UvA platform for Democratic Resilience
11 December 2023
The research 'Safeguarding the normative foundations of democracy' was conducted by Honorata Mazepus, Matthijs Rooduijn and Bert Bakker (Hot Politics Lab). The survey is based on a large diverse sample of the Dutch population, largely representative by region, education level, age and gender. The questionnaire was administered between 8 and 15 November. To know which party voters belong to, they were asked what they were most likely to vote for. This led to the number of 12 different parties.
Should universal suffrage be questioned now that so many voters today are ill-informed and easily misled? There is considerable division on this statement. In particular, voters of GL-PvdA (63%) and D66 (72%) strongly disagree. Among voters of PVV (35%) and BBB (43%), this is the case to a much lesser extent.
On the question of whether a strong leader in government is good in the Netherlands, even if the leader bends the rules to get things done, opinions also differ considerably among voters. Voters of parties like GL-PvdA, the PvdD and Volt strongly disagree (around 60%). Among voters of PVV and VVD, a little over 20% disagree. Only between 30-35% of CDA, NSC and BBB voters also disagree.
Voters of parties like D66, GL-PvdA and Volt do not like the proposition that the Lower House should be ignored if it hinders the work of the government. They strongly disagree, while voters of PVV, BBB and CDA are less opposed to this. Interestingly, voters of the NSC do not strongly disagree, while increasing parliament’s control-function is one of the spearheads of its leader Pieter Omtzigt.
For an even better overview of the infographic, download the PDF file (in Dutch)
The project Identifying and Safeguarding the Normative Foundations of Democracy is a midsize project of the IP programme 'Theme-based Collaboration', which invites UvA scholars to formulate research questions on socially relevant themes at the interface of disciplines and faculties - and to incorporate these into teaching.
This IP programme makes an important contribution to realising the ambitions of the University of Amsterdam's Institution Plan in terms of collaboration and societal impact. The midsize projects build on existing research collaboration between UvA scholars from different faculties, also involving collaboration with non-academic parties, thus generating societal interest and contributions from external sources.
The initiators of the Identifying and Safeguarding the Normative Foundations of Democracy project are also currently establishing the UvA Platform for Democratic Resilience. The platform aims to bring together UvA researchers studying the health of democracy. More information about the platform will soon be available on its website.
Theme-oriented collaboration focuses on 4 key societal themes, on which there is a lot of relevant expertise within the UvA: 'responsible digital transformations', 'resilient just society', 'sustainable prosperity' and 'healthy future'. The midsize project Identifying and Safeguarding the Normative Foundations of Democracy falls under the theme 'resilient just society'.