Studies about the Flemish voter's perceptions and attitudes revealed that the ecologist party "Agalev" and the radical right-wingparty "Vlaams Blok" were each other's antipodes. These two parties were perceived by the voters as extreme poles on dimensions that were mainly formed by the parties' viewpoint about the rights of immigrants, about Flemish political autonomy, and about materialistic versus postmaterialistic policy alternatives. According to the voters' attitudes, the two electorates were polarized by their attitudes towards immigrants, materialism, economic conservatism, and Flemish (...) nationalism. The electorates of these two 'extreme' parties were very similar in age composition, urban/rural environment, and church involvement. The voters of the ecologist party were more likely to have finished higher education and to have a high occupational status. Blue collar workers with little educational formation were over-represented among the electorate of the right-wing party.Using the data collected among 2,691 Flemisch voters after the 1991 General Elections, this study analyses relevant attitudes and socio-demographic characteristics within one global logistic-regression model. The focus is on the Vlaams Blok versus Agalev with the other electorates as reference category. Controlled for social characteristics, four attitudinal variables still show significant net effects on the likelihood of votingfor Agalev or for the Vlaams Blok and not for the other parties: the attitude towards immigrants, Belgian/Flemish nationalism, materialism, and readiness to make efforts for the preservation of the physical environment. This findings support Swyngedouw's thesis about the emergence of two new cleavages: the so called universalistic/particularistic and postmaterialistic/materialistic cleavages that are capable tocatch about 20% of the Belgian-Flemish voters in the early 90s. (shrink)

In 1995, the Flemish Government commissioned a two wave panel study on the citizens knowledge about the Flemish institutions, structures, and policy, and on the effect of an intensive information campaign held between the first and the second wave. 710 respondents co-operated in thefirst wave. In 1996 the study was repeated, following a simulated test-re-test design with 532 panel respondents and 455 new respondents. This study is based on the 987 respondents in the 1996 survey. After a discussion of the (...) theoretical models for political knowledge, a model with eight latent variables and with a number of social-background variables is introduced and tested, using a structural modeling approach. The model has a strong predictive power for political knowledge. The most important explanatory variables are education, and reading political news in newspapers. Other explanatory factors for the variation in political knowledge are generation, and membership of voluntary associations, gender, individualism, and reading local news. The 'consumption' of local news or sensational news about crimes or calamities has a negative effect on political knowledge.The lack of political knowledge clearly affects both trust in polities and the experience of a complex incomprehensible society. The less the knowledge the more distrust and feelings of uncertainty. These relationships clearly show the importance ofknowledge about politics for the quality of democracy. (shrink)

In the domain of survey research, it is well known and documented that the structure, wording, and context of questions may affect the distributions of the responses to choice questions. Surprisingly, the application of the knowledge about these effects is not often made in the domain of referendums. Only few studies deal with the effects of question characteristics in referendums, although in the field, there are many discussions about the results obtained by problematic questions. In this study, a number of (...) wording effects that can be expected in referendums are discussed in the context of the actual state of theory and knowledge in the research on question wording effects in surveys. Some are well known and others are new, but also very relevant. The expected problems deal with: the choice between real alternatives; the decision about the majority in the case of multiple choice questions; the ambiguity in the choice between "yes" and "no"; the bidden response scale behind "yes-no" questions and the selection of the of verbs or qualifiers; the use of"double barrelled questions"; the suggestive wordings in the question text or in the introduction; the context of the questions when several questions are asked response sets. The importance and seriousness of each ofthese effects is evaluated, and reflections are made on the quality of the questions in referendums. Consequently suggestions are made about the kind of questions that can be used in referendums. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that there is a strong relationship between church involvement and preference for the Belgian Christian Democratic Party. When religious preference is controled, the relationship between social class and preference for the CVP/PSC seems to disappear completely. Indeed, this party is very heterogeneous as regards the social origins of its adherents. The situation is completely different for preference for the Socialist Party whi.h has a strong relationship between party preference, on the one hand, church involvement and social (...) class, on the other. The unchurched and the workers manifest more preference for the BSP/PSB than do other people. According to Hill the degree of involvement in the «zuil», the so-called «organizational variable», is also significant in the explanation of voting behavior. This could not be confirmed, however, due to a lack of data.Two hypotheses are formulated : 1) pillar involvement in addition to social class and church involvement is significant in the preference for the BSP; 2) there is no connection between preference for the CVP and social class so that only church and pillar involvement remain. These two models were tested by means of loglinear analysis and seem to fit the data.The intention of this article, however, is primarily didactic : to show the possibilities and limitations of the analysis of contingency tables by means of Goodmans loglinear analysis procedure through the use of asimple and relevant example. (shrink)

This study evaluates the impact of new voters and deceased voters in the statistical analysis of shifts in voting behaviour from one election to another. Conclusions about the shifts between the political parties from one election to another are ajfected by the fact that at the time of the analyzed election, the population of the former election bas substantial by changed. In order to fix the marginal distributions of the turnover table, estimations should be made about the distribution of the (...) new voters and the deceased voters over the political parties. Information about the new voters can be extracted from the sample in use. Estimations of the last voting behaviour of the deceased are based on prior surveys. The conclusions about the mutual shifts between parties are affected to the degree that the parties differ according to the age distributions.The method has been applied to exit poll datafrom the 1991 general elections in Limburg. (shrink)

The relationships between the political parties and the social movements that emerged in the last part of the previous century has been described as a pillarized form of intermediation. The political parties were built on the major cleavages that divided the Belgium society and the links between each organisational network and the political party were exclusive, stable, and formal. In the so-called new social movements, the links with the political parties are specific, unstable, and informal. A vast and stable support (...) for each network party by the majority of the members of the social organisations that belang to each network is one of the conditions for an adequate functioning of the model of pillarized intermediation. Is that condition still met in Flanders after the General Elections ofNovember 24, 1991?This study, based on a sample of 2,691 Flemish voters, shows strong differences in 'faithful' and stable voting behaviour according to the generation and the kind of involvement in the social organisations. Among the generations that were born after 1945, the proportion of electoral 'movers' is larger than the proportion ofvoters that remain faithful to their network party. In the generations born before 1945, stable and faithful voting behaviour is still dominant in the three traditional political families. The more involvement in the Christian Labour Movement, the higher the degree of stable voting behaviour in favour of the Christian Democratie Party. A logistic regression analysis with church involvement, age category, urban environment, and several organizational variabels shows thatmembership of social organisations still has a substantial effect on stable voting behaviour. The future of the pillarized model of intermediation is discussed in view of these results. (shrink)

The General Elections of November 24 1991 will secure a place in Belgian political history. On this 'Black Sunday' one third of the electorate changed party. The traditional parties were heavy losers and the swing was wholly to the advantage of 'Vlaams Blok' and 'Rossem'. Since the election a never ending stream of explanations has appeared. Immediately after the elections the Interuniversity Center of Political Opinion research, located at the Catholic University of Leuven, began a national survey of political attitudes (...) and beliefs among 2,691 Flemish voters. This article explores the reasons for voting for the winning parties. Is it appropriated to speak of protest, disappointment and apathy?The authors expect stable, traditional voting behaviour to continue to decrease in future as a result of loosening ties with the "pillars", the decline of church involvement and the process of individualisation. The article ends with some critical comments on the role of the media as a producer of explanations andlegitimations. (shrink)

Sociological research in three Catholic «pillar» organizations indicates that secularization is not followed by a «de-pillarization» or crumbling of the Catholic pillar. Our explanation suggests a process of secularization within the Catholic organizations, with as main components : the development of a social-cultural christianity - which may be considered a secular surrogate for church-religion -, and professionalization by which the christian organizations provide a milieu which ensures job security and social advancement for its loyal members. Thanks to its informal and (...) formal ties with the Christian pillar organizations, the CVP acts on both components, by stressing a specific identity and by defining the interests of the pillar organizations. This explanation may indicate some major aspects of the ties between sociological Catholics and «their» political party - a bond which is certainly not being affected by the secularization processes, rather the contrary is occurring. (shrink)

On the basis of the research literature, five aspects of the extreme right-wing ideology were distinguished : racism, extreme ethnic nationalism, the preference for a strong leadership, anti-parliamentarianism, and an anti-left attitude. The data of a postal survey in the spring of 1991 of a representative sample of the Flemish population in Belgium show that the items with which these extreme right-wing topics were operationalized show a one dimensional structure. About 10% to 25% of the interviewees agree with the individual (...) items and about 20% of the subjects scored on the extreme right-wing side of the scale. The 'hardcore' of extreme right-wing respondents is, however, much smaller, and does not seem to be higher in Flanders than in most of the surrounding countries. The right-wing extremism scale developed correlates as expected with a previously developed typology that integrates the attitude with respect to autochthons and allochthons. The analysis confirms that the voters for the Vlaams Blok - taken as a whole - may not be considered right-wing extremists, as suggested by previous research. Right-wing extremism correlates with a large number of attitudes and seems to be embedded in the broader opinion dimension of socio-cultural conservatism. This may also explain why it is associated primarily with the age, educational level, and religiosity of the respondents. (shrink)

Taking into account the limits of such data, this study analyses the shifts in voting behaviour from the national elections in 1985 to those in 1987 in Flanders, using log-linear modelling. The use of data from poll surveys for estimating shifts between subsequent elections poses some methodological problems.The second part presents the results of the analysis. About 13,51 % of -the 1985-voters switched. Although there are significant shifts between all the political parties, the Christian Democratic Party loses on all fronts. (...) A log-linear analysis of party-reference by sex, age and occupational status shows the strength and weakness of each party in different societal categories. In conclusion, an interpretation of the shifts is proposed. The following factors can account for the major shifts : the desintegration of the catholic pillar, the emergence of a dual society, the affinity between neo-liberalism and yuppie-culture and the conflict between the language communities. (shrink)