The Road to the National Prevention Agreement A qualitative study of the political factors which resulted in the development of the National Prevention Agreement Saskia Boswinkel, s1727206 3-7-2019 Study Programme: Management, Society & Technology University of Twente, Enschede Word Count: 19.662 Abstract This research investigated the effect of political parties within the political arena in the process of developing the National Prevention Agreement in the Netherlands. The main research question for this research was “How did political parties in the Dutch cabinet, parliament and ministerial positions affect the development of the National Prevention Agreement?”. Three expectations were formulated. First, the researcher expected the degree of party mandate fulfilment to affect the policy output. The second expectation was that the new cabinet would create an attention shift. The third expectation was that ministerial allocation would affect the development of the National Prevention Agreement. Using parliamentary documents, newspaper articles and interview data, the researcher found minimal effect of party mandate fulfilment as well as mixed evidence regarding ministerial allocation. The results supported the expectation of an attention shift. Table of Content Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 1 List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Overview of Tables and Figures ................................................................................................................... 4 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Context .......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Explanations from literature .......................................................................................................... 2 1.3. Research Question ......................................................................................................................... 4 2. Theory................................................................................................................................................... 6 2.1. Parliament Party Influence on Policy ............................................................................................ 6 2.1.1. Party Mandate Model ............................................................................................................ 6 2.2. Attention and Priority Shifts in Government ................................................................................. 7 2.3. Ministerial and Portfolio Allocation .............................................................................................. 9 2.4. Expectations ................................................................................................................................ 11 Figure 1. Expectations based on literature........................................................................................... 11 2.4.1. Expectation: mandate fulfilment ......................................................................................... 12 2.4.2. Expectation: attention shift .................................................................................................. 12 2.4.3. Expectation: ministerial allocation ...................................................................................... 13 2.5. Conceptualisation ........................................................................................................................ 13 3. Methods .............................................................................................................................................. 15 3.1. Operationalisation ....................................................................................................................... 15 3.2. Data Collection ............................................................................................................................ 16 3.2.1. Standpoints and Priorities .................................................................................................... 16 3.2.2. Sources ................................................................................................................................ 17 3.3. Research Design .......................................................................................................................... 18 3.4. Case Selection ............................................................................................................................. 19 4. Results and Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 20 4.1. Data Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 20 4.1.1. Coding scheme .................................................................................................................... 20 4.1.2. Setting .................................................................................................................................. 21 4.1.3. Process ................................................................................................................................. 23 4.2. Results ......................................................................................................................................... 27 4.2.1. Party Mandate Fulfilment .................................................................................................... 27 4.2.2. Party Standpoints 2012 – 2017 ............................................................................................ 28 4.2.3. Party Standpoints 2017 – present ........................................................................................ 36 4.2.4. Mandate fulfilment political parties .................................................................................... 44 4.2.5. Summary standpoint parties – Analysis .............................................................................. 46 4.3. Attention shift – Results .............................................................................................................. 52 4.3.1. Standpoint and priorities cabinet - Before ........................................................................... 52 4.3.2. Standpoint and priorities cabinet – After ............................................................................. 53 4.3.3. Inclusion in election manifesto ............................................................................................ 54 4.3.4. Effect of public opinion ....................................................................................................... 55 4.3.5. Attention shift and electoral strength – Analysis ................................................................. 56 4.4. Ministerial Allocation – Results .................................................................................................. 57 4.4.1. Before .................................................................................................................................. 57 4.4.2. After ..................................................................................................................................... 58 4.4.3. Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 59 5. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 62 5.1. Sub-question 1 .................................................................................................................................. 62 5.2. Sub-question 2 ............................................................................................................................. 62 5.3. Sub-question 3 ............................................................................................................................. 63 5.4. Answering the research question ................................................................................................. 63 5.5. Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 63 References ................................................................................................................................................... 66 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 71 Appendix 1: Coding Scheme ................................................................................................................... 71 Appendix 2: Participating actors smoking discussion group (“thematafel roken”) ................................ 75 Appendix 3: Interview Questions ............................................................................................................ 76 List of Abbreviations WHO: World Health Organisation FCTC: Framework Convention on Tobacco Control NPA: