Conclusion: The Future of Belgian Federalism—Between Reform and Swansong?

This article summarizes the main arguments of the special issue. It also probes into the deficiencies of the Belgian federal system and argues that the most recent crisis of Belgian federalism (2007–11) is not the result of rising socio-economic differences between Flanders and Wallonia, but the consequence of building a bipolar federation on to a split party system. The article concludes by identifying some potential roadmaps (federal reform, confederalism, and the referendum) for the future.     

Rethinking central planning: A federal critique of the Planning Commission

ABSTRACT

This article critically assesses the impact of the Planning Commission on center-state relations in India. It argues that the Planning Commission had a centralizing effect due to its role in overseeing five year and annual planning, its contribution to designing and overseeing Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS), and its involvement in discretionary grant-making. Central policy priorities and inter-state disagreements prevented the Planning Commission from acquiring the role of a shared rule institution, capable of offsetting the centralizing implications of the aforementioned policies. The article then speculates on what prompted the recent replacement of the Planning Commission with the NITI Aayog and what this may mean for shared rule and the nature of collaborative federalism in India more in general.     

Regional Mobilization in the New Europe: Old Wine in a New Bottle?

This conclusion links the various contributions in light of the introductory framework. In line with our framework, scepticism towards the EU has increased since 2004 across most of the EU regions (old and new) and state-centric approaches (regional influence mediated through the central executives) have become the dominant strategy for regional mobilization. Unmediated access through direct regional representation in Brussels remains an important side-strategy though, especially for sub-state nations and regions with the highest level of regional authority, as theoretically expected. Regional authority—more so than the difference between competitive versus cooperative multi-level designs—is an important predictor against centralization pressures resulting from European integration. Overall, changes in the ‘New Europe’ have intensified but not transformed the dominant patterns of regional mobilization, while system-level and regional variables mediate impacts of Europeanization.     

Regional Mobilization in the ‘New Europe’: A Research Agenda

This Special Issue re-assesses regional mobilization in the ‘New Europe’. We anticipate that enlargement to Central Europe, the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the largest economic and financial crisis since the birth of the European Community have affected how regional governments respond to Europeanization along three different dimensions: (1) the position they take vis-à-vis the process of EU integration more generally, (2) the strategies they adopt in response to Europeanization pressures and (3) their internal structures and dynamics of the EU member states as multi-level states. The article introduces a framework and formulates hypotheses to examine why and how Europeanization pressures in the ‘New Europe’ affect regional mobilization along these three dimensions. In the final section, the article also introduces the various contributions to this Special Issue and relates them to the analytical framework.     

India after the 2014 general elections: BJP dominance and the crisis of the third party system

ABSTRACT

This article critically assesses claims that India has entered a new party system after the 2014 general elections, marked by renationalisation with the BJP as the new ‘dominant’ party.’ To assess these claims, we examine the electoral rise of the BJP in the build-up to and since the 2014 general elections until the state assembly elections in December 2018. Overall, we argue that despite the emerging dominance of the BJP, a core feature of the third party system -a system of binodal interactions- has remained largely intact albeit in a somewhat weaker form. Furthermore, by comparing the post 2014 Indian party system with key electoral features of the first three party systems, we conclude that the rise of the BJP has thrown the third-party system into crisis, but does not yet define the consolidation of a new party system.     

Asymmetric Federalism and Coalition-Making in Belgium

This article examines the asymmetric aspects of Belgian federalism.The term "asymmetry" covers many meanings. The cultural, socioeconomic,political party, and formal-institutional differences betweenthe regions of the Belgian federation clearly make Belgium astrong case of asymmetry. However, these asymmetric featureshave largely been neutralized by preferences of the major-partyleaders for building symmetric or congruent government coalitionsin the federal and regional arenas. The article not only explainswhy Belgian party elites have acted accordingly but also demonstratesthat the genuine meaning of asymmetry cannot be understood properlywithout putting the concept of asymmetry into the frameworkof party politics.     

Power‐Sharing in the World's Largest Democracy: Informal Consociationalism in India (and Its Decline?)

India is one of the most diverse countries of the world but operates with a majoritarian Westminster constitution and simple plurality electoral system, albeit also with a federal structure. It was eventually coded as consociational by Arend Lijphart (1996) but this coding was questioned by authors such as Wilkinson (2000) and Adeney (2002). This article assesses the nature of both de jure and de facto power‐sharing in India over its 70 years of independence and tracks the evolution of de jure and de facto power‐sharing in relation to four dimensions of diversity: religion, caste, territory and language. It questions whether the electoral success of Hindu nationalism and the increasing acceptance of ethnic majoritarianism has reduced the degree of power‐sharing in India.