Local party sections and the local elections of 2012: organization and strategies

In October 2012 elections will be organized in all 589 Belgian local municipalities. Replicating a design that we already used in 1994, 2000 and 2006 we will send a questionnaire to all the local sections of all political parties. The questionnaire deals with a variety of themes, like the organization of the local sections, the strategies for the upcoming elections, the list formation, the process of coalition formation in 2006 and the evaluation of the previous term in office or in opposition. We will - like we did before - bring together a team of scholars interested in the analysis of local politics from all Belgian universities.
The research will allow us to test several research questions. Central theme however is the degree in which the local level functions as a relatively autonomous level in the party organization (stratarchy), or to the contrary functions in a hierarchical logic as the local representative of a statewide political party. Previous findings suggest that there is a gradual development towards a more stratarchical model. Replicating a design that we have used three times already must allow us to expand this analysis over time.