No opposition, no coalition. The effect of council-wide agreements on legislative voting behaviour in Dutch municipalities

One of the most well-established findings in legislative behaviour is that legislative voting behaviour is nearly always strongly structured by coalition-opposition dynamics. In fact, the fixed coalition-opposition dichotomy seems to have become the most important driver for political dynamics. Sometimes even more so than political substance of ideology. But what if the demarcation between coalition and opposition parties is removed as the basis setting for local democracy and replaced by a more open set-up? A number of Dutch municipal councils has in recent years attempted to break free of the traditional coalition-opposition dynamic. Instead of a council majority of parties supplying members of the local executive and agreeing on a coalition agreement that sets the agenda of the local executive and binds the coalition partners, these councils work with a council-wide agreement (raadsakkoord). The goal of these council-wide agreements is that there is no demarcated coalition and opposition, which opens the political process up for issue-driven deliberation and voting. The goal of our paper is to test to what extent this is indeed the the case, if this changes voting behaviour, and wether or not this different approach to local politics produces a different political process.