“Now that foreign affairs are entering the elections, the focus must be on the European Union”

According to many, elections are normally about domestic policy — about jobs, healthcare, and taxes. Foreign policy, by contrast, is seen as something for elites and diplomats, not for the voter. But according to Joris Melman, researcher at Studio Europa Maastricht, that needs to change. In an opinion piece in De Limburger, he warns that the Netherlands is losing influence in Brussels precisely because Europe is hardly ever a topic of political debate.

Melman: “National elections rarely focus on foreign affairs — or so the cliché goes. Back in 1950, the famous political scientist Gabriel Almond wrote: ‘The attitude of the general public toward foreign policy is fickle, inconsistent, and irrelevant.’ And that insight has largely held true in the decades since. Elections, under normal circumstances, revolve around domestic issues — jobs, healthcare, taxes. Foreign policy is something for elites and diplomats, not for the voter.”

“Viewed in that light, the upcoming parliamentary elections are unique. Ukraine, Gaza — international crises have rarely been so prominently present in the run-up to the vote. That doesn’t mean other themes have suddenly become unimportant; housing, healthcare, and migration remain the primary concerns of many voters. But the taken-for-granted assumption that foreign policy would stay in the background has disappeared.”

 Read the entire article (in Dutch) on the website of Studio Europa Maastricht.