Dutch Political Culture Research Articles

Türkiye From The Perspective of the Theory of Pillarization

The Netherlands has had a rich theoretical array of instruments to view and understand societal matters. One of the first theoretical instruments is ‘pillarization’ also called verzuiling (Van Doorn 1956) in the Dutch language. A second theoretical instruments is ‘consociationalism’ that was developed by Arend Lijphart (Lijphart 2008) applying the idea of pillarization to all societies in a generic sense. Then a third related concept in this array of theories is ‘corporatism’ (De Grauwe 1977) that has had a strong influence in the Dutch political culture. All three concepts are characteristic for the Dutch political historical development. Although they may sometimes be used interchangeably, all three concepts are interrelated but not the same (Wintle 2000). All three instruments have played important roles in the social-historical processes in the emancipation of minority groups and in the building of a national identity (Miert 1992). The three concepts consociation, pillarization and corporatism have been important in public life. This article views all three concepts by viewing the Dutch history and looks into the Turkish socio-political processes today. The argumentation of this paper is that at least two of three concepts will apply to the Turkish public, political life and culture. I argue that the Turkish situation can also be characterised by the concept of vertical pluralism that was followed by a reversed process called depillarization (ontzuiling) in the Dutch language. This depillarization efforts can be seen in the way political parties seek coalition and consensus in multiple forms as is the case with the Cumhur ittifakı and the six partner formations (altılı masa formasyonu).

‘Maranatha’: Kuyper komt eraan!

Abstract ‘Maranatha’: Kuyper is coming! From sermon to party speech: Abraham Kuyper’s eloquence In this article, we present a rhetorical-historical analysis of the speech Maranatha by Dutch politician and former pastor Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper’s style of speech stands out in nineteenth century Dutch political culture, as it is generally more expressive and aimed at the public compared to the pragmatic and legal style of his colleagues in Parliament. Through close reading of the speech Maranatha, we show how Kuyper’s political rhetoric was influenced by various rhetorical elocutio and pathos strategies from pulpit oratory that he learned during his time as a pastor. By reconstructing the professors, academic tradition and homiletic manuals that influenced Kuyper’s theological education, we have determined four main advices for pulpit oratory: 1) choose one main theme that is well known, 2) create a feeling of unity through ‘venturing’ into the public, 3) make sure the speech is understandable to a large public and 4) use stylistic pathos figures in order to move the audience. Kuyper employs all four advices in Maranatha for the purpose of creating a sense of unity within his audience.

Struggling to Fit in. The Dutch in a Transnational Army, 1936–1939

Struggling to Fit In. The Dutch in a Transnational Army, 1936-1939 The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) possessed a transnational resonance that echoed far beyond the borders of the country in which it was fought. It drew thousands of foreign fighters to Spain where, as many believed, the future of Europe would be decided. Most of them fought on the side of the embattled Republican government against an uprising supported by international Fascism. Given the foreign fighters’ similar socio-economic backgrounds and shared anti-Fascist sentiment, historians have suggested that the «International Brigades», formed out of these foreign fighters, constitute a true transnational army. This article suggests, however, that many of these foreign fighters had real trouble forging a transnational connection with their fellow fighters. Focusing on Dutch Interbrigadiers, it further highlights how the specificities of Dutch political culture and the legal regime created in the Netherlands combined to create a unique set of circumstances that impeded Dutch foreign fighters’ abilities to effectively work together with their German colleagues in Spain and their post-Spanish Civil War efforts to resist the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. This article suggests, therefore, that the International Brigades do not possess a single, distinctive and collectively transnational identity. Rather, they are made up of different identity layers that can, but need not, be mutually exclusive, and are linked to elements of different national and/or military cultures.

Picturing anti-Semitism in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands: anti-Jewish stereotyping in a racist Second World War comic strip

ABSTRACTIn 1942, the Dutch weekly magazine Volk en Vaderland, which propagated the political opinions of the Dutch National Socialists in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, published a comic strip, “Rare, maar ware commentaren” (Odd, but true comments). In it, the illustrator, Peter Beekman (1911–1959) depicted current events and the various perceived enemies of National Socialist society, Jews in particular, providing insight into how the genre was deployed in the Nazi propaganda machine. This article analyses the use of six dominant anti-Semitic themes which appeared in this particular wartime comic strip, but which were also a reflection of wider anti-Jewish stereotyping present throughout Europe at the time, including those of “otherness,” greediness and Judeo-Communism. My discussion will be thus placed in a broader context of both the Dutch political culture and the Volk en Vaderland editorial policy. I will also focus on Beekman himself, an intriguing figure of the time, who joined the NSB, the country’s National Socialist party, in 1940, and who continued to work as an illustrator after the Second World War. As such, the article will go deeper into the intricacies of anti-Jewish discourse, its hidden mechanisms, and the individuals and institutions that molded it.

A queer nodal point: Homosexuality in Dutch debates on Islam and multiculturalism

In the context of conflicts over Islam and multiculturalism, the acceptance and equal treatment of homosexuality have come to have an unprecedented centrality to Dutch politics. This article explains homosexuality's prominence in these debates as the effect of its ability to serve as a centrepiece of a critique of Dutch ‘consociational democracy’. It demonstrates how in the course of the 1990s a Dutch political culture of consensus, compromise and mutual accommodation became a frame for conflicts over multicultural society. Critics of multiculturalism blamed consociational democracy for both hampering the integration of immigrants into Dutch society and for preventing a debate about this putative failure to integrate. They argued for the introduction into a political culture, presumed to revolve around accommodation, of non-negotiable moral principles that were to unite the nation in its confrontation with cultures thought to be hostile to it. Secondly, the article examines how homosexuality increasingly became pivotal to such arguments through an analysis of a series of episodes in a continuous, similarly structured media narrative on homosexuality, Islam and consociational democracy. The article argues that homosexuality's central place in these narratives needs to be understood as resulting from its ability to represent the non-negotiable moral principles consociational democracy was thought to lack. Conceptualized as a given, unchanging truth about identity that open homosexuals unflinchingly presented to the world, homosexuality functioned as a metonym for the moral steadfastness and transparency that, in the eyes of its critics, a consociational political culture failed to produce.

The Trauma of Liberation: Dutch Political Culture and the Indonesian Question in 1945

The Trauma of Liberation: Dutch Political Culture and the Indonesian Question in 1945

Cleo's ‘unfinished business’: coming to terms with Dutch war crimes in Indonesia's war of independence

This article discusses how Dutch society has come to terms with war crimes committed by its armed forces during the Indonesian/Dutch decolonization war (1945–49). In general, these ‘excesses’ have been legitimated by the community of veterans as the inevitable answer to provocative guerrilla tactics of the Indonesian adversary, who ‘forced’ Dutch troops to respond with harsh counter-insurgency measures. Although considerable evidence exists indicating that these measures led to violations of the laws of war, only a small percentage of these crimes were prosecuted at the time. Public references to them were rare until 1969, when the first disclosure on Dutch war crimes was broadcasted on television. From the late 1960s onwards, such charges would occasionally resurface in the media, causing brief upheaval in the veterans' community and the press. However, this did not bring about any major historical inquiry or legal repercussion on the Indonesian side. Only in 2011 did a group of Indonesian widows of executed resistance fighters file a lawsuit against the Dutch state. The present contribution describes and analyses how Dutch war veterans, media, historians and politicians have shaped the slow process of coming to terms with controversial aspects of the 1945–49 war. It offers a number of explanations that are related both to Dutch political culture and to the nature of the struggle.

The Acquittal of Geert Wilders and Dutch Political Culture

The June 23, 2011 acquittal of Geert Wilders has been viewed as a victory for freedom of speech over multiculturalism. While containing an element of truth, this framing has limitations. First, even as Wilders’ “triumphed” over multiculturalism he still cast himself as a champion of Dutch tolerance. Second, Wilders’ victory was a narrow one. The court, while acquitting, noted that Wilders went right to the line of permissible speech. Wilders acquittal does not necessarily portend an end of Dutch exceptionalism or its hate speech laws. Instead, the trial was noteworthy for (i) its obsession with the Nazi past, (ii) its debate over the rights and duties of a politician, and (iii) the conflict that arose between one of Wilders’ witnesses and an appeals court judge who in 2009 ordered the prosecutor to bring charges against Wilders.

Op zoek naar het poldermodel in de waterstaatsgeschiedenis

The so-called poldermodel, a model which is based on compromise and coalition between social groups, has often been portrayed as characteristic of Dutch political culture. Many consider it as a result of the need to cooperate in order to master the wet soils. It is commonly held that this could be achieved only by the direct participation of all parties in dialogue and compromise. This article explores what we actually know about water management in the Low Countries in the pre-industrial period. It turns out that the rural population in fact intensively participated in water management, but not at all times nor in all regions or under all circumstances. The polders in the central part of the province of Holland, nowadays the Randstad and its ‘green heart’ (Groene Hart), seem to have been the best breeding grounds for management structures resembling the poldermodel. The article also includes suggested directions for future research.

Coping with targets: performance measurement in The Netherlands police

PurposeThe article aims to understand why performance management schemes or targeting were introduced in the Dutch police organisation after 2002. This question is relevant for two reasons. First, Dutch political culture is traditionally not overly concerned with performance of public organisations, and second, police work seems especially averse to targeting.Design/methodology/approachThe article explores changes in Dutch politics, and especially the rise and agenda of Pim Fortuyn, a flamboyant politician who disrupted the traditional political relations in the Dutch polity, and who put government performance on top of the political agenda. Analysis of secondary sources is used to track the response of police management, and field work is used to investigate the reactions of street level police officers.FindingsThe introduction of targeting is directly attributable to changes in the polity. As such, they represent a pendulum swing that will move back, especially when the limitations of targeting will become clear, and when the political discourse has moved on to topics other than public accountability.Practical implicationsManagers of public organisations could learn from this case that political pressure can have far‐reaching consequences, which cannot always be ignored, and can lead to far‐reaching effects in the organisation, that may be counterproductive.Originality/valueThis article asks simple questions: Why are Dutch police forces using performance contracts involving targets negotiated between the department of home affairs, the mayor and the police chief? Why were they introduced from 2002 on? And will they be a lasting practice in the Dutch police?

Macht, machinaties en musea. Jan van der Hoeven, Hermann Schlegel en hun strijd om het Rijksmuseum van natuurlijke historie te Leiden

Might, machinations and museums. Jan van der Hoeven, Hermann Schlegel and their battle over the National Museum for Natural History in LeidenMuseums had a central place in nineteenth-century natural history. Aside from being important places for carrying out research into nature, they were also powerful vehicles for transmitting and communicating scientific knowledge. That is why, in the nineteenth century, natural history museums were frequently battlegrounds for rival scientists. Often, clashes over scientific matters were at the same time conflicts about power and space. After all, the naturalist who could get control over a museum’s collection and decide how the specimens should be classified and exhibited ultimately had the power to dictate which scientific knowledge was communicated; which story was told by a collection of specimens. This article is about the power struggle over the directorate of the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden that broke out between Jan van der Hoeven, Professor of Natural History and Comparative Anatomy at Leiden and Herman Schlegel, the museum’s chief curator. Both were rooted in very different natural historical traditions and had completely different views on the role of the museum and how the collection should be arranged and exhibited. In this article, we follow the two scientists in their attempts to gain support for their nominations. In this way, we also get a picture of nineteenth century Dutch political culture and the role scientists could play in it.

Dutch Political Culture Reflected in the Mirror of the Jury

Observers from Common Law countries are often appalled by what they take to be the essential features of Continental criminal procedure: its secluded, bureaucratic character and the fundamental asymmetry of the parties. These features make them think of the institution with the worst reputation in their own legal history, the Court of Star Chamber (remembered for political prosecutions in the 16th and 17th centuries); other associations that come to mind are Kafka, the Inquisition and modern totalitarian states. Dutch observers, on the other hand, are appalled at the idea of ordinary people sitting in judgment on important criminal cases and particularly at the primitive emotionalism and absence of professional training and discipline that in their view characterize the Common Law jury and especially its American variant. There is probably about as much truth and about as much preconception on each side. In this article, however, I examine only the Dutch objections to trial by jury, objections that were confirmed (in Dutch eyes) by the verdict in the O.J. Simpson criminal case.

Change in Dutch political culture: A silent or a silenced revolution?

Dutch political culture is often regarded as an important example of the rise and spread of 'New Politics' since the late 1960s. Recently, some authors have argued that such expectations about changes in political values, political interest, political participation, and the party system would not survive empirical testing. However, by taking rates of change rather than absolute levels, by re-examining the evidence in the light of more recent data, and by distinguishing short-term period effects from a long-term trend, it is shown that tremendous changes in Dutch political culture have taken place, and are still taking place.