Litigating federalism: an empirical analysis of decisions of the Belgian Constitutional Court

Belgian Constitutional Court - Conflicts between regions, communities and the central government - Allocation of competences - Decisions with high political content - Degree of political alignment between the parties in litigation and judicial behaviour at the Court - Empirical testing - All decisions of the Belgian Constitutional Court, 1985-2012 - Alignment between the alleged political preferences of the judges and the political affiliation of the Petitioner increases the rate of success of the latter