Suchergebnisse

In a phase of political and electoral downturn of several radical left parties, the Labor Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA) strikes the imagination due to its increasing influence. A party of Maoist origin, the PTB-PVDA has been undergoing organizational and communication change since the mid-2000's. In this article, we argue that these changes have created a very singular party. Going against prevailing partisan developments, the heart of the party remains the party-in-central-office. The party has quite a dynamic life between elections, seeks to recruit and recruits party members, trains and mobilizes its membership, borrowing from the paths of historical Belgian pillarization or the model of party of social integration. At the same time, the PTB-PVDA incorporates current partisan modifications: a strong personification, a great investment in social networks, a populist rhetoric, a redesigned communication and a focus on elections to be able to benefit from public party funding. This combination of old and new makes it one of a kind party in Europe and among the European Radical Left. However, this original organizational scheme raises the question of its fate: the aggregation of the various elements requires that it remains in the parliamentary opposition. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Many radical right-wing parties have marked significant growth in the last 20 years. This spectacular dynamic has received thorough attention from the scientific community. Their electoral performance has most often been analysed at a national level. Analysis at sub-national levels is rare. This paper analyses the performance of the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) in local elections in Belgium between 1982 and 2018. Our analysis shows that the Vlaams Belang was able to overcome all institutional and political barriers in order to compete successfully at this level. At the same time, we find that the institutionalisation process at the local level is not a predictor of the ensuing electoral result for the party. On the contrary, the local electoral result correlates to the national curve and the global image of the party. In this dynamics, local elections could lead to different outcomes for the Vlaams Belang. The 1988 and 2018 local elections paved the way to a larger political development. On the contrary, the 2006 local elections led to a sharp political and electoral decline. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

In the 1987 national elections, the Communist Party of Belgium (PCB-KPB) lost all parliamentary representation for the first time since 1925.This failure reflects the accelerated collapse of Belgian Communism in just a decade. The events of 1989 and 1991 in Central and Eastern Europe and in the USSR will then confirm the de facto disappearance of the PCB-KPB. The article goes back to the roots of the decline of a medium-size Communist Party, but showed political and social relevance from 1925 to 1985.The decline is due to the industrial and socio-demographic dramatic changes.The paper also tackles the political choices made in the seventies and eighties to understand it. In particular, it embraces the internal paralysis of the party faced with the challenges posed to all the European Communist Parties at this time, and its inability to deal with them. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Over the past twenty years, the scientific community and politicians in consolidated democracies have been regularly alarmed by political and electoral participation, portrayed as undergoing a brutal and linear decline. Each election is now scrutinized in terms not only of its results but also of its level of electoral turnout. This paper deals with two important issues—the reality of changes in electoral turnout in Europe and the impact of the institutional constraint of compulsory voting in voter turnout levels—through an analysis of 402 elections held in thirty-five States from 1944 until December, the 31st 2009. We do ob- serve a contemporary erosion of voter turnout but at this stage voters are not so impossible to find as some claim they are. Furthermore, the assumption that interest in, and the importance of, compulsory voting as an institutional constraint encouraging voter turnout is confirmed. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Le fichier attaché à cette référence, version publiée de l'œuvre, est librement accessible, sans embargo, en accord avec les Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles ; http://www.editions-universite-bruxelles.be/fiche/view/2679 ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Socialist and Social Democratic parties leave few political observers and citizens indifferent. For several years, a certain number of actors on the political scene have presented it as a political family in crisis, lacking in imagination and dynamism, incapable of renewal and doomed to fade into insignificance. Others, on the contrary, describe it as a grouping with a promising, even brilliant future. This book does not set out to confirm either of those two visions. Its aim is to analyse in-depth the transformations which are affecting, at the current time, the different aspects of Social Democracy: new organisational models, changes in political and electoral performance, changing relations with the trade unions and civil society associations, reactions to the emergence of new political rivais and new values, new ideological trends and political programmes, etc. For the first time, the analysis does not concern exclusively Western Europe, but also deals with the Social Democratic parties of the consolidated democracies and the organisations that claim to be part of democratic socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, and highlights the specific characteristics and points in common. At the dawn of the 21st century, it is therefore the challenges and the different responses to those challenges that are analysed by several of the leading European specialists in Social Democratic parties in Europe. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Depuis un quart de siècle, plusieurs partis d'extrême droite ou de la droite populiste ont opéré une percée dans leur système politique national :le Front national en France, le FPÖ en Autriche, le parti du progrès en Norvège et au Danemark, le parti populaire danois, le parti national slovaque, le Mouvement social italien-Alliance nationale, la Ligue du nord, les Republikaner, le NPD et la DVU en Allemagne, la Liste Pim Fortuyn et le parti de la Liberté aux Pays-Bas, Ataka en Bulgarie, le parti populaire de la Grande Roumanie, le Vlaams Belang et le Front national en Belgique, l'Union démocratique du Centre en Suisse, LAOS en Grèce… Au surplus, un fait politique nouveau s'est imposé ces dernières années :outre la progression électorale et politique observée par nombre de ces partis, plusieurs formations d'extrême droite ont accédé aux responsabilités gouvernementales ou ont soutenu des gouvernements de l'extérieur. Par delà les riches travaux consacrés aux développements des partis d'extrême droite, il s'imposait donc d'analyser les conditions et les conséquences de cette nouvelle donne. Tel est l'angle d'approche de cet ouvrage, qui réunit des contributions des meilleurs spécialistes de la question. La réflexion porte sur la vie et les choix internes de ces partis. Souhaitent-ils accéder au pouvoir ?Cette question suscite-t-elle des débats difficiles ?Observe-t-on un processus de modération quand ces formations rentrent au gouvernement ?Les militants endossent-ils ce choix ?Le parti est-il sanctionné ou conforté aux élections suivantes ?Mais elle se fixe aussi sur les dimensions extérieures à ces formations. Les thèmes portés par les partis d'extrême droite percolent-ils chez les partis démocratiques ?L'apport de l'extrême droite est-il marquant sur certains thèmes qui lui sont chers ?Embrasser l'extrême droite est-ce mieux l'étouffer ?A partir d'études de cas et d'approches comparées, l'ouvrage fournit des réponses inédites à ces questions contemporaines. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The 2003 Federal elections in Belgium put paid to an innovative governmental experience by bringing the four-year term of the so-called 'Rainbow coalition' to an end. The results seem to indicate that the coalition, bringing together Ecologists, Socialists & Liberals, did not work to the benefit of each party. While the Socialists & the Liberals recorded big gains in the elections the Flemish & the French-speaking Green parties were the main losers of the ballot. The election confirmed two other very important trends. First, the Christian democrats, historically the main political party in Belgium, continue a downward drift in support which began in the 1950s. Secondly, once again we saw the improved performance by the extreme right. In Flanders, the Vlaams Blok continue to make progress at every election, & in the French-speaking area, the National Front (EN) has increased its parliamentary representation. 3 Tables, 1 Appendix, 9 References. Adapted from the source document.

Computer voting was introduced in Belgium in 1994. Paradoxically, no action had been taken to ascertain the opinion of electors confronted with this original method of voting. This article verifies the social and empirical dimensions of legitimacy of this new method through several empirical indicators used in a survey conducted on the occasion of the federal elections of 18 May 2003: (a) how easy/difficult it was for electors to vote on a computer; (b) to what extent they trust voting on a computer; (c) if they have a philosophical/social opposition to voting on a computer.

Est-ce que les réformes visant à combler l'écart entre pouvoir politique et citoyens (démocratie directe, accords de coopération entre le secteur privé et les services publics, élection directe du maire,…) mènent à une révolution en profondeur ou plutôt à une simple rénovation des administrations locales ?Dans cet ouvrage, différents experts internationaux en matière de politique locale se penchent sur la question. A travers les différentes contributions comparant la situation spécifique de différents pays, le lecteur découvrira que de nombreuses discussions 'typiquement belges' sont tout aussi bien valables pour d'autres pays. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published