🔎 What Changed and Who Opposed It

A Dutch policy raised taxes on household natural gas and recycled those revenues as subsidies for renewable energy. Radical right parties were the only organized political opposition to this policy change.

📊 How the Change Was Measured

A Differences-in-Differences (DiD) design was applied to panel data spanning 2007–2020 to trace electoral and attitudinal shifts tied to the policy. The main comparison contrasts renters who receive individualized utility bills with renters whose utilities are included in their rent. A secondary analysis extends the comparison to individuals who are energy poor (including homeowners).

💡 Key Findings

• Renters with individualized utility bills became 5–6 percentage points more likely to vote for the radical right after the policy change, relative to renters with utilities included in rent.
• These renters also became less sympathetic to the Green party and expressed greater concern about price increases.
• No detectable changes occurred in left–right self-placement or views on immigration or the European Union for these groups.
• The secondary analysis finds similar political shifts among energy-poor individuals (including homeowners), indicating the effect is not limited to renters alone.

📌 Why It Matters

These results point to an emerging, economically rooted political cleavage driven by the distributional consequences of energy transition policies: who pays directly for higher energy costs can influence support for radical right parties without shifting positions on cultural or identity issues.