Research master thesis | Political Science and Public Administration (research) (MSc)
closed access
In the literature it is argued that the relationship between parliament and government has changed due to increased polarization and party competition. In the Netherlands this change occurred from...Show moreIn the literature it is argued that the relationship between parliament and government has changed due to increased polarization and party competition. In the Netherlands this change occurred from the mid-1960s onwards (Bovend’Eert and Kummeling, 2010; Andeweg, 1995). Party lines have become the main lines of political conflict, thus making the main form of executive-legislative interaction along party lines. According to scholars, commentators and the parliament itself, this has led to changed patterns of legislative oversight. This paper has two explicit goals: it offers a behavioral operationalization of King’s (1976) executive-legislative (party) modes and tests the hypothesis that executive-legislative relations have changed in the Netherlands. Contrary to the expectations, based on quantitative analysis of written questions in the period 1960-2011, no support is found for the hypothesis that the interparty modes have increased in this period in the Netherlands.Show less
Research master thesis | Political Science and Public Administration (research) (MSc)
open access
Party competition lies at the heart of every democracy. It is related to party organization and electoral behavior. There is no consensus on what the political space of competition looks like. The...Show moreParty competition lies at the heart of every democracy. It is related to party organization and electoral behavior. There is no consensus on what the political space of competition looks like. The left-right dimension is the most well-known model of party competition. However, especially in multiparty systems, with multiple salient issues each election, locating parties in a predefined onedimensional space is very unlikely to capture all differences between parties. This study addresses the question what the spatial representation of party competition in multiparty systems looks like. Is it indeed structured along a left-right dimension, or are multiple dimensions necessary to understand competition? It has been argued before that competition in multiparty systems is best understood using multiple dimensions. However, this is the first study that investigates whether the left-right dimension gives accurate information about party competition both deterministically and probabilistically. First, the formal logic behind the empirical use of the left-right dimension is tested. In other words, it is investigated whether the necessary conditions for one-dimensional competition hold in a multiparty system. Additionally, it is investigated how much information is gained when the space of competition is modeled probabilistically, without the a priori assumption that competition is one-dimensional. Focusing on party competition in the Netherlands, it is found that in all election years from 1982 to 2010 left-right party positions did not give an accurate representation of Dutch competition. Rather, two-dimensional spaces are necessary. Especially ethical issues and the issue of European integration cannot be squeezed into an overarching left-right dimension.Show less
