Suchergebnisse

An article based on the contribution or three authors. Former political secretary of the Flemish ecological party Green! Geysels remembers the main strategies at the start of the sanitary cordon in Belgium in 1989. After summing up the effects and impact of these statements, he defends the cordon as an instrument which helps to protect the bases of democracy. De Lange, in the second contribution, Right-populist political parties and sketches the academic outlines of the discussion. She warns against unilateral, unfounded and unwise propositions in the debate, certainly when it concerns translating the Belgian experience to the current Dutch situation. Professor Fennema, the third author, studied the forming of extreme Right parties in Europe and is president of the Center of Radicalism and Extremism Studies CRES. He writes of the Dutch experience with the sanitary cordon and its consequences on contemporary political debate in the Netherlands, which has changed into a debate in terms of fear and hate. All three authors emphasize that a comparison between the Flemish and Dutch experience falls: in Flanders, where the cordon functions since 20 years, no party was ever forbidden. In the Netherlands, where discussion on the sanitary cordon has been bled, that happened. O. van Zijl

In the public debate and amongst scientists anxiety prevails concerning the situation of modern parliamentary democracy regarding nearly all established of nearly democracies. The concern focuses on the electoral loss of middle parties and heavily fluctuating election results, and the rise of radical Left and Right, where words such as pallet democracy, crisis and Weimar republic are used. The author sketches the outlines of different research directions he studied regarding European politics: voter behavior; decreasing importance of the Left-Right antagonism; decreasing political faith; increasing numbers of extreme Right parties. This to study more closely the different aspects of the alleged crisis of European party democracies (do citizens have unrealistically high expectations of government; the evolution from cartel parties to campaign parties, including the growing importance of the media; lack of party representation for large groups of citizens). Foremost, the author mentions that neo-liberal economic policies of the European Union do not parallel public opinion of EU member states. Figures. O. van Zijl

This paper deals with the electoral & political consequences of urban region formation. The electoral geography of new political parties differs substantially from that of traditional ones. New parties are mainly successful in different parts of urban regions. The declining traditional parties have rather a regional pattern, although some of them show new spatial patterns too. These developments are interpreted in the context of the cleavage theory, in which old & new cleavages are linked with a different spatiality. Following the Anglo-Saxon literature an increasing process of polarisation is hypothesised between the welfare state orientated city & a neo-conservative & neo-liberal suburban fringe. This article examines & proofs the existence of these processes in the urban region of Brussels by means of individual-level & ecological electoral data. Figures. Adapted from the source document.

The central question posed for this symposium is from where the support should come for the European project to increase the legitimacy of the European Union and further integration and expansion. Lately, both public-opinion research (Eurobarometer) and motivation for the elections of the European Parliament have been low, criticism relatively high and lively. The symposium stresses the importance of actors and organizations coming from the midfield of civil society. Frequently cheered as the spinning wheel in the democratic system of national states within European reality, it has an important role in the continuation of legitimacy and Europe's democratic level. A presentation of three Dutch and a Belgium contributions. References. O. van Zijl

This article tries to analyse & improve the individual-level approaches to the study of public Euroscepticism in Belgium. In recent literature, three approaches focusing on instrumental, cultural & political cues can be distinguished. First, the utilitarian approach associates Euroscepticism with economic interests. Second, the cultural approach draws on cultural attitudes & affective identities. Third, the political approach associates support for European integration with political efficacy & institutional trust. Drawing upon Belgian data from the IntUne Project 2007, the results show that negative evaluations of the benefits of European membership, social distrust in European fellow citizens & institutional distrust in the EU are the most important determinants of Euroscepticism, while education, national attachment, exclusive identity & political powerlessness have a minor impact. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

Women and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in national parliaments around the world. Interestingly, in the Netherlands ethnic minority women are better represented than ethnic minority men and ethnic majority women. The Netherlands did not adopt gender quotas, but some parties implemented target numbers. Drawing on document analysis and interviews, this article explores whether parties that encourage women's representation are also likely to increase the number of ethnic minority representatives. It finds that party-specific factors such as a left or social democratic ideology, the institutionalization of gender and/or ethnicity within the party and the party's vision on group representation are intertwined. Parties that actively encourage women's representation are more inclined to openly acknowledge the importance of ethnic diversity. This especially favours ethnic minority women, who benefit from the strong embedding of gender. In the end gender determines the success of the ethnic card in political representation. Adapted from the source document.