Stability and change in Dutch politics: Introduction to the Handbook of Dutch Politics

Notwithstanding its considerable degree of constitutional and institutional stability, Dutch politics has seen considerable step changes and occasional upheavals across the last half century. Influenced by long-term demographic, socio-economic, and cultural shifts, the old social cleavages have waned. New social identities and dividing lines - such as ethnicity, education, place, and gender - have influenced Dutch citizens' political attitudes and behaviours, including their voting patterns. The media landscape and the information environment have been altered by new technologies that politicians and citizens alike have to navigate. This has produced changes in such pivotal components as the party system, coalition formation and management process, executive-legislative relations, public policy making, and many others. In the Oxford Handbook of Dutch Politics, researchers take stock of what, if anything, has changed over time, how scholars have conceptualised and studied these dynamics, and what key factors can account for the developmental patterns found to be at play. In doing so, the Handbook provides a comprehensive longitudinal overview of the state of the art of academic research on the Dutch political system: its origins and historical development, its key institutions, main fault lines, pivotal processes, and key public policy dynamics, making an important contribution to the political science profession in the Netherlands, and beyond. In all, this volume provides unique and indispensable insights into stability and change in a political system that once gained notoriety as an archetype of a consensual or consociational democracy.