More or less regional autonomy? A qualitative analysis of citizen arguments towards (de)centralization in Belgium

Belgium is often portrayed as a textbook example of gradual federalization. Today, however, a rather new debate among political elites has emerged: whether to refed-eralize some of the powers that have been devolved to the substate entities. Yet, little is known about how citizens see the issue. The objective of this article is therefore to explore and compare citizens’ arguments for more or less regional autonomy. To this end, three citizen forums focusing on federalism were organized in 2017–2018: one in French, a second one in Dutch and a third one in German. They were transcribed and a... Mehr ...