Changing Patterns of Party Choice in Dutch Electoral Politics

The Netherlands stands out for its high level of electoral volatility and electoral fragmentation. This chapter describes the main trends at the macro level and the dominant explanations for these trends at the micro level. Whereas the Dutch electoral system had enabled high levels of volatility and fragmentation since its conception in 1918, Dutch elections remained rather stable until the 1960s. Volatility and fragmentation have risen particularly since the 1990s into the 2000s, to levels that are among the highest in western and central Europe. On the one hand, rising volatility and fragmentation suggest a process of dealignment between voters and parties. Over time, the most stable and structural predictors of party choice have become less important, while short-term factors such as political issues and party leadership have become more important. Yet, ongoing stability underlies the high levels of volatility. Fragmentation has largely taken place within rather than between distinct clusters of parties. Voting can be best interpreted as a two-stage process: first, voters come to an (ideologically rather coherent) set of parties to consider, from which they then choose their final vote. The authors discuss the way in which these paradoxes—volatility and stability, fragmentation and consistency—raise challenges for the Dutch party system and offer fruitful opportunities for future research.