Abstract
Dutch elections continue to be the most volatile of Western Europe. But to what extent do voters’ changes in vote intentions continue to be structured by underlying ideological dimensions? This article discusses various theories on the ideological structure of the Dutch party system at the electoral level, and the way they relate to processes of dealignment and realignment. We test these theories using the 1Vandaag Opinion Panel data set, which follows 54 763 respondents in 53 waves between November 2006 and June 2010. We assess individuals’ changes in vote intentions, and analyse the structure in these changes. We draw three conclusions. First, Dutch voters are boundedly volatile and they tend to stick to one of two blocks of parties: a block of traditionally left-wing parties (PvdA, SP, GL) and a block of right-wing parties (CDA, VVD, TON and PVV). D66 functions as the electoral lynchpin between these blocks. Second, the Dutch party system is best described by a sociocultural dimension and a socio-economic dimension. Third, there is support for realignment (along the sociocultural dimension) and continued alignment (along the socio-economic dimension). Yet, we find evidence for widening electoral divisions: there is an electoral gap in the traditionally crowded political centre.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Although vote intentions come close, they are not the same as actual choices made in the voting booth.
Voters may be continuously aligned along a socio-economic dimension, but concurrently realign along a sociocultural dimension.
Nevertheless, the coalition breakdown was not (manifestly) caused by economic issues, but by internal quarrels about the Iraq war and plans for a renewed military mission in Afghanistan.
As the 1VOP data set only reports age groups, we left out people in the lowest age group (younger than 20 years when they first participated in the 1VOP). All analyses are restricted to those in the second lowest age group (20–27 years) and higher. This did not affect our findings substantively.
The average participation is 17.7 times; 6 per cent of the respondents take part in 40 waves or more. Our findings are robust to the exclusion of respondents who participated in very few or many waves.
This calculation excludes changes that involve non-substantive answer categories.
Volatility and frequency of participation are evidently correlated (r=0.42, P<0.01). However, stability in vote intentions is not an artefact resulting from infrequent participation. Respondents who changed vote intention at least once participated 20.9 times on average compared with 14.2 times for those who did not.
Online accounts cannot be proven to be strictly personal. We used background questions on age, sex and educational level (that respondents were asked to fill in twice) to check for shared accounts: respondents with changing sex or decreasing age or educational level were excluded from the sample. These respondents made up less than 0.5 per cent of our data set.
In the 2006 elections, a plurality of the 1VOP sample voted SP (21 per cent), and in 2010 PvdA (23 per cent), compared with, respectively, 17 per cent and 20 per cent in the actual election outcomes. CDA is underrepresented in the 1VOP sample (27 per cent in the 2006 elections, 16 per cent in the sample; 14 per cent in the 2010 elections, 8 per cent in the sample).
A small bias remains. PvdA gets about two seats more in 1VOP; PVV and VVD perform a bit worse.
These are: Christian Democrats (CDA), Labour (PvdA), Socialist Party (SP), Liberal-Conservatives (VVD), Freedom Party (PVV), GreenLeft (GL), ChristianUnion (CU), Democrats (D66), Animal Party (PvdD), Orthodox Christians (SGP) and the short-lived party ‘Proud of the Netherlands’ (TON). TON never got elected into parliament, but had huge support in opinion polls in the year after its foundation in November 2007.
It optimises voters’ and parties’ positions in this graphical representation by configuring triples of parties so that they are monotonically decreasing from voters’ preferred parties. The number of Guttman violations (voters preferring two parties, but not a party that should be positioned in between) is minimised.
If we had interpreted our data as similarities data – with only parties as relevant objects – we could have applied multidimensional scaling (MDS). However, MDS would consider unpopular parties as similar to each other. Consequently, the analysis would be strongly biased towards plotting the non-preferred parties closely together. Nevertheless, the dimensional structure and party positions in the MDS-output resemble those of the unfolding analysis.
Although MDS is suboptimal, it allows a test whether the importance of the dimensions differ between the four time periods. INDSCAL-analyses show no consistent changes across time. The structure of the electoral battlefield did not change between 2006 and 2010, even though the direction of the voter streams did.
Appendix B presents a similar table about the average proportion of times parties were mentioned by voters in each of the polls they participated in.
Although CU is positioned in the centre, it was consistently small in the polls. Hence, the party was not used as a midpoint to the same extent as D66.
Yet D66 is evidently strongly dissimilar electorally to the PVV, its usual antipod in debates.
The share of voters moving between SP and PVV is smaller. Unlike D66, the SP only exchanges voters with PVV (and not with any other parties from the opposite block), whereas PVV does the same vice versa.
References
Aarts, C.W.A.M. and Thomassen, J.J.A. (2008) Dutch voters and the changing party space 1989–2006. Acta Politica 43 (2/3): 203–234.
Andeweg, R.B. (1982) Dutch voters adrift: On explanations of electoral change (1963–1977). Dissertation, Leiden.
Breslow, N.E. and Clayton, D.G. (1993) Approximate inference in generalized linear mixed models. Journal of the American Statistical Association 88 (421): 9–25.
De Beus, J.W., Lehning, P.B. and Van Doorn, J.A.A. (1989) De Ideologische Driehoek. Nederlandse Politiek in Historisch Perspectief. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Boom.
Irwin, G.A. and Van Holsteyn, J.J.M. (1989) Towards a more open model of competition. West European Politics 12 (1): 112–138.
Irwin, G.A. and Van Holsteyn, J.J.M. (2008) Scientific progress, educated guesses or speculation? On some old predictions with respect to electoral behaviour in the Netherlands. Acta Politica 43 (2/3): 180–202.
Kriesi, H., Grande, E., Lachat, R., Dolezal, M., Bornschier, S. and Frey, T. (2008) West European Politics in the Age of Globalisation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lachat, R. (2007) A Heterogeneous Electorate: Political Sophistication, Predisposition Strength, and the Voting Decision Process. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlag.
Laver, M. and Budge, I. (1992) Party Policy and Government Coalitions. London: MacMillan Press.
Mair, P. (2008) Electoral volatility and the Dutch party system: A comparative perspective. Acta Politica 43 (2/3): 235–253.
Pellikaan, H., De Lange, S.L. and Van der Meer, T.W.G. (2007) Fortuyn's legacy: Party system change in the Netherlands. Comparative European Politics 5 (3): 282–302.
Pellikaan, H., Van der Meer, T.W.G. and De Lange, S.L. (2003) The road from a depoliticized to a centrifugal democracy. Acta Politica 38 (1): 23–49.
Pennings, P. and Keman, H. (2008) The changing landscape of Dutch politics since the 1970s: A comparative exploration. Acta Politica 43 (2/3): 154–179.
Sartori, G. (1976) Parties and Party Systems. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Thomassen, J.J.A., Aarts, C.W.A.M. and Van der Kolk, H. (eds.) (2000) Politieke veranderingen in Nederland 1971–1998. Kiezers en de smalle marges van de politiek. Den Haag: Sdu Uitgevers.
Tillie, J.N. (1995) Party Utility and Voting Behavior. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Het Spinhuis.
Van der Brug, W. (1997) Where's the party? Voters’ perceptions of party positions. Dissertation, Amsterdam.
Van der Brug, W. (2003) How the LPF fuelled discontent: Empirical tests of explanations of LPF-support. Acta Politica 38 (1): 89–106.
Van der Brug, W. and Van Spanje, J. (2009) Immigration, Europe and the ‘new’ cultural cleavage. European Journal of Political Research 48 (3): 308–334.
Van der Eijk, C. and Niemöller, B. (1983) Electoral Change in The Netherlands: Empirical Results and Methods of Measurement. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: CT-Press.
Van Holsteyn, J.J.M. (1989) Operatie geslaagd, patiënt overleden? Over het kleinste-afstand model ter verklaring van stemgedrag. Acta Politica 24 (2): 129–170.
Van Holsteyn, J.J.M. and Den Ridder, J.M. (2005) Alles blijft anders. Nederlandse kiezers en verkiezingen in het begin van de 21e eeuw. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Aksant.
Van Holsteyn, J.J.M., Irwin, G.A. and Den Ridder, J.M. (2003) In the eye of the beholder: The perception of the list pim fortuyn and the parliamentary election of may 2002. Acta Politica 38 (1): 69–88.
Van Schuur, W.H. (1993) Nonparametric unfolding models for multicategory data. Political Analysis 4 (1): 41–74.
Walgrave, S., Lefevere, J. and Hooghe, M. (2010) Volatiel of wispelturig? Hoeveel en welke kiezers veranderden van stemvoorkeur tijdens de campagne? In: K. Deschouwer, P. Dewit, M. Hooghe and S. Walgrave (eds.) De stemmen van het volk. Brussel, Belgium: VUB Press.
Acknowledgements
This study is part of the research programme ‘Adrift or adroit? On the sources of electoral volatility in the Netherlands, 2006–2010’, which was financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The authors are grateful for the valuable comments on earlier drafts by the anonymous reviewers. All appendices are available online at http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/t.w.g.vandermeer/bestanden/VDM_AP_app.pdf.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
van der Meer, T., Lubbe, R., van Elsas, E. et al. Bounded volatility in the Dutch electoral battlefield: A panel study on the structure of changing vote intentions in the Netherlands during 2006–2010. Acta Polit 47, 333–355 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2012.5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2012.5