Belgian Region Of Flanders Research Articles

#Godwin. A discursive analysis and typology of strategic references to the thirties and the Second World War in Flemish MPs’ tweets

Abstract In the wake of a series of late-2019 identitarian conflicts, public discourse in the Belgian region of Flanders was marked by references to the 1930s and 1940s as well as debates about the political appropriateness and significance of such historical allusions. Moving beyond a description of how historical references are condensed in digital political communication, the present article investigates a corpus of tweets sent from accounts of Flemish MPs in order to open up interdisciplinary perspectives on, among others, the dynamics of implicit and explicit accusations of fascism, and the complex, contested fields of speech in which the 1930s and 1940s are evoked on social media. It is thereby argued that (1) on Twitter, terminology associated with the 1930s and 1940s blurs boundaries between present and past, (2) that this conceptual flexibility allows these terms to be deployed in support of a range of political strategies, and (3) that these strategies share prominent accusatory aspects. The paper thus makes an evidence-based contribution to our understanding of how the memory and imagery of the 1930s and the Second World War strategically figure in digital political communication. These findings on online conflict and debate dynamics are supplemented with a methodological reflection on the gains of adopting a localized approach to the analysis of social media texts.

Testing compliance to WHO guidelines for physical activity in Flanders: insights from time-use diaries

BackgroundRegular physical activity decreases the risk for numerous non-communicable diseases. The World Health Organization has suggested physical activity (PA) guidelines that, based on previous research, would provide health benefits to those who comply. The first guideline for health benefits suggests 150 min of moderate PA or equivalent per week. The guideline for additional health benefits suggests 300 min of PA or equivalent per week. The objective of this paper is to analyze to what extent these two WHO PA guidelines for adults are met in the Belgian region of Flanders. Furthermore, we are interested to see which groups are more or less likely to meet the PA guidelines.MethodsCrosstables and logistic regressions are used on a sample of 3028 adults in the Belgian region of Flanders. All respondents filled in a 7-day time-diary in which they continuously recorded all their activities.ResultsFirstly, men are more likely than women to comply to both PA guidelines. Secondly, living with a partner increases the odds to comply to the guidelines. For men, this is the case for both guidelines, while for women, this only applies to the first guideline. Thirdly, women with a young child have lower odds to comply to the guidelines, while having a young child doesn’t have an effect for men.ConclusionPrevious research on meeting PA guidelines in Flanders shows diverging results. Time-diary data allows researchers to strictly follow the WHO definition when operationalizing compliance to PA guidelines. There is a need for future research that combines time-diaries with a PA questionnaire and accelerometer data to gain more insights on the benefits and pitfalls of both methodologies.

Self-help groups and patient participation: current results and projects in the Belgian region of Flanders

In 2018, around 1500 self-help groups existed in the Belgian region of Flanders, dealing with almost 200 different diseases or problems. Most have existed for 25 to 35years, with new initiatives added annually. The first part of this article describes the development of self-help groups and patient participation in Flanders. The second part discusses the legal framework for the participation of patient associations at the micro-, meso-, and macrolevel. The third section describes two current practical examples of patient participation in the health system: the "self-help-friendly hospital" and "the integration of experts by experience in hospitals" with initial interim results. Finally, we discuss development and growth opportunities, as well as needs of self-help groups and patient associations and their support agencies and umbrella associations. More support for self-help groups and increased recognition of their achievements can promote structural forms of cooperation with the professional health system and boost patient participation.

Exploring the impact of austerity-driven policy reforms on the quality of the long-term care provision for older people in Belgium and the Netherlands

In this case study, European quality benchmarks were used to explore the contemporary quality of the long-term care provision for older people in the Belgian region of Flanders and the Netherlands following recent policy reforms. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with various experts on the long-term care provision. The results show that in the wake of the economic crisis and the reforms that followed, certain vulnerable groups of older people in Belgium and the Netherlands are at risk of being deprived of long-term care that is available, affordable and person-centred. Various suggestions were provided on how to improve the quality of the long-term care provision. The main conclusion drawn in this study is that while national and regional governments set the stage through regulatory frameworks and financing mechanisms, it is subsequently up to long-term care organisations, local social networks and informal caregivers to give substance to a high quality long-term care provision. An increased reliance on social networks and informal caregivers is seen as vital to ensure the sustainability of the long-term care systems in Belgium and in the Netherlands, although this simultaneously introduces new predicaments and difficulties. Structural governmental measures have to be introduced to support and protect informal caregivers and informal care networks.

Redrawing Europe’s Map

Redrawing Europe’s Map

The unequal benefits of activation: an analysis of the social distribution of family policy among families with young children

In the last few decades, measures to reconcile work and family life have risen in mutual interaction with a rising rate of dual earnership. However, dual earnership has (to date) been adopted in a socially uneven way in most European societies. Therefore, one may wonder whether the activation measures have brought about a loss of vertical redistribution in welfare states. We address this question by focusing on the interaction of three measures of family policy and their overall distributional effect in Europe, with the Belgian region of Flanders as the case in point. We develop a fine-grained analysis to reveal the budgetary impact of the variation in use and generosity, and find that today in Flanders the redistributive effect of child benefits is largely undone by subsidized childcare and parental leave benefits. If parents’ employment is to be generalized, this case study suggests that more attention is required regarding the universal use of reconciliation measures.

A Bayesian approach for modeling origin–destination matrices

The majority of origin destination (OD) matrix estimation methods focus on situations where weak or partial information, derived from sample travel surveys, is available. Information derived from travel census studies, in contrast, covers the entire population of a specific study area of interest. In such cases where reliable historical data exist, statistical methodology may serve as a flexible alternative to traditional travel demand models by incorporating estimation of trip-generation, trip-attraction and trip-distribution in one model. In this research, a statistical Bayesian approach on OD matrix estimation is presented, where modeling of OD flows derived from census data, is related only to a set of general explanatory variables. A Poisson and a negative binomial model are formulated in detail, while emphasis is placed on the hierarchical Poisson-gamma structure of the latter. Problems related to the absence of closed-form expressions are bypassed with the use of a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method known as the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm. The methodology is tested on a realistic application area concerning the Belgian region of Flanders on the level of municipalities. Model comparison indicates that negative binomial likelihood is a more suitable distributional assumption than Poisson likelihood, due to the great degree of overdispersion present in OD flows. Finally, several predictive goodness-of-fit tests on the negative binomial model suggest a good overall fit to the data. In general, Bayesian methodology reduces the overall uncertainty of the estimates by delivering posterior distributions for the parameters of scientific interest as well as predictive distributions for future OD flows.

Gaming in a benchmarking environment. A non-parametric analysis of benchmarking in the water sector

This paper discusses the use of benchmarking in general and its application to the drinking water sector in particular. It systematizes the various classifications of performance measurement, discusses some of the pitfalls of benchmark studies and provides some examples of benchmarking in the water sector. After a presentation of the institutional framework of the water sector in the Belgian region of Flanders (without any benchmarking experience), Wallonia (recently started a public benchmark) and the Netherlands (introduced a public benchmark in 1997), we point to their different stages in the benchmarking cycle. As these three regions are comparable apart from their different implementation of benchmarking, a non-parametric estimation of the productivity gains over time (by a Malmquist index) could be insightful. The ‘carrot’ and the ‘stick’ of benchmarking seem to offer an effective incentive to trigger performance. In addition, the Malmquist decompositions provide some indication on the ‘gaming’ of the stakeholders by the water utilities.

De terugkeer van het mattheuseffect?: de casus van de kinderopvang in Vlaanderen

This research note investigates the presence of a so called Matthew effect in the use and distribution of childcare services in the Belgian region of Flanders. The analyses show that this is the case and that the use of childcare is unequally distributed among society. Low income families with children make only half as much use of childcare services than higher income families. Next to this, the distributional efforts of the government with regard to childcare show the same patterns of inequality notwithstanding the use of income-sensitive tariff structures. Part of the explanation lies in the higher rates of inactivity among mothers of low income families. As they don’t engage in paid work, prima facie they don’t need childcare for their children. However, our data show that a high number of these inactive mothers do want to work but are having troubles finding affordable care services. Thus, next to the inequalities found in the use of services and the allocation of resources, there seems to be a problem of accessibility. Given these results, the article pinpoints the relevance of research about the distribution of resources in contemporary welfare states.

Care strategies among high- and low-skilled mothers: a world of difference?

The aim of this article is to gain better insight into the care strategies of mothers with varying qualification levels. The analysis is focused on the determinants of work—care decisions in the Belgian region of Flanders. It hypothesizes that schooling level is a crucial factor. Additionally, given the intense debates in the care literature provoked by the work of Catherine Hakim, particular attention is devoted to how personal preferences interact with schooling level. The results reveal a more subtle effect of personal preferences than is suggested by Hakim. Personal preferences impact on the work—care choices of mothers with lower qualifications but not on the choices of high-skilled mothers. Moreover, low-skilled mothers remain constrained in their choices since they cannot afford full-time formal care. The results indicate that personal preferences, rather than being the most crucial factors, impact on the work—care choices of mothers within the boundaries of structural constraints.

Explaining Continuity and Change in International Policies: Issue Linkage, Venue Change, and Learning on Policies for the River Scheldt Estuary 1967–2005

This paper aims to assess the explanatory power and to explore the compatibility of three major accounts of policy continuity and change in cross-border policy domains: negotiation analysis (NA), the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), and the punctuated-equilibrium (PE) framework. These frameworks are used to analyze policies for the river Scheldt estuary between 1967 and 2005. The estuary of the river Scheldt is situated partly in the Belgian region of Flanders and partly in the Netherlands. Major international policy issues in this estuary are the maritime access to the port of Antwerp, water and sediment pollution, and estuarine rehabilitation. It will be shown that the negotiations on these issues are characterized by complex issue linkages, and that NA does very well in explaining both deadlocks and international policy agreement. However, unlike the ACF, NA does not specify how actors come to define their interests. Moreover, we will argue that learning across the prodevelopment Antwerp coalition and the cross-border environmentalist coalition accounts for a gradual convergence of Dutch and Flemish perceived interests. Finally, PE offers useful complementary insights as Scheldt estuary policies cannot be understood without addressing the interrelations between the processes of negotiation, learning, the creation and enforcement of game rules, which have been going on in different venues simultaneously.

Child Well-being in Flanders: A Multidimensional Account

In this article we characterise the well-being of young children in the Belgian region of Flanders. We focus on three commonly used indicators: educational attainment, the existence of special needs and the occurrence of problematic behaviour. The former derives from a relatively impartial source, the schooling system, while the latter two originate from parental assessment. Somewhat surprisingly, the different measures are only weakly associated with each other. Moreover, negative outcomes tend to correlate with different characteristics of the child and the household, depending on the well-being indicator used. Only a low level of education of the mother and the fact the child is living in a single parent family is consistently associated with negative outcomes. This is not true, however, for a whole range of other characteristics, like the work schedule of the parents, the sex of the child, the child’s rank in the line of siblings or the number of children in the household. Consequently, policy makers should be wary of quick conclusions when presented with results from single indicator research. Educational lagging, for example, may seem a very objective measure of problems, yet it does not necessarily coincide with problematic behaviour nor a parental perception of special needs. Hence, political action is not self-evident and may require additional justification. For future research, a more thorough investigation about the links between the various indicators of child well-being seems indicated.