Issues, Discontent, and Third-Party Voting: The Case of the Netherlands

Scholarly accounts of the dramatic breakthrough of the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) in the 2002 Dutch parliamentary election have mostly emphasized two factors behind the success of that party. It has first been argued that the LPF brought a distinct issue profile to the electoral arena, which made it attractive for voters holding similar policy views. The second hypothesis, that feelings of political discontent also fuelled support for the LPF, remains highly contested because of the possible endogeneity bias of cynicism attitudes. We re-examine this question using survey data from the 1998-2002 pa... Mehr ...