Where to go from here? Revamping electoral politics in the Netherlands

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Abstract
Despite its title, a special issue of this journal in 1989 seemed to stress continuity rather than change in Dutch politics. After the 1994 parliamentary elections, at least electorally this is certainly no longer the case. In this article it is shown that traditional explanations of Dutch voting behaviour, based upon religion, class and ideology, do not go far towards helping to understand the 1994 results. Short‐term factors, especially the state of the economy and the popularity of party leaders, are shown to have had a considerable impact. The new issue of ethnic minorities proved relatively unimportant. Voters, politicians and scholars must now revamp their understanding of Dutch voting patterns.