Introduction: extremes and divides in electoral politics, the Dutch 2021 elections in particular

Abstract In this introduction to the special issue ‘Extremes and divides in electoral politics, the 2021 Dutch parliamentary elections in particular’ four core elements are included. First, we discuss the rationale behind the special issue: answering calls for building bridges between related research literatures on the politics of divided and extremes. We do so by bringing together studies on the different manifestations thereof for the 2021 Dutch parliamentary elections, all (partly) using the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study. Second, we provide a case background to the Netherlands and these elections and discuss how this case sheds light on the larger population of cases. Third, we provide more detailed information on the dataset, also discussing how it can be merged with different data sources, which facilitates bridge building, as done by multiple contributions to this special issue. Fourth and last, we provide a synopsis of the contributions, dividing them in studies focusing on voting behavior and on attitudes regarding the fundaments of democratic politics. Based on each study’s results, we also formulate avenues for new studies, underscoring our aim to facilitate the building of bridges between literatures on extremes and divides in politics.