ABSTRACT
With an extremely fragmented party system,1 due to a multitude of cleavages and policy dimensions, Belgium’s parliament provides fertile ground for a study of parliamentary party groups (PPGs). To narrow the focus, this study will look only at the PPGs in the Chamber of Representatives during the 1995-99 period.2 How do PPGs operate in a partitocratic context such as the Belgian political system? This chapter will examine the extent to which extra-parliamentary parties (EPOs) manage to exert their predominance within the parliamentary subsystem and in the relationship of the latter with the executive.
