Minority Nations in Multinational Federations: A Comparative Study of Quebec and Wallonia by Min Reuchamps

Author:Min Reuchamps [Reuchamps, Min]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781138796324
Google: EHG6oAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 22776054
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

5 Local politics in Quebec and Wallonia

Local political dynamics as seen through the mayoral career

Sandra Breux and Vincent Jacquet

In most Western democracies, the 2000s were marked by the restructuring of the local government systems (Saltzstein et al. 2008). In their various configurations, these reforms often contributed to a redefinition of the role of local elected officials, in particular that of the position of mayor (Schaap, Daemen and Ringelling 2009). In Wallonia as well as in Quebec, this redefinition of the roles of mayor manifested in the expansion of the electoral base. In Quebec, the municipal restructuring (2001–3) reduced the number of municipalities by merging some of them. The resulting fewer yet larger municipal entities then comprised an enlarged electoral base for the mayors, elected by direct universal suffrage since 1968. In the Walloon Region, the municipal reform of 2005 significantly changed the mode of designation of the bourgmestre, i.e. the mayor. Since then, to become bourgmestre, a candidate must obtain the most preferential votes on the list that receives the most votes among the political groups forming the pacte de majorité, i.e. the coalition agreement, adopted by the communal council (Matagne et al. 2011). While not a direct election, this mode of designation also expanded the electoral base of the mayor, who had been up to then designated by the King.

These restructurings of the local government were beneficial for some municipalities in that they strengthened the legitimacy of the local level of politics and the position of the mayor within that institutional architecture (Borraz and John 2004). However, the authority of the office of mayor tends to be questioned (Steyvers et al. 2008; Sweeting 2003). This context gives rise to research on the role of mayor and the resources at their disposal, the policies adopted on the basis of their party affiliation and their performance (Wouter and Schaap 2010). This research, in turn, sheds light on the overall local political dynamics at work (Becquart-Leclercq 1980; Flanagan 2004). However, while these studies identify the salient characteristics of the mayoral function, they generally restrict their analysis to the nature of the mayoral mandate exercised for a given term, only rarely investigating the broader question of the place that the mayoral function holds within a larger political career and what this place reveals about the local political dynamics. As such, Pilet, Fiers and Kristof state that “few studies have, for the time being, tried to apprehend the effects of this proliferation of political arenas … on political competition, even though this has profoundly reshaped the career perspectives offered to legal agents” (2007: 309, our translation). In other words, in a contemporary context of multilevel governance, is the position of mayor a stepping stone to other spheres or a culminating point of the political career? Or, what is the importance of the municipal scale within a larger political career and what does this importance reveal to us about the local political dynamics at work?

This question is very pertinent in a comparison between Quebec and

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