Res Publica |
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Article | Democratische politiek: ‘minder, minder, minder’ of anders? |
Authors | Frank Hendriks, Koen van der Krieken en Sabine van Zuydam |
DOI | 10.5553/RP/048647002017059001002 |
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Frank Hendriks, Koen van der Krieken and Sabine van Zuydam, "Democratische politiek: ‘minder, minder, minder’ of anders?", Res Publica, 1, (2017):7-34
This article looks at indications and counterindications in Dutch democracy for the popular claim that citizens, while still valuing representative democracy, are fed up with representative politics. Using available large-scale surveys, citizen attitudes are analysed at the levels of specific political actors (politicians, officials), central political institutions (political parties, parliament, government) and the general system of representative democratic politics (the way it works in the Netherlands, with multiparty coalitions, etc). While specific legitimacy problems exist, the evidence for a general legitimacy crisis in Dutch democracy is comparatively weak and highly mixed. More specifically, the evidence suggests that Dutch citizens do not so much want less representative politics, but rather representative politics of a somewhat different kind: less exclusively organized via party-political channels; more geared at recognizable and accountable political authority. Dutch citizens want to seriously influence but not supplant selectionistic representative politics, the evidence suggests. |