Vlaanderen voor het Blok? Het electorale succes van extreem-rechts herbekeken

Jurgen De Wispelaere, Trinity College Dublin
Michael Wagemans, London School of Economics

Abstract

This brief note explores the continuing rise of the Flemish Blok, the extreme right-wing party in Belgium. We briefly challenge the most common explanations and propose that part of the explanation might be due to the specific electoral context of Belgium and Flanders. The combination of compulsory voting, a multi-party coalition politics, and the absence of a genuine opportunity to cast a protest vote, we surmise, significantly explains the vote share of the Flemish Blok. If this diagnosis is correct, the solution to the problem is to ensure that genuine protest voters have an alternative avenue to register discontent with the current government, or even politics more generally, instead of a vote for the Extreme Right.