, our experiment aims at determining to what extent the confrontation of individuals to metaphors illustrating the BI system impact the way they apprehend its implementation in Belgium. We show that very light variations in an informative text can induce major differences in the opinion formation process of the participants. This suggests that, when a debate is controversial and ambiguous, citizens’ opinions are sensitive to framing effects. BI proponents or opponents should thus pay particular attention to which arguments and metaphors are put forward in the public debate, as this could modify its outcome.

Building on an interdisciplinary approach bringing together political science and linguistics, this paper investigates how and why metaphors are used by Belgian politicians. In particular, the article focuses on the usage of metaphors to describe the evolution of federalism in the country over time. As argued by Ritchie (2013), ‘examining metaphors that appear in political discourse provides insights into the way speakers understand their situation, and how they seek to accomplish their ends’. This research undertakes a systematic analysis of the use of metaphors by Belgian politicians during television debates from the 1980’s until now. We rely on an original longitudinal corpus of 127 (part of) television debates covering 40 years from both public broadcasters in Belgium: the Dutch-speaking VRT and the French-speaking RTBF. The selected television debates relate to the progressive – albeit not without political tensions – transformation of Belgium’s political system. Our corpus is thus a solid indicator of this political transformation and therefore provides a fertile ground for the analysis of metaphors. To do so, we will conduct a corpus analysis by applying the MIPVU procedure (Steen et al., 2010) in order to identify potential metaphorical contexts. In line with Steen’s three-dimensional model (2008), we will subsequently analyse the identified metaphors by making a distinction between three different layers of metaphor, respectively at the linguistic, conceptual and communicative levels. Building on previous studies (Perrez & Reuchamps 2014), this analysis makes it possible to determine which (deliberate) metaphors have been used by the political elite to describe the establishment and evolution of the federal system, and more specifically, to assess to what extent this metaphor usage evolved over time and across the linguistic border.

In flexible list systems, two parallel competitions take place: parties compete for the greatest share of seats while candidates run against their co-partisans to obtain their own seat. This paper investigates the intraparty competition pattern by building a four-category typology of electoral candidates according to both their electoral success and their popularity. The aim is to identify the profile of the “unlucky winners”, i.e. those who gathered more preference votes than some of their elected co-partisans but who did not obtain a seat because of a too low list position. These candidates reveal a tricky feature of the representative democracy and of flexible list systems where personalisation is encouraged but does not really pay off. The paper studies Sweden and Belgium, two countries whose electoral systems provide that the electoral popularity does not automatically lead to the election. On the basis of a database of Swedish and Belgian candidates running for the last legislative elections held in their respective countries (i.e. in 2014), the paper quantitatively assesses the profile of these candidates swimming against the tide and who would benefit from a more personalised system.

A revised version of this paper has been published in: "Basic Income Studies : an international journal of basic income research" - Vol. 13, no. 2, p. 1-16 https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal:206958 The debate on the opportunity to implement a basic income is vivid in the academic, political and civil society spheres. Scholars, politicians and citizens deliberate on its mere implementation but also on its characteristics. Based on the one hand on this analysis that there is no agreement in the basic income debate, and on the other hand on the fact that previous studies assert that metaphors may influence the way individuals consider an abstract concept, we ran an experiment among first-year bachelor students, splitting them randomly into several groups. The aim of our research was to assess the impact of a metaphor on the respondents’ preferences regarding the basic income. Accordingly, participants were shown a text on the basic income with or without a metaphor – while the control group had no text at all. Logistic and multinomial regression models help us uncover the impact of the presence of metaphors. Our results indicate that metaphors do impact the political preferences of participants. Those who read a text with a metaphor tend to disagree less with the implementation of a basic income than participants who were not confronted with a metaphor. The reading of a text without metaphor has no impact on the positioning regarding the basic income. This demonstrates that it is indeed the metaphor that shaped the behaviour of participants in favour of the basic income. Most interestingly, it seems that the level of political knowledge of participants plays a determining role. Metaphors frame participants’ preferences conditioning a certain score on political knowledge. Participants with low levels of political knowledge are more likely to be influenced by the metaphor. These results suggest that political discourses may be critical to the framing of citizens’ political preferences.

The political impact of metaphors has often been taken for granted from metaphor analysis in political discourse. Indeed, the framing function of metaphors, known as their ability to “select some aspects of a perceived reality and make it more salient in a communicating context” (Entman, 1993: 52) has often been established on the basis of the production of metaphors in particular kind of political discourse, but has not been directly studied from the perspective of their impact on citizens’ representations and political preferences until recently Perrez & Reuchamps (2015). Recent research on the subject however points to contradicting results. Whereas Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2011, 2013, 2015) observed that different metaphorical frames related to the target domain of crime led the citizens to opt for different policies, Steen and colleagues (2014, 2015) could not find similar evidence in a series of replication studies. This led them to suggest that the impact of metaphors on (political) reasoning was not automatic, but could be influenced by other parameters, such as extendedness, aptness or deliberateness (Steen et al 2015). A more recent study conducted by Dodeigne, Perrez & Reuchamps (2016) on the impact of a Tetris metaphor on the perception of Belgian federalism also suggested that the potential impact of metaphors on reasoning could interact with the level of political knowledge of the citizens. More specifically, the citizens with a lower level of political knowledge appeared to be more likely to be influenced by the metaphor, than the citizens with a higher level of political knowledge. Bearing on these different insights, this paper aims at studying under which circumstances metaphors can influence citizens’ political reasoning, by more specifically looking into the exact role played by the level of political knowledge. To do so, we conducted two experiments among approx. 1200 first year bachelor students focusing on their perception of and preferences towards the concept of basic income. More specifically, we designed three different versions of an input text, each based on a different metaphorical frame (respectively a foundation frame, a pocket money frame and a springboard frame). The participants were distributed into different experimental conditions (2 control conditions and 3 metaphorical conditions) according to the type of input they had been exposed to, and were subsequently asked to perform a free description task and to fill in a questionnaire measuring different dimensions of their level of political knowledge on the one hand and their preferences regarding the introduction of a system of basic income on the other hand. This experimental design should allow us to determine the influence of the different metaphorical frames on the citizens preferences, but also to determine to what extent this potential influence of metaphors interact with the level of political knowledge of the participants. The results are currently under analysis and will be presented in detail at the conference.

Candidate selection is critical to politics (Hazan & Rahat 2010). While this statement has been widely shared in the academic literature, little empirical research actually tested the relationship between the selection methods and the outcome of the process, i.e. the type of political elites involved in electoral campaigns. This paper aims at showing how the modes of selection may impact the characteristics of the candidates selected by the parties. Gender as a critical personal trait of the candidates is scrutinised in particular. The research investigates the processes of candidate selection in eleven Belgian political parties in the run-up to the May 2014 ‘mother of all elections’ where European, federal and regional elections were organised on the same day. 143 selection processes are quantitatively examined. The paper highlights the differences regarding gender diversity at the level of the realistic positions resulting from procedures involving exclusive versus inclusive selectorates as well as centralised versus decentralised processes of selection. It also explores to what extent the characteristics of the selectorates may impact the individual features of the candidates they select and how the degree of institutionalisation of the procedures might be critical. By doing so, it suggests that party politics is definitely relevant to politics in general, and to the composition of the political leadership in particular.

Depuis 1996, l’Association belge francophone de science politique fédère les chercheur·e·s en science politique dans les différents champs qui l’animent en Belgique francophone et au-delà. Cet ouvrage, 20e volume de la collection « Science politique », marque le 20e anniversaire de l’ABSP. Ces deux décennies ont vu de véritables métamorphoses au niveau politique et de la science politique. Ce livre collectif, mobilisant de nombreuses personnalités de l’enseignement, de la recherche et du service à la société, offre un regard rétrospectif et prospectif sur l’état de la science politique en Belgique francophone. Cet ouvrage collectif est coordonné par les membres du Bureau de l’ABSP, élu au sein du Conseil d’administration.

In flexible list systems, two parallel competitions take place: parties compete for the greatest share of seats while candidates run against their co-partisans to obtain their own seat. This paper investigates the intraparty competition pattern by building a four-category typology of electoral candidates according to both their electoral success and their popularity. The aim is to identify the profile of the “unlucky winners”, i.e. those who gathered more preference votes than some of their elected co-partisans but who did not obtain a seat because of a too low list position. These candidates reveal a tricky feature of the representative democracy and of flexible list systems where personalisation is encouraged but does not really pay off. The paper studies Sweden and Belgium, two countries whose electoral systems provide that the electoral popularity does not automatically lead to the election. On the basis of a database of Swedish and Belgian candidates running for the last legislative elections held in their respective countries (i.e. in 2014 for both), the paper quantitatively assesses the profile of these candidates swimming against the tide and who would benefit from a more personalised system.

Place would matter in politics. This would hold particularly true for the relationship between voters and politicians. According to the friends and neighbours voting hypothesis (Key 1949), psychological connections between voters and candidates involve that voters would favour local candidates because ‘hometown candidates’ may better know what they want, but more pragmatically, since they may also directly help the voters by engaging in pork-barrel politics. This paper focuses on geographical representation on electoral lists and takes the political parties’ perspective. Parties are expected to value the geographical origin of candidates primarily because voters do so. But when drafting the lists, would all types of selectorates assess the importance of localness similarly? This research tests whether the selection mode impacts the extent of territorial coverage of the constituency by all candidates from a same list. It takes Belgium as a case in point for studies on territorial representation given its multimember constituency and preferential voting systems. The processes of candidate selection in eleven Belgian political parties are investigated in the run-up to the May 2014 ‘mother of all elections’ where European, federal and regional elections were organised on the same day. 4319 individual candidates and 189 selection processes are quantitatively examined. Preliminary results indicate that centralised selectorates prioritise friends and neighbours politics less than decentralised selectorates do.

Le débat relatif à l’allocation universelle concerne la question de l’avenir des systèmes de sécurité sociale, point central qui favorise l’émergence de véritables clivages idéologiques, mais aussi plus généralement la définition et l’organisation de la communauté politique. Il est frappant d’observer dans ce débat que divers éléments de langage sont utilisés afin d’illustrer le concept d’allocation universelle, tels que le socle, le filet de sécurité ou encore le tremplin. Or, il a été montré que les métaphores jouent un rôle clé dans la représentation que se font les individus d’un concept – politique – abstrait. Dans cet article, nous étudions dans quelle mesure la confrontation d’individus à des métaphores peut influencer la manière dont ils se positionnent face à l’idée d’allocation universelle. Nos résultats indiquent que la stratégie d’utiliser délibérément une métaphore dans un discours politique peut être payante, car celle-ci peut influencer l’opinion des individus qui y sont soumis. Il convient cependant de rester attentif, car une même métaphore peut influencer les opinions dans des directions opposées.

De l’Association belge de science politique – Communauté française (ABSP-CF) à l’Association belge francophone de science politique (ABSP), l’association qui fédère les politologues en Bel- gique francophone a, au cours de ses 20 premières années d’exis- tence, à la fois fortement évolué et pro té d’une solide stabilité. Le paysage dans lequel l’ABSP évolue, que ce soit sur le plan de l’enseignement et de la recherche ou du service à la société, a connu des transformations assez remarquables – en 20 ans, par exemple, trois décrets réformant l’enseignement supérieur et universitaire se sont succédé. Ces transformations de contexte, couplées à l’évolution de la vie politique et de l’architecture insti- tutionnelle de la Belgique, n’ont pas manqué d’initier ou d’accé- lérer certains changements pour l’association, dont le plus visible est certainement la modi cation de son nom. Mais l’ABSP a éga- lement béné cié d’une forte stabilité : en interne, d’une part, avec une gouvernance et une gestion de l’association assurées dans une grande sérénité collective, en externe, d’autre part, avec un soutien répété de ses membres et de leurs institutions univer- sitaires ou de recherche ainsi que de la Communauté française de Belgique sous la forme d’un subside annuel devenu récurrent (même s’il tend à diminuer, nous y reviendrons). Plus fondamen- talement, les chapitres transversaux ainsi que les chapitres dédiés aux groupes de travail (GT) constitués au sein de l’ABSP l’ont richement illustré, la logique interuniversitaire et d’ouverture qui a présidé à la création de l’association a constamment animé l’ABSP pendant ces deux décennies.

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A revised version of this paper has been published in: "Basic Income Studies : an international journal of basic income research" - Vol. 13, no. 2, p. 1-16 https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal:206958 This research draws on two parallel considerations. On the one hand, we notice that the topic of the basic income yields tremendous debates. Opposing arguments run against each other in the academic literature but also in the society in general (Tobin, 1965 ; Belorgey, 2000 ; Maniquet et Neumann, 2016). Would it be relevant to implement such a mechanism in our societies? And if so, under which conditions? Given the controversial character of the debate, we expect citizens to be easily influenced in their position in favour or in disfavour of the implementation of this project. On the other hand, as highlighted, research has demonstrated that discourses and metaphors in particular may play a key role in the representation that individuals have of an abstract (political) concept (Lakoff et Johnson, 1980 ; Lakoff, 1996 ; Charteris-Black, 2011 ; Perrez et Reuchamps, 2015). On this basis, this article aims at determining to what extent the confrontation of individuals to metaphors illustrating the abstract idea of the basic income does have an impact on the way these people apprehend the basic income. More specifically, we tackle the way respondents consider the opportunity to implement or not the basic income in their country. The goal of this survey conducted among students was experimental.

Political parties in Belgium are free to decide on their methods of candidate selection. Hence, one could wonder whether the way parties draft their electoral lists may impact the kind of candidates running for office under the party banner. This paper aims at uncovering to what extent intraparty features may be relevant to features of the political elite at large, and in particular to the extent to which candidates are experienced in politics (both in campaign and in elected office). For doing so, this research analyses the mechanisms of candidate selection in eleven Belgian political parties. These parties selected no less than 4319 candidates who were rank-ordered on 189 electoral lists submitted for the triple regional, federal and European election of May 2014. Witht the aim of running a quantitative analysis of candidates’ characteristics substantiated by a qualitative analysis of party selection processes, the paper draws on party statutes, interviews with selectors in parties and descriptive and career data on all electoral candidates. This paper demonstrates the significance of candidate selection mechanisms not only for themselves but also for the entire political process. When political parties determine their type of selection procedures, they may also indirectly determine the type of candidates who will run for office – more or less experienced in politics, and accordingly the kind of representatives who will pass the laws – outsiders or insiders to our representative democracies’ systems.

A revised version of this paper has been published in: "Basic Income Studies : an international journal of basic income research" - Vol. 13, no. 2, p. 1-16 https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal:206958 This research draws on two parallel considerations. On the one hand, we notice that the topic of the basic income yields tremendous debates. Opposing arguments run against each other in the academic literature but also in the society in general (Tobin, 1965 ; Belorgey, 2000 ; Maniquet et Neumann, 2016). Would it be relevant to implement such a mechanism in our societies? And if so, under which conditions? Given the controversial character of the debate, we expect citizens to be easily influenced in their position in favour or in disfavour of the implementation of this project. On the other hand, as highlighted, research has demonstrated that discourses and metaphors in particular may play a key role in the representation that individuals have of an abstract (political) concept (Lakoff et Johnson, 1980 ; Lakoff, 1996 ; Charteris-Black, 2011 ; Perrez et Reuchamps, 2015). On this basis, this article aims at determining to what extent the confrontation of individuals to metaphors illustrating the abstract idea of the basic income does have an impact on the way these people apprehend the basic income. More specifically, we tackle the way respondents consider the opportunity to implement or not the basic income in their country. The goal of this survey conducted among students was experimental.

Political parties in Belgium are free to decide on their methods of candidate selection. Hence, one could wonder whether the way parties draft their electoral lists may impact the kind of candidates running for office under the party banner. This paper aims at uncovering to what extent intraparty features may be relevant to features of the political elite at large, and in particular to the extent to which candidates are experienced in politics (both in campaign and in elected office). For doing so, this research analyses the mechanisms of candidate selection in eleven Belgian political parties. These parties selected no less than 4319 candidates who were rank-ordered on 189 electoral lists submitted for the triple regional, federal and European election of May 2014. Witht the aim of running a quantitative analysis of candidates’ characteristics substantiated by a qualitative analysis of party selection processes, the paper draws on party statutes, interviews with selectors in parties and descriptive and career data on all electoral candidates. This paper demonstrates the significance of candidate selection mechanisms not only for themselves but also for the entire political process. When political parties determine their type of selection procedures, they may also indirectly determine the type of candidates who will run for office – more or less experienced in politics, and accordingly the kind of representatives who will pass the laws – outsiders or insiders to our representative democracies’ systems.

To date, research on gender and political representation has predominantly centered on women. The assumption that men as a privileged group automatically gain representation is nevertheless problematic. Not only are some (dominant) groups of men better represented than others, we simply do not know what men’s interests are. Up until today, however, no study has actually explored the nature of men’s interests in an empirical way. This paper offers a first attempt to conceptualize and operationalize the notion of men’s interests in empirical research. Based on new and original data from the 2014 PARTIREP voter survey organized in Belgium on the occasion of the 2014 federal and regional elections, we study men and women along political themes, their political visions and their voting behavior. The main question that guides our research is the following: What do gender differences in political themes and visions tell us about male (and female) interests in politics? Next to offering empirical insights into women and men’s political interests, this paper also provides a theoretical contribution to broader debates on group interests. We reflect on our observation that men and women attach importance to the same political themes but have different visions about them, and what this teaches us about “male interests” and “female interests”. We also launch a call for new empirical and theoretical research into men and their interests in politics.

To date, research on gender and political representation has predominantly centered on women. The assumption that men as a privileged group automatically gain representation is nevertheless problematic. Not only are some (dominant) groups of men better represented than others, we simply do not know what men’s interests are. Up until today, however, no study has actually explored the nature of men’s interests in an empirical way. This paper offers a first attempt to conceptualize and operationalize the notion of men’s interests in empirical research. Based on new and original data from the 2014 PARTIREP voter survey organized in Belgium on the occasion of the 2014 federal and regional elections, we study men and women along political themes, their political visions and their voting behavior. The main question that guides our research is the following: What do gender differences in political themes and visions tell us about male (and female) interests in politics? Next to offering empirical insights into women and men’s political interests, this paper also provides a theoretical contribution to broader debates on group interests. We reflect on our observation that men and women attach importance to the same political themes but have different visions about them, and what this teaches us about “male interests” and “female interests”. We also launch a call for new empirical and theoretical research into men and their interests in politics.

On 25 May 2014 European citizens are called to vote to renew the European Parliament. In Belgium this day is ‘the mother of all elections’ since all legislative assemblies are renewed simultaneously. The 2014 Belgian general elections give the opportunity to study European parliamentary elections in a context of co-occurrence of elections. Starting from the assumption that EP elections are said to be ‘second-order’ elections, the paper empirically tests a hypothetical definition of a ‘second-order’ candidate selection process. By doing so, it attempts to bridge the existing gap in the literature between research on candidate selection and the ‘second-order’ elections model. 11 Belgian political parties are analysed thanks to a comprehensive comparative analysis of party statutes, in-depth interviews with key party figures as well as media analysis. In the run-up to this triple election, the paper takes advantage of co-occurrence of both first- and second-order elections to launch the reflection on the conceptualisation of a second-order selection process.

On 25 May 2014 European citizens were called to vote to renew the European Parliament. In Belgium this day is ‘the mother of all elections’ since all legislative assemblies are renewed simultaneously. The 2014 Belgian general elections give the opportunity to study European parliamentary elections in a context of co-occurrence of elections. Starting from the assumption that EP elections are said to be ‘second-order’ elections, the paper empirically tests a hypothetical definition of a ‘second-order’ candidate selection process. By doing so, it attempts to bridge the existing gap in the literature between research on candidate selection and the ‘second-order’ elections model. 11 Belgian political parties are analysed thanks to a comprehensive comparative analysis of party statutes, in-depth interviews with key party figures as well as media analysis. The paper takes advantage of co-occurrence of both first- and second-order elections to launch the reflection on the conceptualisation of a second-order selection process.

Intra-party democracy entails different meanings. In particular when we consider democratic candidate selection processes, one may think about various elements contributing to the democratic character of the list constitution. By means of a content analysis, this paper aims at contrasting definitions given to intra-party democracy in terms of candidate selection by on the one hand scholars and on the other by political actors. The analysis draws on in-depth interviews with key party actors conducted in the run-up to the 2014 elections in Belgium i.e. during the process of candidate selection. Eleven parties are covered in this paper. Findings confirm that the main dimensions of a democratic candidate selection process are the selectorates, the procedures and the outcome. Nevertheless, the inclusiveness does not appear to be as important as presented in the literature. Overall the paper contributes to the ongoing debate about what intraparty democracy means.

Le 25 mai 2014, les citoyens européens sont appelés à voter pour renouveler le Parlement européen. En Belgique, ce jour est appelé « la mère de toutes les élections », car toutes les assemblées législatives sont renouvelées simultanément. Les élections générales de 2014 en Belgique offrent l’opportunité d’étudier les élections parlementaires européennes dans un contexte de cooccurrence d’élections. Prenant pour point de départ l’hypothèse que les élections européennes sont dites « de second ordre », le papier teste empiriquement une définition hypothétique d’un processus de sélection des candidats « de second ordre ». Ce faisant, la recherche ambitionne de combler le vide dans la littérature entre les recherches sur la sélection des candidats et le modèle qualifiant certaines élections d’élections de « second ordre ». Onze partis politiques belges sont analysés grâce à une analyse comparative détaillée des statuts des partis, des entretiens avec des acteurs clef des partis ainsi qu’une analyse de la presse. A l’approche de cette triple élection, le papier saisi l’opportunité de la cooccurrence d’élections tant de premier que de second ordre pour lancer la réflexion sur la conceptualisation d’un processus de sélection de second ordre.

This paper seeks to analyse how electoral quotas for women have influenced processes of candidate selection within Belgian political parties as a consequence of the gender quota act adopted in 2002. The research covers eight parties in Belgium, and is articulated around three central questions in the research field of candidate selection. First, it analyses the composition of selectorates, in particular in terms of gender. Second, it aims to grasp the mechanisms at work in the within-party processes of candidate selection that facilitate or bar access for women to the lists, focusing on the implementation of gender quotas rules Third, it examines the outcome of the selection process, namely to what extent women are selected as candidates (on eligible places). For each question, the paper takes a comparative perspective along two lines of comparison. On the one hand it looks at potential differences that may exist between Flemish and francophone political parties – as the latter operate within the same set of institutional rules, and yet may differ in their implementation of electoral gender quotas. On the other hand it looks for differences depending on the parties’ ideological position, with a focus on the left-right ideological continuum. Using data from both face-to-face interviews among Belgian politicians (female and male) and party statutes, the paper qualitatively uncovers the actual mechanisms at work within the respective party organisations.

Since women representation in Parliament passes through women representation on electoral lists, candidate selection constitutes a central aspect of this general issue. Candidate selection processes vary a lot from one party to the other. The literature suggests that some features of this process may be in favour or in disfavour of female candidates, namely the degree of inclusiveness and centralisation of selectorates and the degree of complexity and institutionalisation of selection procedures. This paper focuses on the relations between these features of candidate selection and gender. Despite strong mandatory quotas valid for all political parties in Belgium, Belgian political parties still differ in terms of women's presence on their lists and in the Parliament. The paper analyses these variations on candidate selection mode and relates it to parties’ situation in 2007 towards women at elections. The aim is to explain why some parties score better than others in terms of women's presence in their ranks, by sketching the general picture of a women-friendly candidate selection process. The research relies on data from party statutes and rules, as well as from interviews conducted among key Belgian politicians.

In Belgium, the idea of ‘openness’ is a well spread notion in electoral political discourses and the 2012 local election in Wallonia is no exception to this trend. Despite a clear victory, it is indeed very common for local political leaders in Belgium to announce that they will open their majority to other lists. The idea of ‘openness’ is also part of the local electoral campaign in terms of recruitment: non-partisan candidates – who clearly want to distinguish themselves from the party – are recruited to figure on the lists as ‘independent candidates’. They are called ‘candidates d’ouverture’ as a sign of openness towards the civil society, the opposition, or dissidents from other political parties. Actually, these candidates are recruited for various reasons: there are sometimes used to demonstrate the citizen character of the list, to enhance the fact that the list ‘makes politics differently from established political parties’, to underline the local roots of the list, and sometimes the ‘candidates d’ouverture’ are simply used to complete vacancies on a list.

At the eve of the 2014 “mammoth elections”, the Belgian electoral systems are in question. According to the eight parties having contributed to the sixth State reform, it is time for a “political renewal”. The agreement of October 2011 plans that the Senate will cease to be a permanent institution composed of directly elected senators. The latter will be instead replaced by regional MPs with dual offices. The agreement also provides the (principle of) vertical simultaneity between the regional, federal and European elections while it bans dual candidature and forces candidates to seat where they get elected. In the meantime, the Walloon Parliament has adopted the “anti-cumul” Decree, which limits the accumulation of local and parliamentary offices. This research note proposes therefore a global reflexion on the potential consequences resulting from these electoral reforms on the Belgian political class. We proceed in two steps. First, we detail which reforms could affect the political class. Second, we seek to evaluate which impact the reforms may have on the political class. We argue that the electoral reforms adopted for the 6th State reforms but also by the Walloon Parliament confirm and furthermore enhance an already pre-existing trend towards a territorial distinctiveness between the federal and the regional levels. The 2014 elections might become one of the key points of crystallization when political actors become aware of the existence of two distinct political arenas. Overall, the article anticipates the reshaping of Belgian politics in the run-up to 2014 and aftermath.

Candidate selection is often described as “the secret garden of politics” (Gallagher & Marsh, 1988). This research confirms this scholarly statement and even adds that the garden is full of “muddy waters”. We have studied the case of Belgian legislative elections of 2007, in particular selection for the Lower House. Our analyses show that candidate selection processes involve multiple (mostly collective) actors. Requirements for aspirant candidates are less strong than in the previous decades. Candidate selection actors are therefore freer when taking their decision about lists composition. On the basis of a solid crosscheck of different sources of information, we have built a six- categories scale, ranking each Belgian party selection mode from the most exclusive to the most inclusive. Based on this scale, the paper asks the question of the importance of the mode of selection. Does candidate selection really matter? Our results confirm that selection matters in many respects. More exclusive selection modes favour more experienced candidates, and encourage candidates to adopt a representational focus on the constituency and party-at-large electorates. Conversely inclusive selectorates tend to select candidates being more congruent with their voters, in terms of self-positioning on the left – right scale.

Recruiting candidates for local elections is a complex task. Even though some parties find difficult to attract candidates (mainly due to the decreased party membership and the lack of interest for local politics), one of the most important concerns is related to the subtle balance between different types of candidates on the list. Local parties need candidates who embody two main functions: (1) to attract votes (in open list systems) and (2) to serve the interests of the party once elected. As a result, party leaders place on their electoral list candidates who belong to the party structure (incumbent councilors, party members, etc.) as well as candidates who would attract more votes (for example by including ‘external’ candidates on the list). Following a large data collection process, this paper relies on a quantitative analysis of the 986 lists that participated in the 2012 local elections in the 262 Walloon municipalities (Belgium). The presence of different types of candidates (incumbent mayor and alderman, incumbent councilor, party member, party activist, external candidate, etc.) will be measured for each individual list. In a second stage, the paper will identify the factors that explain variation of the presence of such candidates across lists and municipalities with the help of demographic factors (size of the municipality, rural vs. urban, etc.), political factors (ideology of the list, independence from the national party, etc.) and party competition factors (number of competing lists, electoral alliances, etc.). Overall, this research seeks to uncover the diversity of local electoral strategies guiding local recruitment and why it matters for the electoral results of the lists.

This chapter makes a unique contribution to the study of representational roles by extending the population of interest beyond elected legislators. It focuses on understanding how candidates conceive their role as representatives taking as vantage point the focus and the style of representation, the key dimensions in the classical literature on legislative roles. The authors show how candidates’ role conception is likely to be influenced by their own personal characteristics and ambitions for (re)selection and (re)election, as well as by their relationship with the party itself and voters. Ultimately, this chapter brings attention to candidates as individuals, in a context where parties are usually considered as the main actors in the representation process, and politicians mostly conceived as party agents.

Although citizens see representative democracy today almost unanimously as the most desirable form of government, the institutions of advanced industrial democracies receive steadily more criticisms. In this chapter, we pay attention to an (often) neglected perspective, namely the criticalness of political elites towards representative democracy. Drawing on the Belgian Candidate Survey, the results of our analysis suggest that candidates’ attitudes depend on how integrated they are in the current representative democratic system. Especially outsiders to the political system are more critical and, at the same time, more supportive for direct democratic arrangements. These findings invite to reconsider the power relations between critical and noncritical candidates in a representative system that remains unchanged despite the criticisms of a considerable number of both citizens and candidates.