Democratic Legitimacy and Political Support in the Netherlands

Abstract

This chapter focuses on political support for the democratic political system, its institutions, and authorities in the Netherlands. It briefly discusses the development of empirical research on political support in the Netherlands and analyses the development of political support over the last 50 years. It also places the level of support in the Netherlands in comparative perspective. The chapter then turns to comparative research on political support and applies this research to the Dutch context, identifying a number of vulnerabilities of Dutch representative democracy. It subsequently demonstrates empirically how these vulnerabilities play out in practice, highlighting key challenges to political support in recent years: growing gaps in political support between different groups of citizens and the politicization of political support. The final section concludes and outlines areas for future research.