Dutch election study, 1970-1973

The election study was conducted as a three-wave panel with the first wave conducted in March-July 1970 (1,838 respondents), the second wave in April 1971, after the parliamentary election (1,262 of the first wave respondents), and the third wave after the parliamentary election of November 1972 (972 of the original respondents). A questionnaire was mailed to respondents who refused the third interview, a total of 356 responses were obtained from this mailing. The three-wave election study focuses on the partisan orientations of the Dutch people. Questions related to party identification, electoral choices in the three parliamentary elections as well as local elections, candidates awareness, issue importance, and political activities were asked in each wave. In addition, wave two concentrated on the concept of representation: questions about citizens' perception of the stance of political parties with respect to such national issues as abortion, civil disturbances, aid to developing nations, income distribution, taxation and defense spending, as well as opinions on the responsiveness of representatives to citizen demands were also probed. The third wave measured the changes in attitudes and opinions during the period covered by the entire study.