Search

The Dutch political landscape is notoriously unpredictable; yet, 2023 was the most turbulent year in Dutch politics in at least two decades. The year featured two elections—provincial and national—within nine months, each dominated by two distinct issues: agriculture and migration. These elections saw two different populist parties triumph with significant margins: the FarmerCitizenMovement/BoerBurgerBeweging won the provincial elections, while the radical right‐wing populist Party for Freedom/Partij voor de Vrijheid secured a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections. Moreover, the year witnessed the collapse of the centre‐right cabinet and leadership changes in more than half of the parties represented in parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how parliamentary party groups decide who speaks for them on specific issues in parliament. We build on three strands of the literature: the work on the institutional foundations of parliamentary speech; the literature on committee assignments in parliamentary systems which points to different rationales behind parliamentary specialisation and the division of labour; and the literature on issue competition. First, we expect that the party leadership will assign more speaking time on issues that parties 'own' to Members of Parliament (MPs) they favour. Second, we expect an informational rationale regarding the allocation of speaking time by which MPs speak on issues for which they have pre-existing expertise. Third, we expect MPs to speak on issues if they have ties to relevant constituencies outside parliament. We analyse a new data set of all speeches in the Dutch lower house between 1998–2017. The analyses point to the importance of two rationales in the allocation of speaking time: high-status MPs (reflected by their list positions) speak on issues that parties prioritise, and MPs speak on issues on which they have specialised knowledge. Our analyses shed important light on how parliamentary party groups (PPGs) function, specifically how they divide labour within their ranks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a small but growing literature on the staffs working in national parliaments. These are mostly single-country studies studying one role that staff can play or one principal that they serve. Our contribution provides a comprehensive measurement instrument of the role of parliamentary staff, which takes into account organisational diversity within and between parliaments. We recognise four types of staff that may be present to a greater or lesser extent in different parliaments, which have different principals (PPG staff, personal staff, plenary or committee staff). These different staffs can play different roles (information broker, advisor, ghostwriter, compromise facilitator and marketeer). We apply this typology to the Dutch lower house and find out how different types of staff combine multiple roles in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a three-dimensional approach to party political conflict at the local level, drawing from an anti-elitism dimension, the left-right dimension and a localism dimension. More than 4500 parties participating in the 2014 and 2018 Dutch municipal elections are placed on these dimensions on the basis of their manifestos using quantitative textual analysis. A three-pronged approach is used to justify this three-dimensional model. The three dimensions are shown to be empirically distinctive. They are revealed to reflect meaningful differences between parties that are also visible in their names; and finally, these dimensions are shown to predict participation in local executive coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to membership decline, trade unions have attempted a number of revitalization strategies. One of these is political campaigning. If used as a revitalization strategy, political campaigns are not just employed because the union desires a specific policy outcome but also as a way to convince new members to join the union. Drawing from the literature on both union revitalization and interest group strategies more in general, we seek to explain why some unions attempt this revitalization strategy where others do not. We use a controlled comparison of two trade union federations in the same country facing the same membership pressures to determine which factor or factors contribute to using this strategy. One trade union organized a campaign to increase the minimum wage specifically to boost its membership (the #Voor14 campaign), while the other did not. On the basis of interviews with key actors in both unions, we identify a key factor in determining union strategic choices: some groups risk their relations with the government and employers to gain more power at the negotiation table, while others believe that expanding membership is not worth risking the relations with the government and employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the existence and strength of organizational ties between parties and interest groups by innovating on classic resource exchange theory. First, we propose that the nature of interest groups' policy orientation and their general organizational capacity primarily explain the presence of ties, that is, ties are less likely to materialize when groups lack ideological policy goals and have limited organizational capacity. Second, the size and types of resources on offer from both sides are what principally account for the strength of existing ties. We hypothesize that resources from both parties and interest groups are positively associated with institutionalized relationships, but also that resources are hierarchically ordered, that is, resources that are exclusive for the transaction are particularly important for ties at higher levels of institutionalization. Using data from a novel organizational survey of parties and interest groups in seven Western democracies, we find support for the hypotheses using an integrated design of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do voters vote for new political parties? This article tests the microfoundations of why voters support new parties. We examine three perspectives: that citizens vote for new parties because the established parties stand distant from the citizens' left-right position; that they vote for new parties because the existing parties ignore the issues that the citizens prioritize; or that they vote for new parties because the citizens are cynical about established parties in general. Based on an analysis of more than three decades of Dutch Parliamentary Election Surveys, we conclude that all three factors matter but that ideological distance is by far the strongest predictor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, political scientists have gained greater understanding of how national parliamentary parties use their parliamentary tools: that is under what conditions they submit parliamentary questions or amendments to legislation. We know surprisingly little about how local councillors use the tools at their disposal: under what conditions do these local councillors submit questions to the local executive? When do they submit amendments to local ordinances? We examine to what extent the use of amendments and questions reflects differences between local party groups' ideologies in terms of anti-elitism and the left-right dimension, and differences between coalition and opposition parties. On the basis of an analysis 454 local council groups in 53 Dutch municipalities we find considerable evidence for differences in the use of council tools between coalition and opposition parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heterogeneity of foreign policy preferences has hampered a more effective Common Foreign and Security Policy. We examine the dimensionality of the EU foreign policy space by analyzing foreign policy votes in the European Parliament (1999–2019). As it contains the EU's full geographical and ideological diversity, it is an important laboratory for testing expectations about what predicts foreign policy positions. Party ideologies structure voting on foreign policy: party-political disagreements over the CFSP and military interventions matter more on foreign policy votes than others. The left-right dimension and the EU integration dimension still explain a considerable share of voting patterns, although they matter less on foreign policy votes than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]