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This paper examines why the support of independent local parties has grown substantially in the Netherlands. These are parties that run in municipal council elections, but do not run in elections at higher levels, specifically the national level. Such parties saw their support double in the Netherlands between 1986 and 2010. Parties of this type have also grown in other Western European states. This paper examines two possible explanations: declining political trust on the level of voters and, on the supply side, the rise of parties that are not rooted at the local level. The evidence shows that the rise of independent local parties reflects the rise of national political parties that do not run in many municipal elections. This article examines the case of the Netherlands, pooling five surveys from the 1986–2010 period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses two confronting narratives authored by Ukrainian and Russian bloggers who reported the Dutch referendum held on 6 March 2016, and discussed Dutch citizens' referendum vote on the Ukraine–EU Association Agreement. The considered narratives, addressed to the Ukrainian and Russian audiences respectively, are viewed as strategic because they specifically portray political actors of the referendum "drama" – the Netherlands, the European Union (EU), Ukraine and Russia. These actors are significant participants of European international relations, and their perceptions of one another are important for European security at the present time of critical diplomacy. In this paper, information about the DUTCH REFERENDUM obtained from the new media texts is regarded as a narrative-based political concept (NBPC). It is argued that this concept has different versions, or images that reflect the narrators' biased perceptions imposed upon the public. Identification and comparison of such images require a particular methodology. Therefore, the objective of this paper is two-fold: to expose the two confronting versions of a strategically relevant political image, and to develop an authentic, interdisciplinary methodology for its analysis. The proposed methodology is informed by the ontology theory employed in cognitive science and cognitive linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risk framework developed by the International Risk Governance Council includes a ‘concern assessment’ in parallel to the more conventional risk assessment. This factor in risk analysis has had a low profile, but this paper argues that it could be a vital factor in managing a political crisis in reaction to a disaster. The Dutch Government’s ‘Risk and Responsibility’ programme focuses on the tendency of politicians to resort too easily to over-regulation as a response to disasters and the use of concern assessment could provide a way of providing a political analysis of the issues involved. Responses to disasters require good risk analysis, but when there is high public anxiety as a result of the incident then that anxiety is itself an issue, especially for politicians, and requires a different approach than a technical, evidence-based rational analysis. The anxiety is a combination of concerns and requires both analysis and assessment. The anxiety may be an integral part of the main issue or may develop into a parallel issue. Politicians need to understand the nature and strengths of the concerns and consider them alongside more technical recommendations for action. The paper proposes that the concern assessment should lead to a concern response, which should be a political value statement. Rather than announcing a process or a solution, the political value statement should respond directly to the concerns expressed through the public’s anxiety and identify the main values or outcomes that any solution should provide. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Participation in neighbourhoods is a highly valued phenomenon. Participation is the basis of a shared social life, but it also makes everyday life, and the lived experience of people participating in it, political. From a public administration perspective, governance and formal policy-making are increasingly reaching out to citizens, instead of drawing solely on representative mechanisms of local government. This paper investigates how practitioners working in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Dutch cities enhance participation. Using empirical data from research in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in The Netherlands, the paper shows that these practitioners either start projects that connect people in their own life world or connect policy-makers and policy to initiatives on the ground. As a result, they create the opportunity for many to develop their citizenship and become a more active participant in their local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Comparative studies have recently highlighted obstacles related to continental European countries’ proclivity for adopting risk-based governance. However, so far, the interface between risk-based policy-making in the EU and potential policy change in reluctant member states has been underexplored. We compare flooding policies in the Netherlands with those in France and Germany to establish the extent to and conditions under which EU-level risk-based policies can transform national governance approaches. Drawing on the concept of Europeanization, we compare national adaptation pressures stemming from the EU floods directive, investigate adaptation dynamics, and account for transformations towards risk-based thinking. We find that Europeanization enabled a mainstreaming of risk-based flooding policies in France and Germany, as national actors used the EU as a venue to entice a desired policy rationalization and centralization. By contrast, and somewhat unexpectedly, the Netherlands partially retrenched from EU procedures because the directive’s reporting mechanisms were considered to breach The Hague’s aspirational policy approach. Overall, the paper identifies a strong potential for even ‘soft’ EU policies to ease national reluctance to risk-based governance approaches, but it also indicates limits where member states use risk-based techniques within an aspirational protection framework. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the last 15 years, the Netherlands has witnessed the enormous growth of independent local parties and of their electoral support. In order to assess the success of independent locals in the Netherlands, this paper explores how independent local parties distinguish themselves ideologically, organisationally, and operationally. It presents the results of two online surveys of 1,800 independent and other local parties in the Netherlands. Compared to local party branches, independent local parties are more successful in performing the organisational, programmatic and nomination function of political parties. They are spearheading the change to a modern cadre party with politicians and a small number of active volunteers taking care of the party's rootedness in society. Furthermore, they enrich local politics with new political dividing lines, smoothing the entry of new demands, themes, and issues onto the political agenda. Finally, they are proving to be more resourceful in recruiting citizens to stand as candidates for municipal councillorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period since the early 1990s has seen a marked shift in the terms of Dutch European discourse, as dramatically highlighted by the country's 'No' vote in its 2005 referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty. The present paper examines the trajectory of this discursive shift, suggesting that a traditional 'federalist' referential has been replaced by an elite discourse focused primarily on defining the 'limits of Europe' in intersecting substantive and geographical terms. A general framework for the understanding of national discourses of European integration is first set out, highlighting the key role played by national elites as mediators between the European and the national political systems. The Dutch case is then examined against this background, chronicling the general terms of the 'critical turn' in national European discourse, the 2005 referendum campaign, post-referendum party positioning and discussions surrounding the 2007 Reform Treaty. Despite the persistence of strong, underlying support for Dutch EU membership, it is finally argued that The Netherlands has not (as yet) found a stable, cohesive national narrative of its 'fit' and 'place' in the contemporary (post-enlargement) project of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarises the empirical results of a study on the scale, nature and outcome of corruption cases in The Netherlands. It turns out that the number of convictions for corruption offences in The Netherlands has remained very stable in recent decades. Research into the nature of corruption leads to the conclusion that civil servants who are found to be susceptible to corruption tend not to be low-profile officials, but rather personalities with a reputation in the civil service organisation for being noticeable, colourful and astute 'fixers'. They frequently possess or demand the freedom to arrange matters on their own and are known as thorough and enterprising people. The research material further shows that the briber and the bribed usually know each other well before the violation of integrity occurs. This is not confined to business or instrumental relationships, because an element of friendship or affection is regularly involved. Something that plays a role in this setting is that trust is pivotal to prolonged corruption relationships. Research into the outcome of corruption cases leads to the conclusion that criminal prosecutions, once instituted, result, in nine out of ten instances, in a criminal conviction. Although suspects are sometimes acquitted on certain counts, complete acquittals are rare. The punishment most frequently handed down is a community service order. Combinations with other punishments occur regularly, with a custodial sentence or fine often being suspended. An average of five civil servants and three bribers actually end up behind bars each year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is ‘public opinion’ systematically opposed to immigration? And has this pushed policy-makers to implement restrictive migration policies? To answer these questions, we investigate the impact of public opinion, as expressed in media debates, on the making of family migration policies in the Netherlands. Based on newspaper articles, parliamentary documents and ministerial archives, we analysed three debates on family migration from the 1960s, the 1980s and the 1990s, respectively. We identify how and why media coverage influenced administrative and political decision-making. Our findings contradict common assumptions in migration studies literature: media debates do not necessarily contribute to restrictive policy dynamics. As often as not, media debates supported liberal migration policy agendas. Furthermore, the impact of media on migration policy-making was smaller than often assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last 15 years there have been many experiments with joined-up (also known as whole of) government practices, aimed at horizontal coordination to overcome the fragmentation of vertical governmental structures due to departmentalism and New Public Management. These practices were initiated to address wicked problems and to better interact with society at large. Now that there are signs that the rhetoric of joined-up government is winding down and many joined-up government developments are being dismantled, it is time to evaluate this approach. This is especially appropriate as some suggest that the overall impact of these developments may be relatively small, despite (overly) optimistic claims made in the past. In this article we take experiences with joined-up government in the Netherlands as the departing point for a critical discussion of this approach. By comparing the Dutch experiences with those in other countries, we will draw a picture of the challenges and dilemmas of horizontal coordination in the vertical world of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure and organisation of the machinery of government are key to the ambitions of political coalitions. When portfolio allocation and agencification are a function of political choice, political volatility should also affect the internal structure of government administrations. This study tests the effects of political turnover of individual ministers and of the political ideology of coalitions on a dataset of intra-ministerial changes in Dutch ministries between 1980 and 2014. Findings indicate that the turnover of political heads of departments and the shifts in policy preferences between successive coalitions indeed affects the internal structure of ministerial departments. Political variables have a strong impact, particularly changes in the left–right position of the government. A clear pattern for how precisely politics affect the structural design of public organisations remains absent, in spite of the robustness of the findings. Most ministries experience significant effect of executive turnover, sometimes increasing the hazards of intra-organisational transitions and sometimes increasing stability. It turns out that ministers can substantially re-arrange their organisations in line with their policy preferences but do not necessarily do so. Sometimes the effect of liberal ideology dominates, sometimes the effect of the policy preferences with respect to a specific domain prevails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research is devoted to the relationship between populist parties and democracy. However, relatively little is known about the relationship between citizens' populist attitudes and democracy. This article examines the relationship between populist attitudes, support for democracy, and political participation (voting, protest, support for referendums, and support for deliberative forms of participation). Using survey data from the Netherlands, this article shows that individuals with stronger populist attitudes are more supportive of democracy, are less likely to protest, are more supportive of referendums, and are more supportive of deliberative forms of political participation compared to individuals with weaker populist attitudes. Results show no relationship between populist attitudes and voting. These findings provide important insights into the relationship between populism, democracy, and political participation from a citizen's perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central question in Western European electoral research is whether electoral changes over the past decades should be interpreted in terms of dealignment or realignment. Although many scholars study this question, they have not paid much attention to the role of generational replacement. This 'age-period-cohort' (APC) study fills this void by examining the last 10 national elections in the Netherlands (1986–2017). The hypothesis is tested that the determinants of party choice differ systematically across generations. With regard to period effects, it is found that the association between party preference and its predictors has mainly weakened. Over generations, contrarily no decreasing associations are found. The effects of religion, social class, partisanship, left–right and redistribution have not structurally decreased with each successive generation, whereas the effects of education, immigration and European unification are stronger for younger generations. Taken together, these findings reveal how dealignment over time can co-exist with realignment over generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the usefulness of historical insight is often implicitly recognized in public values studies, it is rarely expressed in actual historical research. This article argues that historical analysis is well equipped to investigate public values and their dynamics (i.e., change and continuity over time). To illustrate this argument, the article presents a corruption scandal involving the regent Hugo Repelaer in the Dutch Republic of the 1770s and 1780s. The article shows how patronage and other forms of political behavior were contested on the basis of new and/or reemphasized public values and political principles, such as popular sovereignty and representation. It also shows the emergence of value monism in the Dutch context. An explicit link between the events of the case and theoretical perspectives on public value dynamics serves, furthermore, to increase the understanding of the latter and to elucidate present discussions. The article contends that a historical approach to public values can and should inform present-day attitudes to corruption and integrity, and offers promising avenues for future historical research on public values on a European scale. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Government transparency has become a widespread value of democratic governance, yet theory suggests that various forces shape transparency differently in consensual and majoritarian regimes. As a result, transparency may achieve different goals in different democratic regimes. Presented here are the results of a study comparing the Netherlands and New Jersey. Results reveal that ideas about information disclosure in the two jurisdictions are distinctly different. They suggest that in a majoritarian democracy transparency is needed to empower interests that are not represented in the decision-making process, whereas in a consensual democracy a wider range of interests is already represented in decision-making, and thus there is less need for transparency as a means to empower citizens. This implies that despite its universal application, there is no “one size fits all” solution for government transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We propose theoretically that the government partisan effect on institutional welfare state reforms is significantly stronger than on policy reforms. Policy reforms impose losses or gains on electoral sub-constituencies and therefore are driven by an electoral logic. Institutional reforms redistribute institutional power resources between political actors, but are inconsequential for voters in the short run. Without clear electoral repercussions, partisan governments are relatively free to seek long-term policy goals through institutional re-arrangements. We evaluate these propositions in a cross-country comparative analysis of all major policy and institutional reforms in labour market policy in Sweden, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands in the period between 1982 and 2011. We find the expected pattern of especially strong partisan effects in institutional welfare state reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prominence of party leaders in the media is one of the presumed causes of leader effects (i.e., the influence of party leader evaluation on the voting decision). Yet there is scant knowledge of the relationship between attention for party leaders in the news and the weight of party leader evaluations in the voting decision. This study fills this research gap by examining the effect of exposure to personalized coverage on the weight of party leader evaluations in the voting decision. Based on priming theory, exposure to personalized coverage is expected to make voters weigh leader evaluations more heavily in their vote decision. The study is based on a content analysis of the coverage of the 2010 Dutch election campaign and an 11-wave panel survey. Therewith the hypotheses are tested in a dynamic natural media environment. The analyses demonstrate that leader effects do occur. Voters use leader evaluations in their voting decision, even when controlling for the lagged vote, party evaluations, and issue agreement. Our data also support the hypothesis that personalized media coverage primes personalized voting behavior, even when controlling for learning and projection. Voters weigh leader evaluations more heavily in their vote decision and party evaluations and issue agreement less heavily when they are exposed to more personalized coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of the allocation of attention to policy problems on the local level, focusing on the executive agenda of six municipalities in the Netherlands over a 25-year period. It reveals that there is specifically a local politics of attention, showing differences between national and local policy agendas in specific policy areas. We did not find evidence that the political composition of the local executive coalitions leads to agenda differences, revealing the more problem-oriented and pragmatic nature of local politics. We did find evidence of an effect of institutional arrangements between national and local government on shifting patterns of attention, such as due to decentralisation. This shows that the local politics of attention is limited in scope and conditioned by the functions of local government and the institutional arrangements of policy making in the Dutch decentralised unitary state and that rearrangements affect these patterns of attention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The relationship between politicians and journalists is often portrayed as an intimate dance, characterized by intFerdependence. The political agenda-setting approach has been used successfully to improve our knowledge of certain aspects of this power relationship. This study builds on this line of research, but in more depth by conducting a detailed and reciprocal analysis of the relationship between press coverage and parliamentary questions in the Netherlands (1995–2010). Our macro-level approach shows that the effect of media on written questions is stronger than the reverse. A more detailed micro-analysis of media coverage preceding and following oral questions does indicate that most of the questions can be traced back to coverage in the days before, but that they receive less media attention afterwards. This might initially indicate that the media are leading the dance with parliamentarians, at least when it comes to questioning behaviour. In many instances, however, media are not creating the news that MPs rely on, but rather are transmitters of information that originates from other political and non-political sources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Immigration and integration issues have become increasingly important in West European politics, partly as a consequence of the rise of anti-immigration parties. This article investigates how immigration and integration issues have become politicised in the Netherlands since the beginning of the 1990s, what role anti-immigration parties have played in this process and the extent to which party positions on these issues are structured by a left-right dimension. It examines changes in debates about immigration and integration issues by means of a content analysis of party programmes, measuring changes in frames, positions and salience. It concludes that (1) immigration and integration issues have been given more attention by parties since the early 1990s, (2) parties have replaced their discourse of socio-economic integration by a discourse of cultural integration and (3) parties have adopted a monoculturalist instead of a multiculturalist position in the immigration and integration debate. However, despite these changes to the immigration and integration debate, it remains structured by a left–right divide, with left-wing parties being in favour of more lenient, multiculturalist policies and right-wing parties being in favour of more restrictive, monoculturalist policies. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that many of the changes were already set in motion by mainstream parties prior to the successful electoral breakthrough of anti-immigration parties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent research suggests that the Big Five personality traits are important determinants of a wide range of political and social attitudes. In spite of this, the impact of personality traits on attitudes towards immigrants has been unattended in sociological research. On the basis of insights from personality psychology, we extend the sociological approach to immigrant-specific prejudice by analysing the effects of personality using a large and nationally representative sample of the Dutch population. Moreover, we consider personality jointly with situational predictors of attitudes towards immigrants. The results confirm that some personality traits are associated with attitudes towards immigrants, beyond the effect of socio-economic, attitudinal and contact predictors. We conclude that combining insights from sociology and personality psychology in the study of dispositional and situational determinants of attitudes towards immigration is a fruitful avenue for research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study aims to bring together insights from scholars working on the ordinary legislative procedure with research on national parliaments and European Union (EU) affairs. It is assumed that members of national parliaments – when choosing directives in negotiation at the EU level in need of scrutiny – are confronted with variation in information processing costs, as well as in benefits in terms of policy influence and votes. Hypotheses are formulated on how the cost–benefit calculus can influence the scrutiny of directives agreed upon through the ordinary legislative procedure. An analysis of parliamentary activity in the Dutch and British lower houses on 293 directives indicates that directives which are longer in negotiation at the EU level, on which explanatory memoranda are published, receive media attention and are concluded without informal trilogues in second/third reading, are more scrutinized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses political debates about civic integration policies in the Netherlands, so as to identify different conceptions of the role of the state in ensuring social cohesion by governing diversity. Drawing on the literature on party systems, it presents an analysis of political party positions on the role of the state in civic integration along two dimensions: economic distribution on the one hand, and sociocultural governance on the other hand. I find that while the large majority of Dutch political parties adopt authoritarian positions on the sociocultural axis in favour of state intervention to protect Dutch culture and identity, their positions diverge significantly on the classic economic Left–Right dimension. The most contentious issue in Dutch civic integration politics is whether the state, the market or individual migrants should be responsible for financing and organising courses. Thus, this article proposes an innovative model for analysing the politics of citizenship, which enables us to comprehend how citizenship policies are shaped not only by views on how identity and culture relate to social cohesion, but also by diverging perspectives on socio-economic justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New social movement organisations in the Netherlands, which aim at accelerating the Dutch energy transition through assisting (local) citizens’ initiatives, claim to be part of a new type of environmental movement. Using a conceptual framework that combines resource mobilisation theory with insights from other political and social theories, the characteristics and discourse of six of these organisations are investigated, especially as regards the role of government. As they consider knowledge a critical resource and link (new) knowledge to local action, these are considered to be ‘bottom up’ social movement boundary organisations (SMBOs). How they conceive of their boundary role and to what extent they are prepared to challenge the dominant knowledge framework of the Dutch energy-related institutions are considered. The institutional barriers and collective action dilemmas they face, and how these might be overcome, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent increase of counterterrorism laws and regulations in Western democracies have also spurned heavy debates on torture and ill-treatment of captured terrorist suspects. However, while the Netherlands did deploy troops to Afghanistan and adopted new laws and policies regarding counterterrorism, debates on torture remained marginal. Indeed, the Netherlands has not suffered the pressure of a constant high terrorist threat, or endured a catastrophic terrorist attack. However, the author argues that there are more reasons for the lack of heated discussions. While this article does not intend to lift the Dutch case to an exemplary one, it illustrates how Dutch government authorities made good use of the benefits of hindsight regarding torture debates and incidents elsewhere and were able to apply lessons regarding accountability and oversight concerning interrogation issues at home successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Dutch state's shifting perspectives on migrants' ties with their country of origin. In the academic literature transnationalism was introduced as a neutral term. In political debates the term transnationalism is hardly used, but the ties of migrants with their country of origin (to which the term transnationalism relates) are given a strong negative connotation. They are seen as the main course of failed integration policy. In the past fifty years a dramatic shift has occurred in how these ties are perceived. First, they were regarded positively and were believed to facilitate an easy return of the guest workers. Later they continued to be portrayed positively, but were also considered to be a springboard for integration into Dutch society. Recently they have been portrayed negatively and as the main obstacle to integration. This article explores why this dramatic shift in connotation has occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Dutch parliament is a least likely case for studying relations between parliament and citizens: one House is not elected by the citizens, the number of MPs is low compared to the size of the population, and there is no territorial representation. Still, trust in parliament and in MPs is relatively high and shows no signs of decline. This paradox can be explained partially by Dutch citizens not expecting or not wanting their MPs to do constituency work, but also by the fact that Dutch MPs do take interactions with citizens seriously despite the lack of institutional incentives, as is evidenced by the number of hours spent on contacts with citizens, the large number of petitions about individual grievances or the introduction of the citizens' initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the performative politics of claiming policy failure in the integration of immigrants in the Netherlands, often articulated as the failure of ‘the multiculturalist model’. Four consecutive ‘post-’discourses are distinguished, in which we see the construction of increasingly explicit notions of Dutchness. This idea of the Dutch is as much about the style in which it is articulated as it is about the symbolic resources through which Dutchness is imagined. Examining the national imagination in policy diagnoses helps us to understand why immigrant integration has been so consistently presented as a failure of multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the extent to which changes in the effect of religion on voting in The Netherlands since the 1970s can be explained by ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches. The first includes religious integration and education. The latter category encompasses the restructuring of the party system and changes in party positions. Hypotheses are tested employing logistic and conditional logistic regression analyses of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies (1971–2006) supplemented by data from the Comparative Manifesto Project. Weakening religious integration largely explains the decline of political boundaries between non-religious voters and Catholics and Calvinists. In line with earlier research, the article finds that the creation of a single Christian Democratic Party (CDA) has reduced the religion–vote relationship. However, this merger effect largely disappears after taking into account party positions. Moreover, party positions influence the religion–vote association: the effect of religion on voting increases as religious parties emphasise traditional moral issues in their manifestos. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Paul O'Kane's Dutch Diary is a report on a visit to several cities in the Netherlands exploring the art, history and politics of cultural diversity that has become increasingly contentious in the so-called post-colonial societies of twenty-first century Europe. The Diary employs an empirical, creative writing approach related to Walter Benjamin's tradition of the flâneur to dramatise current issues rooted both in art history and contemporary art. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article advances the study of electoral reform by conceptualising major, minor and technical reforms. To do so it treats electoral reform as a two-level concept and defines both the scope and the degree of reform. The scope is expanded by introducing five dimensions of reform. Regarding the degree of electoral reform, an ordinal scale is created featuring major, minor and technical reform. The advantage of this conceptualisation is that it allows for a more adequate case selection. The second part of the study assesses the empirical applicability of the framework by examining one minor electoral reform in the Netherlands, the 1997 legislation on preferential voting. This allows an assessment of whether existing theories on major reform are also applicable to the study of minor reform. It is concluded that the current theories on major reform are not 'one-size-fits-all' theories, but apply only partially to minor reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web-based and theoretical studies often claim that Internet use can mobilize political participation, while survey-based studies generally conclude that Internet use will normalize political participation. This article aims to offer some reflections on the discrepancies between these mobilization and normalization theses. The authors argue that mobilization claims tend to focus on manifestations online in specific cases, whereas normalization theses are normally built on assessments of general Internet use patterns. Consequently, more specific surveys must be employed to evaluate the nature of political Internet use. Based on such a specific survey (n= 819), the authors investigate the use of two online vote advice applications (VAAs) during the 2006 Dutch parliamentary elections. VAAs are increasingly popular in democracies worldwide, especially among a group that is often considered 'apathetic' about electoral politics: youth. With structural equation modeling, however, the authors find that the use of the Dutch VAAs fits the mobilization thesis among youth and the normalization thesis among older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2001 the Dutch government adopted a new policy in its Fourth National Environmental Policy Plan. Its transitions approach seeks radically more sustainable socio-technical systems, and represents an attempt to reinvigorate ecological modernisation. To explain the rise of this distinct policy storyline, a coalition of researchers and policy-makers forming the transition storyline is analysed. The interpretative flexibility of the storyline in relation to prevailing institutional priorities explains its success but also builds in limits by making subsequent institutionalisation susceptible to capture by incumbent interests, as illustrated by implementation in the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can we meaningfully compare within a single theoretical framework the politics of interest representation in the European Union with its counterparts in the United States and other national political systems? We address this question by first considering several candidate explanations for the lack of broad-ranging comparative research on interest representation, focusing in the end on the problem of context. We then argue that much of the recent progress in the literature is a result more of segmentation of theoretical issues. The third section discusses how this successful strategy of segmentation has unfortunately raised new theoretical barriers to comparative analysis. This argument is explored by comparing work on organised interests in the EU with two other cases - the hyper-pluralistic interest politics of the United States and the neo-corporatist politics of the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the development of local policy networks in the Netherlands in the period 1996-2005. It is argued that there is a surprising stability in such networks seen from the perspective of local policymakers. Those working inside city hall as politicians and as members of the local administration remain the core members of the inner circle in policy networks, while societal groups remain outsiders and political party groups are absent from local policy networks. This conclusion is based on three identical standardised surveys among local politicians and top administrators at the local level, which were conducted in 1996, 2000 and 2005. This outcome is surprising, because it is contrary to the high expectations arising from numerous institutional reforms taking place in this period, aimed, among other things, at diminishing the gap between citizens and policymakers; the numerous experiments in co-production, public-private partnerships, and interactive policy processes; and the widespread documentation and dissemination of the outcomes of such experiments. Possible explanations for the results are that the experiments, however successful they might have been, never had a structural follow-up, and that the structural reforms, no matter what they accomplished otherwise, did not achieve their goal in enhancing interactive policymaking because they overlooked the fact that local policymakers see the local political system as a representative democracy and not as a direct or participatory one. On that basis it is to be expected that support for policies by policymakers is mainly sought among influential actors who are elected or appointed to develop policies and whose interests have to be taken into account. The public and societal groups do not satisfy that criterion. They can and do seek support from policymakers but the latter are hardly inclined to seek support from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of the 'foreigners issue' on centre-right politics in the Netherlands. This issue concerns a complex of problems related to migration, asylum-seekers, nationalism, multiculturalism and European integration. The Dutch centre-right has moved towards hard-line and restrictive policies in these areas. By connecting issues of immigration to right-wing core issues of law and order, centre-right parties hope to win an electoral advantage and to find an answer to populist political entrepreneurs. However, the politicization of immigration issues is a double-edged sword. Centre-right parties can benefit since they own the law and order and nationalist issues. But hard-line right-wing stances on immigration and multiculturalism also go against core centre-right values and may scare away voters. Too harsh a law and order, nationalistic and anti-foreigner profile can rip the centre-right apart. The direction of Dutch immigration and integration policies partly depends on the type of solution the centre-right finds for this dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]