Nationalisation of local party systems in Belgium (1976-2018): the combined effects of municipality size and parliamentary parties’ dominance

This article studies the nationalisation of local party systems in Belgian regions across eight electoral cycles (1976–2018). Our research design assesses the relevance of Rokkan’s structural approach of nationalisation while testing the effect of conjunctural electoral factors. Our empirical results highlight the positive effect of a municipality’s size on local party system nationalisation. Moreover, the analysis uncovers the impact of the electoral dominance of national parties in the local districts at previous national elections: where parliamentary parties have performed weakly at... Mehr ...