Local planning in Belgium: A myriad of policy styles?
(2017) Policy analysis in Belgium — ISBN: [978-1-4473-1725-8], p. 107-127, published
Files
LocalPolicyAnalysis_Finalversion.docx
Open Access - Microsoft Word XML
- 87.15 KB
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- What policy style(s) does local government display in Belgium? This seemingly straightforward question does not have an easy answer. After all, the country is renowned for its institutional complexity and thickness, two features that strongly impact upon local government’s way of working. In the wake of the state reforms, the federal government granted the three Belgian regions (Walloon, Flemish and Brussels) key competencies over the cities and municipalities standing on their territory (Deschouwer and Reuchamps, 2013). In 2001, regions even became entitled over the basic local government legislation, regulating to a large extent local political and administrative institutions and practices. A new and influential layer of central government has thus been created: all regions have grasped their new powers to introduce policy tools and instruments on the local level, according to their own pace and policy orientation (Wayenberg et al., 2011). This federalization process added diversity between cities and municipalities that were already very heterogonous in size, financial status and political dynamics, to name but a few of their basic characteristics (De Rynck and Wayenberg, 2013). As a result, local government in the three Belgian regions now operates under different regulatory frames. This chapter explores whether local government in Belgium displays a specific style of policy analysis. To this end, we use a two-level comparative analysis that allows us to shed light on local policy analysis regarding the specificity of the Belgium’s regions. The first level is a comparison of the Flemish and the Walloon regions. The focus on them is not only a matter of size, as Flanders and Wallonia respectively count 308 (52%) and 262 (45%) of the 589 Belgian municipalities but also a matter of policy analysis. Indeed, they cover the country’s two main administrative traditions, being located in the Dutch-speaking north and the French-speaking south. Both have also made use of their competency to legislate on local government’s political and administrative institutions and practices, and have promulgated local government legislation to this end. That is not the case of the Brussels-Capital Region, which accounts for 19 municipalities (3%) still functioning according to the Belgian legislation of 1988 (De Rynck and Wayenberg, 2013). The case of Brussels will therefore not be handled is this chapter nor will the peculiar case of the nine German-speaking municipalities that are attached both to the Walloon Region and the German-speaking Community (Bouhon et al., 2015). As such, we aim at finding out what policy-making tools and instruments are currently in use on the local level and what are those emerging, via a thorough documentary analysis of local government legislation in both regions. The second comparative level is a case study of two local governments with the aim of verifying the localization of the regional tools and instruments. Are they actually embedded in local government’s practice, thus shaping local policy style? To this end, we consider one Flemish and one Walloon local government, respectively Deinze and Gembloux. These cities are quite similar on the main institutional features: both are medium-size, financially healthy and are governed since 2006 by the same parties. They are thus suitable to gather first insights into local government’s style(s) of policy analysis and put forward the possible gap with the regional injunctions and the differences between the two regions. Before turning to the two-level comparative analysis, we start by clarifying the policy style concept that is central to our analysis.
- Affiliations
Citations
Wayenberg, E., Reuchamps, M., Kravagna, M., & Fallon, C. (2017). Local planning in Belgium: A myriad of policy styles? In Brans Marleen, Aubin David (ed.), Policy analysis in Belgium (p. p. 107-127). Polity Press. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/243516