The Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset

Abstract

This research note introduces the Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset, a record of parliamentary (voting) behaviour in the Dutch Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber, House of Representatives) since 1945. The Dutch Parliament was often excluded from past comparative work on legislative (voting) behaviour because behavioural data were not available in an accessible format. By digitizing the parliamentary archives and compiling the data in a structured format, we have created a comparatively rich dataset, that is made publically accessible for other researchers. In this research note, we describe the dataset and data collection process and provide some examples as how the data might be used in the growing quantitative literature on legislative behaviour.