Language-based reserved seats and descriptive representation of citizens of immigrant origin in Brussels

Within Belgium’s unique federal system, Brussels is an interesting case as it combines the features of a territory-based region (the Brussels-Capital region) and two language-based communities (the Flemish and the French communities). The composition of the Brussels regional parliament reflects this dual status as there are two groups of reserved seats according to language. Since 2001, Brussels citizens elect 72 French-speaking and 17 Dutch-speaking regional representatives in two separated electoral districts based on the language of the voter. Besides this specific institutional arrangement, Brussels is also characterized by a large immigrant population. Citizens of immigrant origin (CIOs) constitute about 40% of the population in Brussels and represent thus a crucial group of voters for Flemish and French-speaking parties for their electoral results in the region. In order to incorporate this electorate and to maximize their chances to gain seats in the parliament, both parties have incentives to present CIO candidates on their lists. However, since the establishment of reserved seats for Flemish and French-speaking parties, party strategies may have changed and the incentives to incorporate CIO candidates might not be the same before and after 2001. Based on a database of individual electoral outcomes for all candidates for all parties and for all regional elections in Brussels since 1989, we test the impact of the establishment of reserved seats on the representation of CIOs. We expect to observe different results for Flemish and French-speaking parties, our main hypothesis being that CIO candidates have more chances to get elected on Flemish parties’ lists after the establishment of language-based reserved seats. As most of the literature on the political incorporation of CIOs in Brussels focuses on the debate on the enfranchisement of EU and non-EU citizens in Belgium at the local level in the late 1990s, our intersectional study takes into account CIOs and linguistic communities and put it into perspective with a particular feature of the institutional system at the regional level in Brussels.