Litigating federalism:An empirical analysis of decisions of the Belgian Constitutional Court

Belgian Constitutional Court ? Conflicts between regions, communities and the central government ? Allocation of competences ? Decisions with high political content ? Degree of political alignment between the parties in litigation and judicial behaviour at the Court ? Empirical testing ? All decisions of the Belgian Constitutional Court, 1985-2012 ? Alignment between the alleged political preferences of the judges and the political affiliation of the Petitioner increases the rate of success of the latter