Suchergebnisse

On September 12, 2012, Dutch voters trudged to the polls for the fifth time in the still young 21st century in order to elect the 150 members of the Second Chamber of Parliament. The fact that the formal electoral cycle is four years demonstrates that since the meteoric rise of Pim Fortuyn prior to the elections in 2002, electoral calm has not yet returned to the Netherlands. None of the four coalitions of varied composition under the leadership of Jan Peter Balkenende (Christian Democratic Appeal/Christen Democratisch Appel, CDA) during the first decade of the century managed to stay the full course of four years. In 2003, 2006, and 2010, early elections were called. By emerging as the largest party at the June 2010 elections, the Liberal Party (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie, VVD) obtained the initiative in the difficult task of forming a new Cabinet. The party's leader, Mark Rutte, eventually became the first Liberal Minister-President since 1918. However, Rutte was unable to break the pattern set by Balkenende and in the early spring of 2012 his Cabinet fell after only 558 turbulent days in office. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Scholars have long assumed that voters do not employ strategic considerations when casting a vote in systems of proportional representation. Either this would not be necessary because few votes were wasted or impossible because the calculations involved would be too difficult to make. This research note examines the latter and concludes that (Dutch) voters are better able to make such calculations than traditionally has been presumed. Under quasi-experimental conditions that involved what can be called coalition preference voting, voters show tendencies to react to strategic considerations when determining their vote preference. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

The debate on personalization in electoral politics is inconclusive. There is confusion about the concept of personalization. Moreover, the fact that party evaluation and person evaluation are interrelated complicates the debate. This paper focuses on the latter problem by employing counterfactual thought experiments in which voters are asked to simulate their vote with their candidate lower on the party list or nominated by another party. The results show that most voters put party above person and less than ten percent put person above party. A sizeable third category has a preference for an individual candidate as long as that candidate does not leave the party. Also, personalization is slightly more important with regard to (the leaders of) populist parties, and individual candidates are more important for voters with less education, less political knowledge and a less deeply rooted party preference. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]