Publicaties

This study applies process-tracing methods to understand the 2019 leadership selection process in the Belgian French-speaking liberal party, MR, which is the oldest and second largest party in French-speaking Belgium. We triangulate a variety of sources to assemble a rich qualitative material that is used to contrast the formal rules and outcome of the race to the actual process. We show that the gatekeepers were not the ones ascribed in the ...

Many Western parties have opened up the process of leadership selection in order to increase the party’s attractiveness, but negative reactions of losers in such contests might undermine these efforts. It has extensively been documented that losers of elections or referendums become less supportive for the political system, but the question is whether such a winner-loser gap also occurs in the context of intra-party elections. We examine unique ...

In this paper we try to scrutinize the role of local executive politicians in relation to the democratic anchorage of the local governance landscape in Flanders (Belgium). Since we can only pursue this by opening the black box of local governance, we need to figure out how local political leadership works in practice in order to fully understand its consequences with regards to local democracy. In the Kortrijk region one can identify a ...

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Background: Worldwide, increasing numbers of young unmarried people and adolescents are at risk of unplanned pregnancy. Reducing the unmet contraceptive need is the most effective way to avoid unplanned pregnancies among unmarried youth and adolescents. Public health experts and scientists consent that comprehensive and context-specific interventions are best fitted to change sexual behaviours. Up to date, only few studies assessed the ...

The most widely recognised entities enabling democracies to function properly are political parties. They are crucial for winning elections, creating impactful policies, and governing responsibly. However, the contemporary political landscape presents notable challenges to these parties, such as growing polarisation and the increasing importance of social media, pressuring them to prioritise remaining up-to-speed with day-to-day politics and ...

This article utilises an original dataset covering all members of the Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) to analyse the basis of support for Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and Penny Mordaunt in the October 2022 British Conservative Party leadership election. The significance of our findings is that they form the basis for a new understanding of how conservatism in the UK is changing post-Brexit. Our political variables include constituency ...