Electoral Engineering for divided societies: Satisfaction Approval Voting and Proportional Vote representativity profiles. A mixed experiment in Belgium

Abstract Belgium has long been described as an ideal-typical case of consociational democracy, which is considered by prominent scholars as the best model to govern divided societies (LIJHPART, 1999). Still, the country is characterized by a centrifugal federalism and witnessed hard political crises between the two majoritarian ethnic groups. With no national political party and political debates following the linguistic lines, there are de facto two independent electoral systems (PILET, 2005). The institutional engineering of Belgium was not inspired by consociational theory, but it emerged from successive compromises between political parties. Nonetheless, it raises the question whether such a design is the most effective to promote stability in an ethnically divided society. Thought an eminent advocate of the Centripetist School criticized the reformed proposed, the current debates about reforms of the electoral law focus on a federal constituency''s potential and not on the influence of voting systems (HOROWITZ 2009). If the creation of a multiethnic constituency may not have enough incentives to depolarized politics, would a more complete electoral reform, including a modification of the ballot have stronger effects? Although Approval Voting is studied by political scientists, mathematicians and economists, with mathematical formalism (BAHARAD & NITZAN 2005) or analyzing data of the associations and committee that adopted it (BRAMS & FISHBURN 1992, or with both field and laboratory experiences (BALINSKI & al. 2003; BASSI 2006); although it is praised for some thirty years by some of them, it is not used in national either regional election. The literature attributes to Approval Voting some characteristics: it reduces the risk of polarization of the electorate, and if not strategic proof, the strategic manipulations under AV are milder: voters may truncate their preference scale, but they don’t desert their first choice (BRAMS & FISHBURN; 1978). Used to party-list elections, this modality of Approval Voting would make a strong incentive to party fragmentation. At the contrary, List Satisfaction Approval Voting - as list Sized Approval Voting- (BRAMS & KILGOUR 2010) are fragmentation proof. My main research questions are: Which might be the effects of the simultaneous creation of a federal constituency and Satisfaction Approval Voting system in Belgium? What are the ethnic representation potential of SAV and simple Proportional systems?To what extent this might affect electoral behaviour, compared to a reform that would only create a multiethnic constituency? Which political parties would probably take advantage of it? 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