Research & advice: National and local politics in the Netherlands
– In cooperation with Lennard van Bokhoven
Bekijk in het Nederlands
Politics.
Well, for those we haven’t lost yet, we have news. During our research we came up with a new word: repeatvotes. The reason for that, we couldn’t find a good word for the situation we found exists! In our opinion, repeat voting is: vote for the same party in the next election as in the last election.
It sounds straight-forward, but this loyalty in voting hard to find nowadays – especially when there are 20 to 30 parties to choose from. Not surprisingly, therefore, is that political parties are wondering how they bring in those votes. And something for us to think about: What makes you change paty?
Attention devide
Parties in the municipality are particularly affected by a split in attention. They look up to national party leaders such as Gert-Jan Segers, Sybrand Buma or Mark Rutte. They win a lot of votes, but if the city council is elected a little later, those votes do not go to the local ChristenUnie (Christian Union), CDA (Christian-democrats) or VVD (liberals). How is that possible? Why do people vote different locally?
Opinions are divided. The more than 120 people who completed our questionnaire mainly pointed out that their priorities are different locally than nationally. The most important topics: Climate, the local economy, student facilities and healthcare.
Key findings. Find more facts and figures in the report.
Image: Niels van Velde
National influences
We also investigated how awareness of the national party influences the local parties. Simply put that means: Does it matter for local politicians how people feel about national politics in The Hague? And does that determine who we want to see elected in the city council? Our client, a local department of the CDA (Christian-democrats) in Ede, was very curious to find out.
After an interview with Jan Schinkelshoek, long-time political advisor, we knew for sure: the influence of The Hague is there. We spoke to Schinkelshoek in a stately mansion, just around the corner from the Ministry of Finance in the Hague. “Of course, the reputation of the national party influences the local party,” he said with a smile. However, it remains difficult to determine how large that influence was and how parties could use it.
Key findings. Find more facts and figures in the report.
Image: Niels van Velde
Free-riding
How can we benefit from national success? That was the core of our research. Various concrete solutions emerged: for example, invite the national party leader in your campaign and, for example, let Sybrand Buma (national party leader of the CDA) speak in your municipality during the campaign. Or, look at new national laws that have the public’s support and find a way to do the same in your jurisdiction. More and more we noticed that riding along on the wave of success can also be done locally. But, we always have to keep our eyes on the ball: your own residents come first! Those popular national measures are nice, but how do your voters feel about it? If those policies and the national party is not that popular at all, you might as well leave that party leader The Hague!
Niels van Velde
This report is only available in Dutch, but has an executive summary in English.