Green Parties’ Participation in Local Elections in Belgium

In Belgium, green parties traditionally perform better in (second-order) European elections, in urban electoral districts and among the new middle class voters in federal and regional elections. By definition, local elections are particularly challenging for the green parties as local elections in Belgium heavily rely on local issues and on local party sections. First, the green parties’ main campaign issue (i.e. the environment) is often of a transnational nature and away from the local voter’s minds. Second, the green party structures are – unlike mainstream parties – not build on a large amount of well-organised local sections. This paper intends to identify the factors that explain why green parties participate in elections in some municipalities, and not others. Using a database of elections in all Walloon municipalities for 1994-2012, we test a series of hypotheses based on socio-demographics, party competition, previous election results, environmental factors, etc.