The Oxford Handbook of Dutch Politics
Wondering what Dutch Politics is all about? The Oxford Handbook of Dutch Politics (Oxford University Press) is a 880 pages comprehensive overview of all aspects of Dutch political history, key institutions, pivitol process and public policy dynamics.The Handbook is edited by Sarah de Lange, Carolien Van Ham, Tom Louwerse and by Paul ‘t Hart (Utrecht University School of Governance). The handbook has been presented to the current prime-minister of The Netherlands, Dick Schoof by the editors on Tuesday 19 November 2024.
In each of the chapters, researchers take stock of what - if anything - has changed over time, how scholars have conceptualized and studied these dynamics, and what key factors can account for the developmental patterns found to be at play.
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, and executive-legislative relations, and many others.
- Moreover, public policy paradigms and the political coalitions that sustained them have ascended and lost traction in most of the eleven policy domains discussed in the Handbook.
In all, The Oxford Handbook of Dutch Politics 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.
About the editors
Sarah de Lange is Professor of Political Pluralism at the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. Prior to this she was an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and held the Dr. J.M. Den Uyl chair at the same university. She took up a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute and was a member of the parliamentary and governmental advisory group, the Council for Public Administration
Tom Louwerse is Associate Professor at the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University. Prior to this he was Assistant Professor in Political Science at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Leiden University's Research Profile Area Political Legitimacy and as an instructor in the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University.
Carolien van Ham is Professor of Empirical Political Science, Radboud University Nijmegen. Previously she held the position of Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of New South Wales, Australia and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Twente and the University of Gothenburg.
Paul 't Hart is Professor of Public Administration, Utrecht University. He also serves as a Member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy of the Netherlands, the Dutch government's independent think tank advising the Dutch cabinet and parliament about long-range and boundary-crossing public policy challenges.
More information
The Oxford Handbook of Dutch Politics contains many contributions by scholars from Utrecht University, such as Marcel Boogers Lisanne de Blok Barbara Vis Ank Michels Margo Trappenburg Femke Van Esch Thomas Schillemans Erik-Jan van Dorp Hans Vollaard, and also Beatrice de Graaf and former USG Assistant Professor Harmen Binnema.
Read more about the content on the Oxford University Press website: