Personal vote‐seeking in flexible list systems: How electoral incentives shape Belgian MPs' bill initiation behaviour

It is well known that different types of electoral systems create different incentives to cultivate a personal vote and that there may be variation in intra‐party competition within an electoral system. This article demonstrates that flexible list systems – where voters can choose to cast a vote for the list as ordered by the party or express preference votes for candidates – create another type of variation in personal vote‐seeking incentives within the system. This variation arises because the flexibility of party‐in‐a‐district lists results from voters' actual inclination to use preference votes and the formal weight of preference votes in changing the original list order. Hypotheses are tested which are linked to this logic for the case of Belgium, where party‐in‐a‐district constituencies vary in their use of preference votes and the electoral reform of 2001 adds interesting institutional variation in the formal impact of preference votes on intra‐party seat allocation. Since formal rules grant Belgian MPs considerable leeway in terms of bill initiation, personal vote‐seeking strategies are inferred by examining the use of legislative activity as signalling tool in the period between 1999 and 2007. The results establish that personal vote‐seeking incentives vary with the extent to which voters use preference votes and that this variable interacts with the weight of preference votes as defined by institutional rules. In addition, the article confirms the effect of intra‐party competition on personal vote‐seeking incentives and illustrates that such incentives can underlie the initiation of private members bills in a European parliamentary system.     

The impact of the conflict in Gaza on antisemitism in Belgium

ABSTRACT

Taking Belgium as a case study, this article aims to assess the impact of a foreign conflict (the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip) on intergroup relations in Europe. It asks whether intensification of the conflict in Gaza increases the number of antisemitic incidents in Belgium, and makes use of a database of complaints to the Centrum voor gelijkheid van kansen en voor racismebestrijding (Center of Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism), a federal anti-racism agency, and of an analysis of political claims-making in the written press. It is often stated that the conflict between Palestine and Israel leads to increased levels of antisemitism in Europe but rarely is this based on statistical analysis. The authors of this article undertook such an analysis and concluded that complaints about antisemitism in Belgium indeed showed a statistically significant increase during the Israeli military operation Cast Lead (December 2008–January 2009). Time series and intervention analysis on data spanning a period of one-and-a-half years, however, showed that this effect was not lasting and wore off after a couple of weeks. Apart from the temporary effect of the Gaza war on domestic intergroup relations, there seemed to be no systematic and continuous link between events in the Middle East and acts of antisemitism in Belgium.     

The harms of human trafficking: demonstrating the applicability and value of a new framework for systematic,empirical analysis

This article uses human trafficking in Belgium to test a newly developed framework for assessing the harms of crime that has been applied previously to cocaine trafficking in the same country. We chose this criminal activity because of its policy relevance and to address apparent needs for systematic, evidence-based analysis. The framework uses quantitative and qualitative evidence to assess harms to individuals, private-sector entities, and others and to establish crime control priorities. The assessment process models the activity, evaluates the severity and incidence of harms, ranks priorities, and considers causality. We highlight three findings. First, trafficking victims can experience catastrophic harms, but the overall dimensions of human trafficking in Belgium appear to be modest. Second, the evidence suggests significant recent declines in the degree of exploitation and use of violence. Third, most harms to individual victims result directly from the activity, which sets it apart from other forms of trafficking.     

‘A Fair Day’s Wage for a Fair Day’s Work’? Exploring the connection between the parliamentary work of MPs and their electoral support

Electoral systems across Europe increasingly invite candidates to build up a personal reputation to earn votes. In this article, we investigate whether parliamentary work can be considered as a personal vote-earning attribute for incumbent MPs based on data of the 2014 elections in Belgium. The results show that when parliamentary work is operationalised in a narrow way (i.e. as the number of bills and the number of oral and written questions of an MP), this has no influence on the amount of preferential votes. When parliamentary work is defined in a broader way (i.e. also including other aspects of the legislative and control function of MPs), parliamentary work has a significant positive effect for MPs from opposition parties. This supports the claim that the number of legislative and control activities is not sufficient to measure the impact of parliamentary work on preferential votes, but that also other aspects of the work should be taken into account.     

比利时养老模式对我国养老体系建设的启示

比利时作为典型的欧洲发达国家,在养老体系和长期照护制度建设上积累了较为成功的经验。本研究归纳和分析比利时养老模式、相关养老法规政策、养老经费筹集以及服务提供方的资质等,意在为进一步完善我国的养老体系提供参考。当前,比利时形成了居家养老、短期照护、老年公寓、养老院、老年护理院和老年病房等6种养老模式,并具有完善的法规和政策来指导照护床位数设置、养老经费使用、社会保险缴纳以及服务提供者的资质确定。借鉴比利时经验,研究认为,我国可以加强养老保障制度顶层设计,促进多元养老模式和谐发展,并发挥社会组织力量,培养老年健康专业人才,以不断完善我国的养老体系。     

Pacification through decentralization: An explanatory analysis of ethno-territorial cabinet conflict in Belgium (1979–2006)

The impact of decentralization on ethno-territorial conflict is widely debated, but empirical analyses of ethno-territorial party politics are scarce. This paper uses novel data on conflicts in power-sharing cabinets to explore the relation between decentralization and ethno-territorial conflicts in the case of Belgium (1979–2006). These data are analysed with the help of poisson and logistic regressions, which confirm the negative association between decentralization and conflict. In addition to institutions, the analyses also examine the relevance of issue saliency, regionalist parties' strength, regionalist cabinet participation, and the proximity of elections. The results contradict the paradox of federalism and add to contemporary debates on ethno-territorial politics, conflict management, and power-sharing.