The Electoral System of Belgium and its Electoral Reforms ; El sistema electoral de Bélgica y sus reformas electorales

This paper deals with the study of the electoral system of the Belgian House of Representatives and its electoral reforms. Belgium was the first European country to adopt an electoral system of proportional representation and, since then, its main elements have exhibited extraordinary stability. However, with the turn of the century, the coalition government headed by the liberal Guy Verhofstadt put the debate on institutional reforms at the center of the political agenda. This led to an electoral reform that involved several novelties: the «provincialization» of the electoral map, the establi... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Fernández-Esquer, Carlos
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
Verlag/Hrsg.: UNED
Schlagwörter: Belgium / electoral systems / electoral reforms / federalism / Bélgica / sistemas electorales / reformas electorales / federalismo
Sprache: Spanish
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-28954838
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://revistas.uned.es/index.php/TRC/article/view/27144

This paper deals with the study of the electoral system of the Belgian House of Representatives and its electoral reforms. Belgium was the first European country to adopt an electoral system of proportional representation and, since then, its main elements have exhibited extraordinary stability. However, with the turn of the century, the coalition government headed by the liberal Guy Verhofstadt put the debate on institutional reforms at the center of the political agenda. This led to an electoral reform that involved several novelties: the «provincialization» of the electoral map, the establishment of a 5 percent threshold and the reduction of the list vote weight by half. In 2012, there was the last electoral reform, which consisted of the division of the controversial constituency of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. This last episode shows the complexity of the Belgian federal model, consociational, bipolar and with centrifugal dynamics. ; El presente artículo aborda el estudio del sistema electoral de la Cámara de Representantes belga y sus reformas electorales. Bélgica fue el primer país europeo en adoptar un sistema de representación proporcional y, desde entonces, sus elementos centrales han exhibido una extraordinaria estabilidad. Sin embargo, con el cambio de siglo, el gobierno de coalición liderado por el liberal Guy Verhofstadt situó el debate sobre las reformas institucionales en el centro de la agenda política. Ello condujo a una reforma electoral que supuso la «provincialización» del mapa electoral, el establecimiento de una barrera electoral del 5 por ciento y la reducción a la mitad del peso de voto de lista. En 2012, se produjo la última reforma electoral, que consistió en la división de la polémica circunscripción de Bruselas-Halle-Vilvoorde. Este último episodio evidencia la complejidad del modelo federal belga, de carácter consociacional, bipolar y con dinámicas centrífugas.This paper deals with the study of the electoral system of the Belgian House of Representatives and its electoral reforms. ...