TY - JOUR
T1 - Political attention in a coalition system
T2 - Analysing Queen's speeches in the Netherlands 1945-2007
AU - Breeman, Gerard
AU - Lowery, David
AU - Poppelaars, Caelesta
AU - Resodihardjo, Sandra L.
AU - Timmermans, Arco
AU - de Vries, Jouke
N1 - Funding Information:
1 We thank Marcel Hanegraaff, Nanette Kistemaker, and Judith van Krieken for their accurate coding of the Queen’s speeches, Josta de Hoog for her research assistance, and two anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions. We also thank the Keesings Historisch Archief for allowing us to use their electronic database of the Queen’s speeches. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September 2007. We also acknowledge the financial support from Campus The Hague, the Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP) and the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - At the beginning of each Parliamentary session, the Dutch Queen gives a speech (Troonrede) in which she presents the government's policy goals and legislative agenda for the year to come. The general assumption is that newly elected governments will use agenda-setting moments such as the Queen's speech to put new issues on the national agenda. But does this really happen? Are governmental agendas characterized by sudden shifts following elections or by continuity? After all, at least one coalition party of the previous Dutch government is also a member of the new coalition government. So how much do changes in coalition membership result in changes in policy agendas? In this paper, we study the macro-level structure of the Dutch policy agenda and link patterns of agenda-setting with the institutional context in which this agenda-setting process occurs, that is, the Dutch parliamentary democracy characterized by multi-party government. We coded all Queen's speeches between 1945 and 2007 with a topic code book, based on similar code books used in other countries. In this way, we can examine Dutch agenda-setting patterns and assess the effects of coalition composition and coalition life cycle (from the first year a newly formed government is installed to the last year it is still in office) on agenda-setting.
AB - At the beginning of each Parliamentary session, the Dutch Queen gives a speech (Troonrede) in which she presents the government's policy goals and legislative agenda for the year to come. The general assumption is that newly elected governments will use agenda-setting moments such as the Queen's speech to put new issues on the national agenda. But does this really happen? Are governmental agendas characterized by sudden shifts following elections or by continuity? After all, at least one coalition party of the previous Dutch government is also a member of the new coalition government. So how much do changes in coalition membership result in changes in policy agendas? In this paper, we study the macro-level structure of the Dutch policy agenda and link patterns of agenda-setting with the institutional context in which this agenda-setting process occurs, that is, the Dutch parliamentary democracy characterized by multi-party government. We coded all Queen's speeches between 1945 and 2007 with a topic code book, based on similar code books used in other countries. In this way, we can examine Dutch agenda-setting patterns and assess the effects of coalition composition and coalition life cycle (from the first year a newly formed government is installed to the last year it is still in office) on agenda-setting.
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U2 - 10.1057/ap.2008.16
DO - 10.1057/ap.2008.16
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:61849104918
SN - 0001-6810
VL - 44
SP - 1
EP - 27
JO - Acta Politica
JF - Acta Politica
IS - 1
ER -