Strategic Coalition Voting in Belgium: The 2014 Federal and Regional Elections

Voters harboring strategic voting motives veer from their preferred party or candidate expecting to influence the outcome of an election. As chapter 1 points out, for some voters, an election’s outcome is the composition of parliament; others wish to have an impact on who governs. Majoritarian systems and their single-party executives obviously make this easier for their electorates, as the party that wins a majority of parliamentary seats usually heads the government. But when election results tend to be translated into coalition governments, being strategic in the voting booth requires an extra expectation—that is, who will (successfully) negotiate with