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Het democratisch mandaat van Nederlandse politieke partijen : crisis of continuïteit ?

Author
  • Tom Louwerse orcid logo

Abstract

This article studies the extent to which Dutch political parties fulfil their electoral mandates. The central question is how collective mandate fulfilment has developed over the last sixty years. lncreasing electoral volatility, changes in party organizations and the rise of populist parties could have resulted in a decrease of party mandate fulfilment. Contrary to previous studies, this article studies the mandate in terms of congruence between the electoral and parliamentary party competition. This allows for the study of opposition parties' mandate fulfilment. Election manifestos and parliamentary debates are studied for six elections and the subsequent parliaments (between 1950-2006). The structure of the party competition is rather congruent before and after elections for all of the cases, except 1972-1977. There is no evidence fora decline of
the degree to which parties collectively fulfil
their electoral mandates.

How to Cite:

Louwerse, T., (2012) “Het democratisch mandaat van Nederlandse politieke partijen : crisis of continuïteit ?”, Res Publica 54(4), 413-441.

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Published on
30 Dec 2012
Peer Reviewed
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