On my sabbatical in AY 2018-2019, I was in residence at Vesalius College in Brussels (Etterbeek) Belgium, researching the 2018 local communal elections in Brussels. I was primarily interested in the recruitment and representation of Brussels growing population of immigrant origin Muslims, primarily from Morocco and Turkey.  I collected and coded the party lists of the six major parties competing in Brussels’ 19 communes, seeking to identify the number of Muslim candidates nominated by each party in each district and whether or not they ultimately won.  An article based on this work, “Parties Courting Muslim Voters in Belgium’s Local Elections,” was published in Local Government Studies in 2022 (https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2020.1864331).

Brussels’ 2018 Candidate Level Data

 

More recently, my co-author, Goncalo Bras in Portugal, and I have resubmitted our manuscript on the impact of “independent” local electoral lists on municipal transparency levels in Portugal to PS: Political Science and Politics and it is forthcoming this year!