From Divergence to Convergence: Degrees of Formality in the Connections Between Two Flemish Progressive Political Parties and Organised Civil Society

ÉDITION

Eleven

COLLECTION

Politics of the Low Countries

LIEN

Eleven journals

Introduction

The connections between political parties and civil society are central to ensuring that the concerns and preferences of ordinary citizens are reflected in the decisions of their governments (Panebianco, 1988; White & Ypi, 2016). Connections matter to both parties and CSOs. For parties, their connections to organised civil society provide pathways to large numbers of voters, sources of policy advice and expertise, and sounding boards during discussions about coalition formation (Allern et al., 2021a; Romeijn, 2020). And for CSOs, parties are ‘gatekeepers’ to public office, providing channels for CSOs to influence policymaking and realise the policy goals of their members (Berkhout, 2013).

For much of the 20th century, analysis of connections between political parties and civil society focused on the relationships between parties with large memberships and CSOs representing economic interests (Bartolini, 2000; Bartolini & Mair, 1990). Most connections between parties and CSOs were formalised in statutes of political parties or through individual membership of linked organisations (Allern & Verge, 2017; Poguntke, 2002).

In recent decades, party systems in Western Europe have undergone extensive changes. The weakening of traditional cleavages that structured party systems around class, religion and geography, and the emergence of new cleavages around sociocultural dimensions, (Bornschier, 2009; Ford & Jennings, 2020) have fragmented party systems. The number of parties contesting elections has increased, and elections have become increasingly volatile (Emanuele, 2015). And the increased salience to European electorates of issues, such as the environment and immigration, and the emergence of radical populist parties have resulted in greater polarisation of party systems (Borbáth et al., 2023).

At the same time, civil society has undergone extensive changes. On the one hand, there has been an increase in the prominence of professionally run and state-funded CSOs in place of membership-based organisations (Maloney, 2012). On the other hand, recent decades have witnessed the mobilisation by new social movements that articulate a wide range of new claims in areas such as environment, globalisation and identity politics (Fuchs & Rucht, 2018) and an increased polarisation of civil society as new conflicts are politicised by radical actors (Grande, 2022).

These changes have sparked a revival of scholarly interest in the relationship between political parties and organised civil society, suggesting that they have changed in form and structure. While formal connections have declined (Allern & Verge, 2017), a wide range of informal contacts between parties and CSOs have developed that vary widely in their degree of routine or regularity (Allern, 2010; Allern, et al., 2021b). Other studies have compared the different approaches to renewing links of parties within the same party family (Lisi, 2013) or have analysed party strategies for establishing connections in a new democracy (Verge, 2012).

However, less is known about how parties and CSOs from diverging historical and organisational traditions have navigated their relationships in a time of change. A shift from more formal and exclusive to informal and nonexclusive connections may not mean that connections have become less relevant for important political outcomes such as the openness and legitimacy of public policymaking and the responsiveness of political elites to new ideas and inputs from civil society. The study of how parties and CSOs shape connections in a changing context can, therefore, help us understand how patterns of interest representation are evolving and throw light on challenges to their legitimacy.

To explore this question, I draw on the growing literature in this field to propose a comprehensive typology of connections between parties and CSOs comprising formal connections and informal connections. My case study considers patterns of connection from the perspective of both parties and CSOs. I focus on two progressive political parties in the Belgian region of Flanders: (1) Vooruit, a party with extensive government experience and a history of ties to pillarised structures of interest representation (Van Haute & Wauters, 2019) and (2) Groen, a challenger party that emerged from new social movements. And I consider the perspectives and strategies of a wide range of Flemish CSOs on the form and evolution of their connections with both these parties and other parties in the Flemish party system. I combine data from a novel dataset, party statutes and semi-structured interviews with political and civil actors in Flanders.

My study of how patterns of connection between parties and CSOs have been shaped at the system level is guided by two general expectations. The first is that changes in the Flemish political system and civil society will have shaped a pattern of connections dominated by informal rather than formal types of connection. The second is that organisations from the region’s traditional ‘pillar’ structures will retain stronger formal connections than organisations that have emerged outside these structures, reflecting path dependencies rooted in ideology and origins (e.g. Gunther, 2005; Rasmussen & Lindeboom, 2013).

The findings are supportive of the first expectation, and there is also some support for the second expectation. Departing from patterns of connection shaped by different organisational and ideological traditions, the two parties and CSOs have converged on a very similar structure of relationships, even though this structure retains legacies of the regions’ system of pillarisation. The contemporary structure of relationships between parties and civil society is dominated by non-exclusive informal contacts of varying degrees of regularity that are initiated by both civil and political actors. I explain this convergence in terms of the politicisation of public policymaking in Flanders and the pragmatic approach of mainstream civil society to representing the claims of their constituencies.

This article makes an important contribution to our understanding of how parties and CSOs navigate their interactions in a time of change, identifying two important factors that play a significant part in shaping relationships: (1) the influence of policymaking institutions and (2) the strategies of both parties and civic groups in pursuing their goals within those institutions. And by identifying a full typology of connections between parties and CSOs and exploring the pattern they take at the level of a political system, this article provides a framework for further comparative research into how patterns of connection may be shaped in political systems characterised by different histories and structures of interest representation.

This article is structured as follows. In the first section, I review theoretical contributions on the subject of this article and propose a full typology of formal and informal connections between parties and CSOs. In the second section, I detail the research design, introduce the Flemish case and describe the methods and data used to explore the research question. The results of the study are presented in the third section, and the final section discusses conclusions and identifies areas for future research.





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