Introduction

In the Netherlands, political parties are central players in the system of representative democracy. They are intermediaries between state and society, and in this position, they recruit and select candidates for political offices, articulate and aggregate preferences in party programmes (and government programmes), and mobilise voters when elections are held.

There is a rich and still-growing literature on political parties and their role in political decision-making. In the Netherlands, the historical development and mobilisation of parties have been studied (Voerman, 2005), as well as their internal organisation and structures of decision-making (Koole, 1992), recruitment and candidate selection (Lucardie and Voerman, 2011), and electoral campaigns (Brants and Van Praag, 2005; Van Praag and Brants, 2014), background studies of the rank and file (Den Ridder et al, 2011), and analysis of election programmes (Keman and Pennings, 2011) and party competition in the electoral and parliamentary arenas (Andeweg, 2011). Concerns and criticisms regarding all these functions are expressed in public debate. The tone of debate is that parties, in particular, those with a governmental track record, are exposed to increasing function loss (see Chapter Eleven).

Much less considered but important is how political parties generate the ideas and views for their policy advocacy. This sphere of activity is located at the input side of parties, where they select and absorb information about the problems and issues on which they may develop a political position and profile themselves. One source of policy ideas for almost all political parties in the Netherlands is the so-called ‘scientific’ institutes affiliated to them. Despite the modest size of the Dutch polity and the increasingly fragmented party system where means are scarce, most of the parties represented in Parliament have their own scientific institute, which we can refer to as the party think tank. With some exceptions, these think tanks are officially independent from the party organisation, and operate at some distance from the party branches in Parliament and government. In delivering knowledge and future visions, they aspire to set a frame of thinking for the policy agenda of the political party, and not just follow that agenda. However, what actually is the nature of these party think tanks? What themes do they address? How do they assume a role in policy advocacy and policy analysis in their affiliation to political parties?