Do candidates matter? The profile of candidates elected out of order in Belgium from 1995 until 2014

Political parties have been at the centre of the electoral process for a long time. However, with the weakening of social structures (Van der Eijk & Franklin, 2009; Dalton, 2013), one can ask if it is still the case. Undeniably, more and more voters disassociate themselves from a political party (e.g. due to the erosion of traditional cleavages), in a context of dealignement and electoral volatility (Baudewyns, 2010, Dassonneville, 2012), reducing the role of party representation and enhancing the personalization of the representative process. Nevertheless, while candidates play a crucial role in the political linkage, it is still the party who selects them and decides who is eligible for a seat, and to what degree by determining the list position of each candidate. This dimension is often neglected by scholars, while it is a crucial element in our democracy (Hazan, 2010: 3). One way to contribute to the ongoing debate and shed some light on the phenomena of personalization is by asking the question of the extent to which candidates matter individually once the list composition is final. Can they change the will of the party through preference votes, or does the party continue to rule the elections with an iron fist? Indeed, Fiers calculated that only 30 out of 4719 MPs (from 1919–1995) got elected out of list order (2009). This study aims to analyse the period from 1995 until 2014 at the federal level in Belgium, based on the official list results (as released by the Belgian ministry of Interior), in order to see if (A) there is an increase in the candidates elected out of order, and if so (B) what we can tell about their profile. We call the hypothesis that (H1) there is an increase in the candidates elected out of order, following the trend of personalization, despite the power of the political parties. This can be an indicator of the failure of the political party to adapt to the changing environment. This increase could be explained by (H2) the personalized profile of the candidates, countering the wish of the political party.