Electoral Alignments in the Netherlands

Religion and class have been the major factors structuring party choice in the Netherlands until the mid-1960s. Since then a process of dealignment has set in. According to some the old bonds were never replaced. Others claim the emergence of new cleavages which would have supplemented or possibly even replaced the former ones. Most frequently mentioned are left-right ideology and (post)-materialist value orientations. In this article the current structure of electoral alignments in the Netherlands is analysed. Left-right turns out to be the most important determinant of party choice. Religion and class are still correlated with choice, but they exert no strong direct causal influence. Post-materialist orientations are of negligible importance in a causal model of party choice.