Dutch Politics
In much of my work there is an empirical focus on the Netherlands
Tom Louwerse
As a political scientist I study and teach about elections, political representation and parliamentary politics in the Netherlands and other established democracies. I work at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University, where I am currently Director of Research.
My recent and current research focuses on political representation and parliamentary opposition. I am co-author of Governance and Politics of the Netherlands and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Dutch Politics.
I created and maintain the polling aggregation project Peilingwijzer, blog about my work and regularly appear in news media.
Research
Research themes
](./research/themes/parliaments/featured.jpg)
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Current research projects
 CC BY-SA 3.0 [Alpha Stock Images](http://alphastockimages.com/ )](./research/projects/who-opposes/featured.jpg)
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Recent publications
Conference and working papers →
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Data
Replication data
Replication data sources for many of my publications are available via my Harvard dataverse.
Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset
Data from the Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset project (with Simon Otjes, Cynthia van Vonno and Harmen van der Veer) is available in this dataverse. The R package for working with this data is on Github: louwerse/dutchparl.
Teaching
I am teaching the following courses in the academic year 2025-2006:
- Nationale Politiek I: Nederlands Politiek Bestel (BSc Political Science Leiden, 1st year).
- Thesis Seminar Nederlandse Politiek - Spring 2026 (MSc Political Science Leiden).
For students, course information can be found on Brightspace.
Details on my teaching experience can be found in my Curriculum vitae.
Outreach
Popular publications and blogs
From time to time, I publish blogs at Stuk Rood Vlees, a Dutch-language political science weblog. Please find an overview of my contributions here. Before April 2013, my blogs were published here.
A list of other recent popular publications and blogs is available here.
Media
I regularly share my research findings and observations regarding current events in media interviews with national and international outlets, including BBC World, Bloomberg, BNR, NOS, NRC Handelsblad, RTE, Volkskrant & ZDF.
A full list of recent interviews and mentions is available here
Recent talks
| Year | Title | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 22-10-2025 | Hoe gebruik je een peiling wijzer? | Studievereniging Internationale Betrekkingen (SIB) Leiden |
| 15-10-2025 | Dutch elections: what are they all about? Opinion polling | Dutch elections: what are they all about? |
| 13-10-2025 | Gebruik van peilingen en de Peilingwijzer | DE ROODE LOOPER SPECIAAL | MILDER GESTEMD en JOURNALISTIEK IN CRISISTIJD |
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