Caught between mainstreaming and radicalisation: tensions inside the populist Vlaams Belang in Belgium

The Flemish party Vlaams Belang is often regarded as one of the most successful radical-right parties in Europe, but it has experienced a drop in support in recent years. Teun Pauwels and Emilie van Haute write on tensions between the party’s current leadership and a faction led by Filip Dewinter, which supports taking a more radical line on issues like immigration

Is Protest Only Negative? Examining the Effect of Emotions and Affective Polarization on Protest Behaviour

This contribution sheds light on the link between affect and protest behaviors. Using data from a voter survey conducted around the 2019 elections in Belgium, we examine two dimensions of affect: a vertical one, i.e., negative and positive emotions towards politics in general, and a horizontal one, i.e., affective polarization towards fellow citizens. Our findings make three important contributions. First, we identify five distinct classes of respondents depending on their emotions towards politics (apathetic, angry, hopeful, highly emotional, and average). Second, we demonstrate that the combination of both anger and hope is more strongly associated with protest action than anger alone. By contrast, apathy, characterized by an absence of emotions towards politics, is negatively related to protest behavior. Third, we show that affective polarization is a key driver of protest behavior per se. We also show that the two dimensions of affect have distinctive effects. Yet they interact: Affective polarization towards political opponents compensates for the absence of emotions towards politics in general

You will never participate alone. Personal networks and political participation in Belgium

peer reviewedThis paper looks at the mobilizing effect of personal networks on the individual propensity to favour some types of political participation over others, in a context of changing participation repertoires. We rely on original egocentric network data gathered via a unique online survey conducted among a quota sample of 2801 Belgian citizens. We show that dominant political behaviour(s) in a network diffuse as byproduct of social proximity and influence: the more someone has been exposed to a certain type of participation in the past, the more this person is likely to be recruited in the same type of participation in the future (engagement), or, if this person was already active, to retain the same participatory behaviour (retention). Moreover, our results point to a cross-over dissuasive effect across types of participation that keeps citizens away from certain participatory behaviours. In particular, exposure to online and instiutionalized participation in their personal network decreases respondents’ likelihood to engage in non-insitutionalized participation. Overall, we stress the added-value of a meso-level approach that embeds citizens in their personal network to understand their participatory choices

Emotive participants? Emotions, apathy, and protest participation

Using the RepResent Voter Panel Survey conducted around the 2019 elections in Belgium, this chapter investigates the affective complexity of resentment and its impact on protest participation, understood as non-electoral protest participation and protest voting. We focus on the combination of two core emotions towards politics and their intensities: anger and hope. We highlight five groups that vary in their intensity of anger and hope: neutral, high-intensity hopeful, high-intensity angry, high-intensity emotive, and apathetic. We then connect these five groups to protest behaviours. Our results indicate that different emotional clusters guide distinct types of protest actions. Apathy leads to electoral exit and decreases the probability of non-electoral protest participation and protest voting. High intensities of anger turns citizens away from mainstream parties and increases their propensity to vote for protest parties. The combination of high intensities of anger and hope motivates the expression of resentment through non-electoral protest actions. Our findings reaffirm the significance of the affective dimension of political action. They support a conception of affective arrangements in which emotions combine to produce political outcomes. Finally, they nuance the idea that there would be absolute positive vs. negative emotions

Jumping on the Bandwagon? Explaining fluctuations in party membership levels in Europe

peer reviewedThis paper explores how party-specific contextual factors explain variations in membership levels. Based on a subset of MAPP data that includes 2898 yearly membership data points for 262 parties in 24 countries over a period from 1990 to 2014, it examines three sets of explanations: the lifecycle model (party age), the bandwagon model (electoral performances and governemental participation), and the competition model (effective number of parties). Our results confirm that membership ratios present an overall decreasing trend across parties over time. At the same time, we show that this trend is flattening and that there are important variations across parties. Fluctuations of membership are part of a party’s lifecycle. Our results also point toward a bandwagon effect whereby party membership levels increase or decrease according to electoral performances, and to a patronage boost linked to governmental participation. Finally, we show that party system fragmentation decreases individual parties’ membership ratios. Overall, our findings complement the story on party membership decline and calls for further investigations of party-specific explanations

Verschuivingen in het stemgedrag in het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest tussen de regionale verkiezingen van juni 2009 en de federale stembusgang van 13 juni 2010

Binnen de Brusselse politieke ruimte heeft de federale verkiezing van 13 juni 2010 niet zulke spectaculaire verschuivingen in stemgedrag teweeg gebracht als in Vlaanderen of in Wallonië wanneer we vergelijken met de verkiezingen van 2007. Desalniettemin zijn er belangrijke veranderingen vast te stellen, voornamelijk de vooruitgang van de Parti Socialiste (PS) en het electorale verlies van de Mouvement Réformateur (MR). Binnen het kader van de timing van het politieke en electorale leven is het toch interessant te kijken naar de laatste stembusgang – de Brusselse regionale verkiezingen van 2009 – om de bewegingen te analyseren die hebben plaatsgevonden op politiek “korte” termijn, terwijl het politieke leven eigenlijk toch geritmeerd wordt door evenementen en veranderingen die soms zeer snel de percepties en de representaties rond de partijen en rond het politieke leven beïnvloeden. Het zijn de verschuivingen tussen de regionale verkiezing van 2009 en de federale verkiezing van 2010 die we in deze bijdrage analyseren. Deze analyse baseert zich op een “exit poll” die door het Centre d’étude de la vie politique van de Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) afgenomen werd bij 3 000 Brusselaars.Dans l’espace politique bruxellois, l’élection fédérale du 13 juin 2010 n’a pas occasionné des mouvements de voix aussi spectaculaires qu’en Flandre ou qu’en Wallonie si l’on se réfère aux élections intervenues en 2007. Des changements importants s’y donnent néanmoins à voir, en particulier la progression du parti socialiste et le recul électoral du Mouvement réformateur. Il est néanmoins intéressant, dans le timing de la vie politique et électorale, de se reporter au dernier scrutin en date – les élections régionales bruxelloises de 2009 – pour analyser les mouvements intervenus dans le temps « court » de la vie politique, où cette dernière est rythmée par des événements et des changements qui affectent, parfois rapidement les perceptions et les représentations des partis et de la vie politique. Ce sont les mouvements entre l’élection régionale 2009 et l’élection fédérale de 2010 que nous analysons dans cette contribution. Le travail se fonde sur une enquête « sortie des urnes » organisée par le Centre d’étude de la vie politique de l’Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) auprès de 3 000 Bruxellois.In the Brussels political area, the 13 June 2010 federal elections did not bring about shifts in the electorate which were as spectacular as those seen in Flanders or Wallonia if we refer to the 2007 elections. Significant changes may nevertheless be seen, in particular the progress made by the Socialist Party and the Reform Movement’s loss of ground during the elections. It is nevertheless interesting, in the timing of political and electoral life, to turn to the last elections – the 2009 Brussels regional elections – in order to analyse the shifts which occurred in the Brussels spectrum in the “short” period of political life, punctuated by events and changes which affect – sometimes quickly – the perceptions and the representations of parties and political life. The shifts which took place between the 2009 regional elections and the 2010 federal elections are analysed in this article. The work is based on an exit poll organised by the Centre d’étude de la vie politique (CEVIPOL) at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), with 3 000 inhabitants of Brussels

Les mouvements de voix dans la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale entre l’élection régionale de juin 2009 et le scrutin fédéral du 13 juin 2010

Dans l’espace politique bruxellois, l’élection fédérale du 13 juin 2010 n’a pas occasionné des mouvements de voix aussi spectaculaires qu’en Flandre ou qu’en Wallonie si l’on se réfère aux élections intervenues en 2007. Des changements importants s’y donnent néanmoins à voir, en particulier la progression du parti socialiste et le recul électoral du Mouvement réformateur. Il est néanmoins intéressant, dans le timing de la vie politique et électorale, de se reporter au dernier scrutin en date – les élections régionales bruxelloises de 2009 – pour analyser les mouvements intervenus dans le temps « court » de la vie politique, où cette dernière est rythmée par des événements et des changements qui affectent, parfois rapidement les perceptions et les représentations des partis et de la vie politique. Ce sont les mouvements entre l’élection régionale 2009 et l’élection fédérale de 2010 que nous analysons dans cette contribution. Le travail se fonde sur une enquête « sortie des urnes » organisée par le Centre d’étude de la vie politique de l’Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) auprès de 3 000 Bruxellois.Binnen de Brusselse politieke ruimte heeft de federale verkiezing van 13 juni 2010 niet zulke spectaculaire verschuivingen in stemgedrag teweeg gebracht als in Vlaanderen of in Wallonië wanneer we vergelijken met de verkiezingen van 2007. Desalniettemin zijn er belangrijke veranderingen vast te stellen, voornamelijk de vooruitgang van de Parti Socialiste (PS) en het electorale verlies van de Mouvement Réformateur (MR). Binnen het kader van de timing van het politieke en electorale leven is het toch interessant te kijken naar de laatste stembusgang – de Brusselse regionale verkiezingen van 2009 – om de bewegingen te analyseren die hebben plaatsgevonden op politiek “korte” termijn, terwijl het politieke leven eigenlijk toch geritmeerd wordt door evenementen en veranderingen die soms zeer snel de percepties en de representaties rond de partijen en rond het politieke leven beïnvloeden. Het zijn de verschuivingen tussen de regionale verkiezing van 2009 en de federale verkiezing van 2010 die we in deze bijdrage analyseren. Deze analyse baseert zich op een “exit poll” die door het Centre d’étude de la vie politique van de Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) afgenomen werd bij 3 000 Brusselaars.In the Brussels political area, the 13 June 2010 federal elections did not bring about shifts in the electorate which were as spectacular as those seen in Flanders or Wallonia if we refer to the 2007 elections. Significant changes may nevertheless be seen, in particular the progress made by the Socialist Party and the Reform Movement’s loss of ground during the elections. It is nevertheless interesting, in the timing of political and electoral life, to turn to the last elections – the 2009 Brussels regional elections – in order to analyse the shifts which occurred in the Brussels spectrum in the “short” period of political life, punctuated by events and changes which affect – sometimes quickly – the perceptions and the representations of parties and political life. The shifts which took place between the 2009 regional elections and the 2010 federal elections are analysed in this article. The work is based on an exit poll organised by the Centre d’étude de la vie politique (CEVIPOL) at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), with 3 000 inhabitants of Brussels