Changing Procedures and Changing Strategies in Dutch Coalition Building

Cabinet formation in The Netherlands has traditionally been interpreted in the consociational democracy model or the distance theory. Since the 1960s a massive loss of votes by the religious parties (which had tended to occupy a center position in Dutch politics) and a strong neodemocratic desire to change the existing rules of the game have caused profound changes. This article explores the strategies which parties have followed in adapting to these changed circumstances. It describes the bargaining processes which led to coalitions between 1963 and 1986. During this period, left parties used a policy of politicization and polarization to force a system of alternating coalitions. Attempts to change the institutional conditions of party competition failed, and as the left never succeeded in obtaining an independent majority in the country, the polarization policy proved to be selfdestructive. The Christian Democrat parties initially seemed in considerable disarray, but eventually countered the left strategy, amalgamating in one new party, polarizing the system from the right, and forming an increasingly stable coalition with the Liberals. The article concludes with a number of paradoxical outcomes of these events.