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The last stand of a mainstream party doomed to die? A study of the causes of the transformation of the cdH into Les Engagé.e.s

par Legein, Thomas ;Rangoni, Sacha
Référence Belgium: State of the Federation (11th: 21-12-2022: Brussels)
Publication Non publié, 2022-12-21

Communication à un colloque

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Résumé :

This article proposes a qualitative analysis of a sequence of two (bundles of) reforms implemented by the French-speaking Belgian Christian democratic party cdH in 2022, recently relabelled Les Engagé.e.s. The study addresses both a methodological and conceptual gap in the analysis of the causes of party reforms. The study relies on a process-tracing focusing on the causal complexity that underlies party reforms, which are conceptualised as fundamentally multidimensional. We combine party elites interviews with media reports and original party documents to inductively explore what can be learned about the mechanisms of party reforms when they are studied in bundles. Special attention was also given to the questions of when and how party elites perceived particular stimuli in their environment, and when and how they translated it into specific outcomes. The results offer methodological and theoretical insights that go beyond the specific case study explored. The paper demonstrates the usefulness of engaging with party reforms as bundles since it reveals how reforms of different types can be interrelated and how this impacts the bargaining process between key party actors. This in-depth case study can also allow one to better understand how party elites interact with their environment during different phases of a sequential package of reforms. By dealing with causal complexity, it also emphasises the added value of process tracing as a unique method to produce additional knowledge to understand these sensitive events for political parties.