Research

In a representative democracy, it is commonly assumed that the election result paints an accurate picture of the political wishes and demands of the electorate. However, several factors can influence the extent to which voters can and do express their own views accurately. In my research, I examine the interaction between voters, parties, and electoral institutions in the electoral arena and how these contribute to the quality of electoral representation. I have a mostly comparative focus, though with special interest in the Belgian case. Methodologically, I mostly use quantitative methodology, combining survey research with experiments. 

In my PhD dissertation, I focused on the “quality” of the vote choice. I argued that, to allow for effective representation of voter interests, it is important that voters cast a vote that is in line with their political preferences. To cast such informed votes, I investigated two main theories explaining voter behaviour: retrospective voting, and proximity voting. According to the retrospective voting theory, voters retrospectively evaluate the performance of the incumbent party/-ies and cast a vote according to this evaluations. According to the proximity voting theory, voters compare their own political views and opinions with the different party platforms, and vote for the party that is closest to them. In my dissertation, I tested to what extent voters live up to the normative ideals described by these respective theories, and which factors condition the extent to which they do so. As all of the empirical chapters are based on published articles, you can find most of my findings among my publications.

In my junior post-doctoral project, I built on these findings, and aimed to combine the retrospective voting mechanism with insights of ideological voting. More specifically, I investigated to what extent voters take into account parties’ past performance with regard to position issues (in contrast to the valence issues usually investigated in the work on retrospective voting) when they decide which party to vote for. I examined different dimensions of this question: from the point of view of the voter, I tested whether voters take into account the performance of all parties, and which kind of issues is most important is that regard. On the level of parties, I tested whether a strong track record helps parties build a stronger reputation on their core issues.

In my senior post-doctoral project I focus on perceived legitimacy of elections, and how this can be increased. While there is high public support for electoral democracy worldwide, electoral turnout has been decreasing strongly in the past decades. This apparent contradiction leads to inequality between who turns out and who does not, and it also likely lowers people’s perceptions of the legitimacy of elections. It is therefore unsurprising that political researchers and practitioners have looked for ways to increase turnout, but so far we know very little about the broader effects of these interventions. In my project, I investigate the effects of interventions to increase turnout on people’s political attitudes and behaviour, and on their perception of the legitimacy of the electoral result. I rely on a unique electoral situation that presents itself in 2024 in Belgium in which two Election Days are held in the same year, each time presenting a new electoral rule, to examine the effects of lowering the voting age to 16 years old and compulsory voting on people’s political attitudes using a more compelling design than previous research. I also use experimental designs to investigate the effect of (interventions to increase) turnout on perceptions of the legitimacy of elections. Taken together, I aim to uncover whether declining levels of turnout endanger the stability of representative democratic systems, and the extent to which interventions to increase turnout affect the legitimacy of elections.

Besides these projects, I have also investigated other domains of electoral and political behaviour more generally. One main research project I was part of, focused on the consequences of lowering the voting age to 16 years old for on the involved adolesents’ political attitudes, their political engagement, and elections more generally. The results of this “Ghent study” are published in various journals and a course book, and I have also had to opportunity to present the main findings in lectures and more informal talks at the university and for different stakeholders and interested audiences. I have also been part of several large-scale survey-studies in the context of Belgian elections in 2019 and 2024 – collecting the data that are included in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). Furthermore, I have worked on electoral volatility, leadership traits, the electoral winner-loser gap, survey measurement, political trust, etc. For a full overview, see my publications or my Google Scholar profile.