Standpunten en kanttekeningen

De gemeentelijke fusies in Vlaanderen: hun invloed op de politieke samenstelling van de lokale politieke elite 1946-1988

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Abstract

The mergers of municipalities in Flanders. Their impact on the political composition of the local political elite 1946-1988 - In Belgian history mergers of municipalities are traditionally considered to be the most important reform in local governments. The aim of this merger operation was to give the municipalities sufficient means so that they could supply their citizens with the necessary services. This article deals with the impact of the mergers of municipalities on the political composition of the local political elite in Flanders during the period 1946-1988. For the period 1946-1988 we can conclude that there is a clear coherence between the impact of the different political parties and the size of the municipality. First of all there is a negative relation between the size of the municipality and the share of the political elite that is chosen on the local lists. On the other hand for the Socialist Party, the Liberal Party and the ’Volksunie’ (the Flemish Nationalist Party) there is a positive coherence between the size of the municipality and the share of the local political elite that makes its entry in the council through these parties. Finally the share of the ’CVP’ (Christian Democrats) in the local political elites of the smallest as well as of the largest municipalities is on the whole, except for 1952 and 1976, the ’slightest’. From the classification of the municipalities according to their number of citizens before and after the mergers it appears that before the mergers 68,3% of the municipalities in Flanders belonged to the category of municipalities with less than 5000 inhabitants, while the percentage went down to 5,1% after the mergers. With these conclusions the ’merger operation’ was an ideal way (a political strategy ?) to eliminate local political parties and to increase the impact of national political parties drastically. In other words : was the above-mentioned goal of the mergers of municipalities the only goal of this operation ?

How to Cite:

Reynaert, H., (1996) “De gemeentelijke fusies in Vlaanderen: hun invloed op de politieke samenstelling van de lokale politieke elite 1946-1988”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 41(4), 439–449. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.95252