ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses whether Belgian candidates stand out in the partitocratic context of Belgian politics, and discusses Belgium’s presumed exceptionalism regarding its partitocratic nature. It deals with a comparative descriptive analysis across countries before studying the determinants of Belgian candidates’ independence more specifically in a multivariate fashion. The chapter builds several hypotheses based on the literature, presents the large data set and discusses the operationalization of the variables. It assesses that Belgian candidates differ from their Greek, Italian, and Portuguese counterparts but not always in the same direction. The party grip in terms of the forecasted loyalism in parliament is stronger in Belgium compared to the other partitocratic countries, while the leeway for Belgian candidates is relatively large when it comes to campaigning style. Belgium thus appears to be exceptional among partitocratic regimes when it comes to behavior in parliament but not in terms of campaigning style.
