RELIGIOUS AND CLASS VOTING IN THE NETHERLANDS 1990-1991 - A REVIEW OFRECENT CONTRIBUTIONS TESTED

Religion and social class are supposed to have lost their dominance re garding voting whereas political attitudes are claimed to have become decisive for voting. First, a number of hypotheses, taking recent theo retical and empirical insights into account, have been developed. Seco nd, these hypotheses are tested in order to address the central thesis of whether religious and class voting have become relics of the past. Based on data derived from a national sample collected in 1990-1991, this thesis was as yet rejected. We noted that the process of de-align ment had not reached its end at the beginning of the nineties. It appe ared that the effects of social class and religion on voting may be su bstantially intermediated by political attitudes.