Voter trust in the Netherlands

In this paper the trust of Dutch voters in the electoral process is examined. The Netherlands is a longstanding democracy which traditionally has high turnout and high levels of trust in the electoral process. However, this trust of voters seems to be in decline. Using the data from the Dutch Election Survey, this paper looks at the factors that determine which voters have high or low levels of trust. Previous research showed that there is no real 'winner-loser ‘effect on trust in the election process in the Netherlands (Loeber 2010, 2011). The paper examines if this is still true now that Dutch politics are becoming more and more polarized. Also, the predicting demographic factors that were found in previous studies are examined to see it they still hold true. The paper aims to see if explanations can be found for the decline of trust among Dutch voters.