Nationalisation of local party systems in Belgium (1976-2018): the combined effects of municipality size and parliamentary parties’ dominance

Abstract

This article studies the nationalisation of local party systems in Belgian regions across eight electoral cycles (1976-2018). Our research design assesses the relevance of Rokkan's structural approach of nationalisation while testing the effect of conjunctural electoral factors. Our empirical results highlight the positive effect of a municipality's size on local party system nationalisation. Moreover, the analysis uncovers the impact of the electoral dominance of national parties in the local districts at previous national elections: where parliamentary parties have performed weakly at the previous national elections, nationalisation of local party systems increases.Interestingly, the analysis demonstrates that this relationship is stronger in the biggest municipalities, showing an interaction effect between conjunctural and structural factors. Finally, our findings indicate that significant variation remains across Belgian regions. This opens up avenues for future research regarding the potential effects of institutional factors and the 'freezing' of local political offer across subnational party systems.

Dutch municipal elections 1998-2018: what explains the electoral success of local parties?

“…We found evidence for a supply-side hypothesis. The underlying idea is that the smaller the municipality, the higher the share of local parties (Dodeigne, Close, and Teuber 2021). Regional diversity seems also an important explanation as we found evidence for more local parties in e.g., Noord-Brabant and Limburg.…”

“…An important explanation according to Otjes (2018) and Dodeigne, Close, and Teuber (2021) is the supply-side hypothesis. The underlying idea is that voters who prefer national parties that do not run in the municipal elections in their municipality are more likely to vote for a local party.…”

“…In addition, Ennser-Jedenastik and Hansen (2013) point out this spatial differentiation for Austria especially for cross-border regions with Switzerland. Dodeigne, Close, and Teuber (2021) highlight the negative effect of a municipality's size on the localised local party system. Jankowski, Juen, and Tepe (2020) show that in municipalities of the German state of Lower Saxony Independent Local Lists received in 2016 15.6% of the votes.…”

Personalization at different levels: Intra-party competition and preference voting in local elections

“…electoral evolutions in one region affecting evolutions in another region. Uniform results and/or evolutions across different regions or municipalities are often caused by national trends or events, a phenomenon which is labelled the 'nationalization of politics' (Caramani 2004, Dodeigne, Close, andTeuber 2021).…”