Candidates, Parties and Voters in the Belgian Partitocracy

Beschreibung

A black box in the study of representation in European democracies is our knowledge about elected but also unelected candidates. What is their background? How are they recruited? What are their campaign aims, strategies, resources and tools? How do they relate to their (constituency and central) party and their voters? How do they consider democratic governance at national and European levels? This book focuses on the triadic relationship between candidates and the other poles of the delegation and accountability triangle: political parties and voters. The chapters rely mostly on the Belgian Candidate Survey (CCS project) gathering about 2000 candidates belonging to 15 parties running for the 2014 federal and regional elections. Most conclusions do not hold only for the Belgian partitocracy but answer broad political science questions on elite recruitment, electoral strategies, personalisation, party cohesion, and descriptive and substantive representation. Its multilevel semi-open electoral system, atypical federal structure, and extreme party system fragmentation make Belgium a rich but complex case offering findings highly relevant to research on candidates in other democracies.
Audrey Vandeleene is Researcher in the Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden.
Lieven De Winter is Senior Professor of Political Science at the Centre of Political Science and Comparative Politics (CESPOL), Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
Pierre Baudewyns is Professor of Political Science at the Centre of Political Science and Comparative Politics (CESPOL), Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

Analyses the variations of Belgian candidates’ political and socio-demographic background, campaign behaviour towards voters and parties, and policy viewsDigs into the triadic delegation and accountability relationship between candidates, voters, and partiesIs based on rich data from the Belgian Candidate Survey 2014
Analyses the variations of Belgian candidates’ political and socio-demographic background, campaign behaviour towards voters and parties, and policy views Digs into the triadic delegation and accountability relationship between candidates, voters, and parties Based on rich data from the Belgian Candidate Survey 2014

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Audrey Vandeleene

Themen in »Candidates, Parties and Voters in the Belgian Partitocracy«

candidates political parties voters Belgium electoral campaigns Comparative Candidate Survey (CCS) Western Europe representative democracy congruence principal-agent theory partitocracy democracy

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“This book successfully frames the triadic relationship between candidates, voters and parties within the principal–agent theory by making theoretically relevant the distinction between realistic and non-realistic candidates and by approaching the Belgian multilevel elections of May 2014 as a comparative test. It greatly improves our knowledge on political representation.” (Paolo Segatti, University of Milan, Italy)

“This book is a major and timely contribution to the important and growing field of studies about democratic representation. The authors cover important dimensions of the triadic link between voters, parties and candidates that help explain differences and similarities in candidates’ background, campaign activities, policy congruence and views on representation and democracy.” (Eva H. Önnudóttir, University of Iceland, Iceland)

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