The leader of the parliamentary party in Belgium occupies a very specific position, which differs from that of the political leader and that of the organizational leader of a party. This person acts as a crucial linking pin between ‘the party in central office’ and ‘the party in public office’. Owing to an increase in power of ‘the party in central office’ in modern ‘cartel parties’, we expect repercussions on the profile, selection and functioning of parliamentary party leaders. In this first, exploratory analysis based on a new dataset, we sketch the profile of these leaders in terms of experience and career, and based on these characteristics, we develop a typology. We also investigate whether these variables vary over time and by government status.
Our results show for most of the indicators a weakening of the parliamentary party leader over time, whereas government parties appear to prefer a stronger parliamentary party leader than opposition parties.