Remaining close or drifting apart? Explaining the divergent paths taken by Belgium’s socialist parties in connecting to civil society

What explains why parties with shared origins, ideology, and government experience take divergent paths in connecting to civil society? I seek to answer this question with a comparative case study of two socialist parties in Belgium—the Parti Socialiste (PS) and the Socialistische Partij Anders (SP.a). I show that far-reaching change in the form of new party competition, the mobilization of new discourses and the fracturing of longstanding policy consensus presented the parties with new challenges. Party elites’ perceptions of the implications of these challenges for party competition, led the two parties to respond to these challenges in very different ways. While the PS retained a socialist vision and proximity to civil allies, the SP.a withdrew from institutions and communities that had connected them to civil society. The study contributes to the literature on relationships between parties and civil society showing how the perspectives of party elites shape key decisions in response to far-reaching change in political contexts, and adds to our understanding of why similar parties exhibit different patterns of connection to civil society organizations.