Coalition Voting in a Proportional Electoral Context: The Case of Belgium

The current Belgian government is made up of 6 parties. Yet, no Belgian voter can ever vote strategically in the conventional sense of the word (keeping a less-preferred party out): coalition formation is a party prerogative. However, voters have expectations and preferences about their favourite party’s coalition partners and might behave accordingly in the voting booth. For instance, they might defect from a (small) preferred party in favour of a larger one with more coalition potential. The 2014 Belgian elections offer a great opportunity to study the influence of electoral context on strategic voting. Using the PartiRep voter survey (random sample, N=10,000) and the Making Electoral Democracy Work survey, we will probe voters for their party sympathy, which parties they believe will be part of the government coalition, their left-right self- and party placement, etc. in order to find out to what extent strategic voting is influenced by coalition perceptions.