Political Science and Changing Politics 9789048539208

Citation preview

Political Science and Changing Politics

Political Science and Changing Politics

Edited by Philip van Praag

Amsterdam University Press

Cover design: Gijs Mathijs Ontwerpers, Amsterdam Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 94 6298 748 7 e-isbn 978 90 4853 920 8 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462987487 nur 754 © Philip van Praag / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.



Table of Contents

Foreword 7

Part 1  Basic Themes in Political Science 1 Politics and Power

11

2 Social and Political Inequality

31

3 Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State

55

4 The Welfare State under Pressure

71

5 Consensus Democracy in the Netherlands

89

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

Luuc Brans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

Franca van Hooren

Background and Future Philip van Praag

Part 2  Political Actors 6 Citizens and Politics

115

7 Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

137

8 The Transformation of Political Parties

163

Political Participation and Political Trust Tom van der Meer

From Stability to Volatility Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Praag and Cees van der Eijk

Gijs Schumacher

9 Interest Groups and Social Movements

179

10 Politics and Media

201

About the Authors

225

Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegraaff

Philip van Praag

Index 229

Foreword Politics is undergoing significant changes, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere. New trends, movements and ideas are playing an increasingly important role, while traditional centres of power are crumbling, and new powers are on the rise. These changes give rise to new questions. Sometimes we can understand changes with the insights and theories we have, but now and again we need to modify our theories in the light of the latest developments. A lot is changing in politics, and many issues are being debated, though not everything: some practices, beliefs and behaviours also manifest an astonishing continuity. An important feature of this introductory political science book is that it looks at political developments from a strongly comparative, and sometimes also a historical, perspective. This approach finds support in the saying, ‘Knowing just one country means knowing none at all’ [in the original Dutch, ‘Wie slechts één land kent, kent géén land’]. The underlying idea is that you can locate and interpret changes in one country only by comparing them with developments in others. Doing this can make it clear that, while many developments vary from one country to another, they share a common background. Many chapters in this volume take developments in the Netherlands as a starting point, in order then to consider and analyse changes. That said, this book is an introduction not to Dutch politics, but to political science as a scholarly discipline. It has two parts. The first deals with a number of important current issues. The themes are systematically introduced and linked to social and political changes, and to new scholarly insights. It addresses topics such as power – the core concept in political science; developments in the field of political equality and inequality; the growing importance of collective identity and nationalist sentiment; the future of the welfare state, and consensus democracy. The second part deals with the role that citizens, groups and organisations, commonly referred to as actors, play in contemporary politics. It looks at, among other things, the political behaviour and views of citizens and at their changing party preferences, but also at the ways in which political parties cope with this. It also considers the growing importance of interest groups, as well as the power of the media in politics today. The formative history of this volume goes back quite a long way. Already in 1991, a collection of essays appeared: Maatschappij, Macht, Nederlandse

8

PHILIP VAN PR A AG

politiek [Society, Power, and Dutch Politics]. Over the years, there appeared more and more new collections that always played a key role in introducing first-year students to political science. Uwe Becker was the driving force behind these volumes. The last book: Politicologie, basisthema’s en Nederlandse politiek [Political Science, Basic Themes and Dutch Politics], edited by Uwe Becker and Philip van Praag, appeared in 2006. After more than 10 years, this book was in need of drastic revision. Almost all contributions to this collection are new: only a single chapter is partly based on an earlier version. Unfortunately, Uwe Becker passed away all too soon in 2014. He made a significant and influential contribution to the education of political science at the University of Amsterdam. This introductory book continues the tradition that he started. Philip van Praag Amsterdam, June 2017

Part 1 Basic Themes in Political Science

1

Politics and Power Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

1.1 Introduction This book is an introduction to political science. What is it that political scientists are actually studying? Or, to put it another way: What do we mean when we talk about politics? Politics is about conflict, struggle, decision-making, power and influence. But not every conflict and not every situation in which power is exercised is widely regarded as politics. A football coach who decides to leave a player on the bench because he has given him a bit of lip, is exerting power – and there is conflict here, too. However, few people would consider this a political issue. The same applies to a mother who quarrels with her adolescent daughter about going to a house party, a schoolteacher who gives a student detention, and so on. But if we were to limit our understanding of politics to official decisions that are taken by governments, in parliaments or on municipal councils, we would fail to recognise the political meaning of trade unions, lobbyists, protest groups, corporations and other more-or-less organised groups that influence collective decision-making. In the first part of this chapter, we will look at two key concepts in political science: politics and power. Although these are key concepts within political science, there are no generally accepted definitions of either term. Political scientists have defined them in various ways, so they have sometimes drawn different conclusions, such as about the distribution of power. Without wanting to take a position in these debates, we consider it useful to offer insights into the ways these two concepts have been defined by political scientists. That helps clarify the concepts themselves as well as their various aspects. In the second part of this chapter, we will give a brief outline of the research conducted on power. How is political and economic power distributed in democratic societies, and what are the different perspectives on this?

1.2

What is politics?

Although most people have an image of what politics is, it is not easy to define just what we mean by it. If we look at different definitions of the term, three elements are frequently mentioned: decision-making, conflict and power. Each is discussed here, starting with decision-making.

12 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

Wherever people live together, they must come to agreement on many issues. That is true even in very small communities and in relatively simple societies. Not every decision, however, is a political decision. Individual decisions are never seen as political, because politics always refers to arranging matters for a group of people. If I decide to buy a house or to go to the beach on Sunday, everyone would agree that this is not a political decision. The mere fact that a group of people is involved, however, still does not automatically mean that the decision-making is political in nature. If a family or a group of friends makes a joint decision to buy a home or go to the beach, these are still not political decisions. A major reason is that if someone does not agree with the idea of buying a house, or does not feel like going to the beach, the others cannot force them. A crucial element of political decisions is that they have a binding character, which means that you cannot pull out if you do not agree. This applies particularly to government decisions. If the city council decrees that I can put out my garbage only on Sunday and Wednesday evenings after 8 pm, I have to comply, even if I disagree. That is why many political scientists define politics as those matters that relate to the affairs of governments or of the state. A characteristic of a state, national or otherwise, or of a government is, after all, that it takes binding decisions. The first Dutch professor of political science to work after World War II, Jan Barents, defined the field as follows: ‘Political science is the science that studies the life of the state’. Dutch professor Andries Hoogerwerf defined politics as ‘government policy and how it is established’. Approaches that define politics as pertaining only to the domain of governments or the state are referred to as domain approaches. Some scholars find these approaches problematic. One of the problems is that the question of whether a particular problem is the responsibility of government, is itself a point of political dispute. An example is domestic violence, which was generally seen in the nineteenth century as a social problem that should be solved in the private sphere. At most, a pastor or a priest might intervene, but the government should play no role here. Orphanages were private or church institutions. In the Netherlands in the early twentieth century, legislation on child protection was introduced and government agencies were set up, such as the Guardianship Council established in 1905. This was preceded by a political struggle. This is just one example, but there are many domains where an important part of the political struggle is about whether the government has a role to play in regulating these matters. Consider, for instance, drug policy, public transport, the cultural sector or public housing.

Politics and Power

13

Another objection raised against domain approaches is that they are too restrictive, because binding decisions are frequently made outside of the government sphere. For example, a university may decide that students have the right to retake any examination. Even if professors disagree, they cannot simply refuse to go along with the policy. Because it involves a binding decision, one could interpret this as a political decision. By this reasoning, anyone who becomes involved in decision-making of this kind is engaging in (university) politics: the Executive Board, students and staff represented on the Community Board, and so on. Approaches that define politics on the basis of certain aspects of human behaviour (such as the process of taking binding decisions) irrespective of the domain in which these activities occur, are known as aspect approaches. A second element of politics, closely linked to taking binding decisions, is conflict. In a small group of people, it is sometimes possible to take decisions that are supported unanimously, especially if the members of that group have a shared interest in the decisions to be taken. But the larger and more complex the society, the more often the interests and views of different groups will collide, and the more often conflicts will arise. Conflicts divide society. Groups of people on both sides of a conflict stand opposed to each other. Partly as a result, forms of cooperation arise among people who are on the same side of a conflict: by working together with others, you make it more likely that you can settle a conflict to your advantage. Not only in domestic, but also in international politics, this means that there are often long-lasting military or trade partnerships. Conflict and cooperation are thus inseparable, and are considered by many to be essential elements of politics. Michael Laver (1983: 1) argues, for example, that ‘any mixture of conflict and co-operation is politics’. This definition is a typical example of the aspect approach. A third element of politics is made up of power and the closely related concept of influence. When there are different positions on an issue and the outcome of the decision is very close to the position of one group, we would tend to say that that group has had more influence. If some actors (individuals, companies, action groups, and so on) frequently succeed in influencing decision-making, we often conclude that these actors are powerful. In addition to conflict and cooperation, power and influence are also key concepts in political science, and there are political scientists, such as Robert Dahl (1963), who put the exercise of power at the heart of their definition of politics. One disadvantage of definitions of politics that put power, the exercise of power, or conflict and cooperation at the centre, is that the definition of

14 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

politics thus becomes very broad. When two groups of football hooligans get into a fight with each other, we have a clear case of cooperation and conflict. But to say that the supporters are thus engaging in politics would seem quite far-fetched. The same applies to the exercise of power. There are many situations where power is exercised, but where few would say that politics is involved. Consider a teacher who sends a troublesome student out of class, a bouncer at a disco who for some vague reason refuses entry to someone at the door, or a parking warden who, rightly or wrongly, writes up a parking ticket. In each of these cases, power is being exercised, but it would be quite a stretch to say that politics is involved. Limiting definitions of politics to the actions of governments, however, also has its drawbacks, as we have seen. For this reason, the definition of politics offered by David Easton (1965) is popular. He defines it in a rather abstract way as ‘those interactions through which values are authoritatively allocated for a society’. In this definition, politics is a matter of ‘interactions’ – so not the actions of an individual, but the interactions among several people. In addition, it is about ‘the authoritative allocation of values’. ‘Authoritative’ indicates the binding nature of the allocation. Certain cases are settled authoritatively. This means that a group of people is bound to comply with the outcomes. The ‘allocation of values’ is intended to make it clear that politics is not just about material things, but also about immaterial goods to which people attach importance: cultural, ethical, moral or religious matters. Examples include such topics as abortion (under which conditions and when can a pregnancy be terminated), marriage (how many people you can marry; whether they must have reached the age of majority and/ or be of the opposite sex), the official languages or the conditions in which you can demonstrate, how often and when you are allowed to ring a church bell, whether you can subject an animal to ritual slaughter, and so on. Authoritative decisions are taken not only domestically: international and transnational politics are also in this category. Trade agreements, military alliances, participation in humanitarian interventions and European directives have consequences for citizens in the countries concerned. Because the citizens in those countries are bound indirectly by these agreements, politics is engaged in at this level, too. There is, after all, an authoritative allocation of values. Finally, in Easton’s definition, it is a matter of issues that are settled ‘for a society’. Easton is not explicit about what he means by this, but he seems primarily to be referring to nation states. This is, in our view, too restrictive. After all, there are many situations in which issues are settled ‘authoritatively’ for a smaller group of people. In addition, we mentioned that

Politics and Power

15

politics occurs at the transnational level, too. Easton’s definition of politics is therefore rather useful, provided that ‘society’ is interpreted broadly. This schematic overview shows that there is no generally accepted definition of politics. This is partly because it is a rather complex and abstract concept – and that always makes it difficult to provide a precise definition. In addition, politics is what is known as an ‘essentially contested concept’. Such a concept has normative elements – that is, aspects that one can value positively or negatively. In the definition, normative (evaluative) and descriptive elements are usually mingled together. You will come across this often in your studies. If someone says that Russia is not a ‘real’ democracy, that politician A is a populist and politician B a bureaucrat, or that the financial sector is powerful, we are dealing with statements that are only partially descriptive, but that, above all, imply a normative judgment. In each case, it is important to define what you mean by terms such as democracy, populism, bureaucracy and power. Providing a fuller description and elaboration of a concept, aimed at defining it more clearly, just as we have done with the concept of politics, is something we call ‘conceptualising’. Although it is useful to engage in conceptualisation to avoid confusion, we must realise that, in the end, definitions of concepts such as democracy and populism will never be value-free or uncontested. While there may be no generally accepted definition of politics, it is not the case that political scientists are all studying utterly different topics. It is the case, however, that political science as a discipline is not sharply delineated from other research fields, such as economics or sociology.

1.3

Power, sources of power, and influence

Although it is not easy to develop a clear definition of politics, most political scientists do agree that politics has to do with power and influence. In any case, many political scientists are concerned with the question of how political power is distributed within and among countries, and with the ways in which different groups influence political decisions. The concept of power, however, is at least as tricky to define and delineate as is that of politics. In everyday language, we sometimes say that someone ‘is powerful’, ‘powerless’, ‘has a lot of power’ or ‘has the power’ to do something. Apparently, power is something one can possess. But what does it mean to say that one has power? Let’s start with a definition offered by the aforementioned political scientist, Dahl – that power is a ‘successful attempt by A to get B to do something he would not otherwise do’. In this perspective, power

16 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

involves a relationship between two actors, A and B. The actors can be people, but also groups. Political power is therefore relational. Another element in Dahl’s definition is that he assumes that A – the one who exerts power over B – is acting deliberately. Both elements, ‘acting’ and ‘deliberately’, can be questioned. When Dahl refers to actions of A that partially steer the behaviour of B (who, after all, does something else than he would have done had A done nothing), then Dahl is talking not so much about power as about its exercise. It is, of course, possible that A has power over B but does not exercise it. A general in the army has the ability to order his soldiers to storm an enemy position. Because he has the capacity to order these soldiers to do something they would not otherwise do, we can say that this general has power over them. Yet, only if he gives the order to attack, is he actually exercising his power. In that case, he is having them do something they would otherwise not have done. We must therefore make a distinction between power and the exercise of power. Whoever has power has the capacity to partially steer others’ behaviour. Power is exercised only when this capacity is actually used. We can also question the other element: ‘deliberately’. If Dahl speaks of a ‘successful attempt by A’, then he is in fact saying that power is exercised only if the outcome is in accordance with A’s intentions. But there are many situations in which the behaviour of B is partly directed by A, without its being based on any intentional behaviour by A. In domestic and international politics, there are all kinds of situations in which power is exercised, but where the one exercising it is not successful in directing the actions of others. Thus many countries have imposed trade sanctions on North Korea, hoping to force it to stop developing nuclear weapons. North Korea, however, just keeps on developing these weapons and testing long-range missiles. The economic sanctions inadvertently affect the people of North Korea in particular. In domestic politics, too, we are continually seeing examples of situations in which politicians exercise power, but in which they do not manage to achieve certain outcomes. When David Cameron, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, announced a referendum on membership in the European Union, he was exercising power. After all, millions of Britons did something they would not otherwise have done – vote. And as a result, the UK will be leaving the EU. This outcome in the summer of 2016, however, was precisely the opposite of what Cameron had wanted to achieve, which was to win the referendum, defeat the UK Independence Party and Eurosceptics within his own Conservative Party, and strengthen his own position. Instead, he found himself forced to resign.

Politics and Power

17

We can therefore conclude that the word ‘successful’ in Dahl’s definition of power is unnecessary and that it creates confusion. An actor has power over other actors when that actor has the capacity to partly direct the behaviour of others. Power is exercised when this actually happens. Power thus has a lot to do with freedom. Whoever has a lot of power is largely autonomous. Anyone with power can determine their own choices. If someone else has power over you, that person can partially determine your choices. But if your choices are determined by others, or if others exercise power over you, then you are less autonomous than if others were to exercise no power over you. However, power does not necessarily have to be used to limit the freedom of the other (the one over whom it is exercised). As Rob Mokken and Frans Stokman rightly point out, power can be used to expand the freedom of the other (see Helmers et al. 1975). Slaveholders have an extraordinary degree of power over ‘their’ slaves, but do not need to use that power to limit the slaves’ freedom. After all, they can also use their power to free these slaves. Power is thus a matter not of others having their freedom curtailed, but of the possibly of having their options shaped or changed. Following Mokken and Stokman (see Helmers et al. 1975: 37), we can define power as ‘the capacity of actors (individuals, groups or institutions) to shape or change, wholly or in part, the set of behavioural alternatives and choices of other actors’. This definition has a number of implications. The first is that power is always relational. Actors have power over other actors if they can determine, wholly or in part, their behavioural alternatives. That means that, when we talk about power, it is in fact always a matter of power relations. Although power relations are often unequal, in practice they rarely involve absolute power (the choices of A are wholly determined by B, but B has no influence at all over A’s choices). A state has power over the citizens of the country, but these citizens usually have power over the state, if they can change state institutions or can bring about changes in state leadership. In a democracy, the state has less power over citizens and citizens have more power over the state than in an authoritarian system, especially when it is a well-functioning constitutional state. But even in a country that is ruled in a very authoritarian way, citizens usually have some ‘countervailing power’, however slight. The same applies to power relations between and among states. Within the European Union, Germany is more powerful than Lithuania or Greece, but this does not mean that these countries have no power in relation to Germany. A second implication is that power is based on sources of power. Sources of power are tools that actors can use to partly shape or change the behavioural

18 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

alternatives of other actors – that is, to exercise power. The ability to apply physical violence is, of course, a powerful source of power, thus control over police and the military confers power. Military power in international politics is very important, but only in situations where the threat of military intervention is realistic. Within a country’s borders, states usually claim a monopoly on violence. This means that the government has the sole right to use violence to enforce the law, for instance. Control over the means of production is another important source of power, economic and otherwise, both in domestic and international politics. Trade boycotts can be a forceful way to exercise power in international politics, but domestically also, businesses can deploy their sources of economic power to influence policy. Other sources of power include financial capital, networks and relationships (social capital), as well as knowledge and formal positions of authority. Authority is a very specific source of power. From their positions, government leaders, heads of state, judges, officials, flight attendants, police officers, supermarket managers and many others derive a formal right to exercise power within a specific context. The extent to which authority is indeed a source of power depends greatly on the extent to which those over whom the power is exercised accept that authority and do not call it into question. This acceptance is based mostly on the recognition of the authority as legitimate. In a democratic system, important positions of authority are distributed based on the results of elections. If most people consider this system to be fair, they will often be inclined to recognise the authority of politicians who have acquired power this way and not to call that power into question, except if they think electoral fraud has been committed. The same is true of power that is based on hereditary succession, which historically is or has been the most common way to distribute political power and authority. For a long time, this authority was considered by many to be legitimate, except when there were doubts about blood ties. Paradoxically enough, authority is both a strong and a weak source of power. If those who are subject to the authority of those in power recognise their position as legitimate, they will often comply voluntarily with the power that is exercised on the basis of that position. However, if the authority is not recognised, the position is, by definition, meaningless as a source of power. In general, positions of authority are therefore also supported by other sources of power, such as the army and police, but also by more subtle and seemingly objective and institutionalised mechanisms, such as the granting of awards and titles. If such additional sources of power are lacking, such as in international law, positions of authority often prove to be rather shaky sources of power.

Politics and Power

19

A third implication of Mokken and Stokman’s view on power is that power relations are highly dependent on the specific context involved. The extent to which actors can derive power from each of the sources that we mentioned is context-dependent. On the basis of a position of authority, a professor can exert power over a student – for instance by forbidding her to use social media during a seminar. But if that student also works as a flight attendant on an airline, she can prohibit that same professor from using the toilet while the plane is landing. The same is true of politics. A threat of violence is potentially a strong instrument of power, but one that can be used only in rare circumstances. If the Netherlands and Belgium enter into a conflict about the dredging of the Western Scheldt for the port of Antwerp, a military threat is not a useful instrument of power, if only because both sides know that the costs outweigh the possible benefits. Not only is power based, then, on sources of power – it is highly dependent on whether it is plausible that these sources of power will actually be deployed. Power is largely based on reputation. If an actor (a country, a person, a group of people or an organisation) has a reputation for being powerful, other actors will anticipate this and will try to avoid a conflict. If this happens anyway, the actors with the reputation of being powerful have to back it up. Otherwise, they run the risk of damaging their reputation and losing power. Up to now, we have talked about power, but not yet about the related concept of influence. Many authors regard influence as the deployment of political power. In this perspective, political power is the capacity to determine the behaviour of other actors, while influence is the actual partial determination of others’ choices. Mokken and Stokman distinguish power from influence in another way, however – namely on the basis of the choices that actors have and of the choices they make. In their view, power is about partially shaping the options – that is, the choices – that an actor has. Influence has to do with the determination, in whole or in part, of the choices that another actor makes. This seems a useful distinction, according to which power and influence are related but can still be distinguished from each other. By participating in the euro, countries have ceded some power. They have, after all, given up certain options, such as that of devaluing their own currencies to make them more competitive. Countries then try to exert influence over the policy of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. Producers exert power over consumers, for example, by offering or not offering certain products. In addition, they try to influence the choices of consumers through advertising. A government that decrees that the rent can go up only by a fixed percentage each year exerts power over landlords. But landlords can lobby each year to influence that percentage.

20 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

Seen from this perspective, power has to do with restrictions on, or expansions of, freedom. The options other actors have are broadened or narrowed when power is exercised. When influence is exercised, only the choices actors make are partly directed by other actors, but the options they can choose from do not change. The conceptualisation offered by Mokken and Stokman (in Helmers et al. 1975) gives us the following definitions: – Power is the capacity of actors (individuals, groups or institutions) to shape or change, wholly or in part, the set of behavioural alternatives and choices that other actors have. – We speak of the exercise of power when actors (individuals, groups or institutions) shape or change, wholly or in part, the set of behavioural alternatives and choices of other actors. – Influence is exercised when actors (individuals, groups or institutions) determine the behaviour or the choices of other actors within a set of behavioural alternatives and choices that are available to the latter.

1.4

Research on power and elites

There is a long tradition of empirical research in political science on power, the exercise of power, and influence. The remainder of this chapter provides an overview of the most important traditions in power research. This overview also serves to illustrate how the scholarly debate has led to more developed research methods and theoretical conceptualisations of power. Research on power typically focuses on people or groups that have or exercise power. These powerful actors can be regarded as elite: a privileged group. Someone can belong to an elite because of their special and outstanding competences (such as athletes, soldiers, academics, writers), because of financial capital (such as those in the top 1% of the richest people in the world), because of their social origin (for example, the nobility) or because they occupy influential positions (see, for instance, the annual top 200 in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant). The one naturally does not exclude the other, and they regularly overlap, such as in the case of a football player who is also a multimillionaire. In practice, privileged positions in one domain often lead to privileged positions in another. Thus, influential jobs can lead to the accumulation of financial capital (for example, because of corruption). And it works the other way too: social origin can help you get a top managerial position, enabling you to exercise power. For example, even after World War II in the Netherlands, members of the nobility and the

Politics and Power

21

aristocracy were significantly over-represented in the top board positions in government and business. We can distinguish at least four distinct traditions in political science power research. Each emphasises a different aspect of power. The positional approach examines power by focusing on actors who occupy influential positions. The reputational approach identifies power on the basis of the judgements of those involved. The decision-making approach tries to identify power, by closely analysing the process of decision-making, and thus to determine which actors are best placed to have their interests prevail. And the network approach focuses on the links among people and institutions. These diverging perspectives on power were an important source of one of the main scholarly controversies in political science: that between the elitists and the pluralists. Elitists In his seminal study, The Power Elite (1956), sociologist C. Wright Mills argues that a coherent power elite exists in the post-war United States. This power elite, he holds, consists of a network of senior managers, top military figures and leading figures from the state apparatus. Through this network of overlapping relationships, this power elite is coherent. This is the core of the elitist notion: that there is a coherent or unified power elite that dominates society. Mills takes the positional definition of power as his starting point. The elite derives its power from the positions its members occupy at the top of large organisations. According to Mills, the members of the power elite occupy the ‘strategic command posts of the social structure, in which are now centered the effective means of the power and the wealth and the celebrity which they enjoy’ (Mills 1956: 73-74). This elite takes crucial decisions that affect security, the economy and the well-being of the whole society, and thus exercises power. An elite has two important characteristics: it is a group that has some coherence and whose members recognise each other as such. A group identity thus arises that distinguishes those who belong to it from those who do not. This identity is the basis for a social class whose members accord each other recognition as equals. Max Weber calls this a status group: ‘a plurality of persons who claim a special social esteem for themselves’ (Weber 1978: 306). Although it is often said of Mills that he sees the power elite as a social class, he himself is strikingly cautious on this issue. He merely points out that that the members of the power elite are particularly strongly interconnected, through tight-knit social networks. By taking this

22 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

step, Mills adds a network perspective to his concept of power. In his view, it is precisely through relational coherence that the power elite is able to take the most important decisions in society as a group. Mills’s well-written study relies on many sources, statistics, newspaper articles, anecdotes, observations and references to other research. This approach makes his study comprehensive, but also rather imprecise. That cannot be said of another important pillar in the theory of power elites: Community Power Structure by Floyd Hunter (1953). In this study, Hunter takes a detailed look at power relations of city politics in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. Instead of Mills’s positional approach he develops the reputational approach. First, Hunter asked each of 14 experts on politics in Atlanta (with a population at the time of about half a million inhabitants) to name 10 politically powerful people in that city. On the basis of the experts’ assessment, he cut this list down to 40 names. As a check, he posed the same question to leaders of the African-American community and to social workers. Here, too, the same names were raised. Fully in line with the power elite theory, Hunter found that political power in Atlanta was in the hands of only a small number of business people, senior officials and lawyers. In addition, this elite group was a network. Local policy was established in a structure ‘held together by common interests, mutual obligations, money, habit, delegated responsibilities, and in some cases by coercion and fraud’ (Hunter 1953: 113). Whereas Hunter had used a reputational method to determine the power elite and Mills a positional one, they shared the view that the power elite is held together by strong social networks and shared interests. But not everyone could support their findings or their research methods – far from it. Pluralists The elitists came under criticism from the pluralists. Hunter’s reputational method in particular was criticised: the pluralists saw it as fundamentally problematic. In their view, he should not have asked who the power elite was in Atlanta, but whether there was a power elite in the first place. By using the reputational method, they said, Hunter came up with answers that were a foregone conclusion (namely that there is a power elite). Pluralists point out that while there may very well be a group of influential people, there are major and irreconcilable differences among various factions within it. The elite is not uniform but pluriform. The most famous critique of Hunter is in Dahl’s Who Governs? (1961). According to Dahl and his colleagues, research

Politics and Power

23

should always be carried out on the basis of empirical observations that are focused on testing and refuting assumptions. In addition, they use a ‘behaviouristic’ approach and investigate only on observable behaviour. Dahl examined the political decision-making on urban renewal, education, and party nominations in the town of New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States. To this end, he used neither the positional method nor the reputational method, but developed his decision-making method. This approach to power research focuses on decision-making around central points of political struggle, where observable conflicts of interest exist, as well as conflict itself. After all, only if there are conflicts of interest, it is possible to determine who wins and who loses. Whoever sees their interests prevail when it comes to decision-making is regarded as powerful. For every political decision on the three aforementioned topics, Dahl thus determined who had taken part in the decision-making process. For all participants, he then determined who had proposed alternatives and whether these had been rejected or adopted, as well as whether there had been a veto. On this basis, Dahl came up with an index of success or failure for each participant. The outcomes of his research were remarkable. On the one hand, Dahl confirmed that power is not distributed equally. In New Haven, too, there was a small group of decision-makers. On the other hand, and by contrast to Mills and Hunter, Dahl observed not a cohesive power elite, but a political arena where various stakeholders had access to policy-making processes and could assert their influence. Sometimes one group won, and sometimes another. There was no dominant group that dominated decision-making. And although there was a small group of decision-makers (indeed an elite), Dahl emphasised the differences within it. The elite was so pluriform that there was too little cohesion for them to be one ruling class or power elite. In a short period of time, the scholarly debate between the elitists and pluralists produced three research methods: Mills’s positional method, Hunter’s reputational method and Dahl’s decision-making method. Mills and Hunter adhered to an elitist view of power; Dahl to a pluralistic one. Pluralists criticised the elitists’ research methods because they could never lead to a conclusion other than that there is a single power elite. However, the research of the pluralists also came under criticism: that the decisionmaking method was too restrictive.

24 

1.5

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

Two faces of power

In their famous article ‘The two faces of power’, Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz (1962) criticized the pluralists’ conceptualisation of power. They found the pluralist vision of power superficial, limited and misleading. Dahl might be right, they said, that power manifests itself when A gets B to do something he would not otherwise do. But with their emphasis on observable decision-making, the pluralists studied just one side of power, namely the decision-making processes already underway. In addition to this ‘first face’, they argued, power also has a ‘second face’, which is about agenda setting. After all, actors can exercise power if they can ensure that the interests of other actors do not make it onto the political agenda and thus do not even reach the decision-making process. In this way, A limits B’s scope for action and thus exercises power. According to Bachrach and Baratz, if a topic does not make it onto the political agenda, there is a ‘nondecision’. The crucial insight was that power can be exercised even in the case of non-decisions. Determining the political agenda is also part of the exercise of power. Incidentally, Mills already recognised that researchers should look at more than just observable decision-making. He writes that the power elite’s ‘failure to act, their failure to make decisions, is itself an act that is often of greater consequence than the decisions they do make’ (Mills 1956: 4). For Mills, the insight that non-decisions are also part of the exercise of power was precisely why he believes researchers should not look at decision-making only to determine who has power. The researcher will lose sight of all these non-observable aspects. Therefore, Mills developed his positional approach. Bachrach and Baratz, however, did follow the pluralists’ perspective, according to which research should focus on the results of decision-making where there are conflicts of interest. Their critique of Dahl is that not only are the overt conflicts of interest relevant, but also those that are covert. Researchers who use the decision-making method of power research should therefore always record exactly what individuals (or groups of people) think of certain topics. Attention should be paid here both to openly expressed objections and to covert concerns and grievances that are unspoken.

1.6

The third dimension of power

Steven Lukes sums up the discussion on power research in his Power: A Radical View (1974). He argues that the pluralists have a one-dimensional

Politics and Power

25

vision of power, and that Bachrach and Baratz, with their addition of the notion of power through non-decisions, have a two-dimensional vision. Lukes subsequently sharply criticises the behaviourist approach, whereby research on power revolves around actual, observable conflicts. He argues that power can be involved even where there are no observable conflicts. He calls this the third dimension of power. There may also be ‘latent conflicts’, in which, because of the exercise of power by another, actors do not have clear insight into their own ‘real’ interests. As Lukes writes: ‘A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he also exercises power over him by influencing, shaping, or determining his very wants.’ If we see things in this way, we cannot assume that the absence of conflict or disagreement amounts to actual consensus. If we take ‘real’ but ‘unknown’ interests as our point of departure, A has power over B by determining what B wants. For is it not so, as Lukes argues, that the supreme form of power involves getting others to have desires that you want them to have? According to this vision, a politician can exercise power by whispering certain wishes into his constituents’ ears. On the one hand, the introduction of this third dimension of power is appealing. It is likely that ideology or culture may lead people to develop blind spots regarding their ‘true’ interests. It is therefore not difficult to understand why Lukes’s approach became popular among academic and political movements such as Marxism, which set themselves up as defenders of people’s true but veiled interests. On the other hand, the third dimension is rather problematic for the empirically oriented power researcher. After all, how can a researcher reveal somebody’s ‘true’ interests?

1.7

The Amsterdam network approach to research on power

Political scientists in Amsterdam in the late 1960s also paid significant of attention to the important discussion between pluralists and elitists. A group around Rob Mokken and Frans Stokman offered a fundamental critique of the research being conducted by both the elitists and the pluralists. Their view was that power and influence were seen in terms that were too personalistic in both camps; it was all about individuals and groups of people who had power to a greater or lesser extent. According to Mokken and Stokman, the question of power had to do precisely with the extent to which these individual ‘leaders’ were linked together in a community of interests made up of organisations and institutions. They thus turned the social coherence that Mills and Hunter stressed, and that Dahl et al. called

26 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

into question, into a research topic. In addition, they broadened the research field by making organisations such as businesses, banks, universities and ministries into objects of research. They used a broad definition of politics that was more in the tradition of Mills than of Dahl. In their pioneering study Graven naar macht (Tracing Power, Helmers et al. 1975), they examined economic power structures and focused on the largest companies in the Netherlands. They thus latched onto a very topical discussion that was then being conducted. In 1968, the corporate elite came into the public eye when the President of the Dutch Catholic Trade Union, P. J. J. Mertens, said at a meeting in Sneek, the Netherlands, that the country’s entire economy was in the hands of around 200 people. ‘Of a group of people who know each other well and who often meet each other on various boards. It is a group that is as knowledgeable and financially strong as it is frightening’, he said. All the newspapers went looking for this so-called ‘Mertens’s 200’, and lists of senior figures appeared in major newspapers: Het Parool, de Volkskrant, and the Haarlems Dagblad. The Political Party of Radicals (de Politieke Partij Radicalen, PPR) called for a parliamentary inquiry into economic power in Netherlands. Mokken and Stokman decided to scientifically investigate the existence of ‘Mertens’s 200’. They saw this as an excellent opportunity to apply the newly developed method of network analysis (based on mathematic graph theory) to a political science topic. It was ground-breaking research, where for the first time computer assisted network analysis was used in social science. With this new method, they mapped out the ‘old boys’ network’ of companies that were linked together by overlapping memberships of boards of directors or supervisory boards. The outcomes of their study confirmed that there was indeed a group of almost 200 people who, by creating interlocking directorates and dual functions, bridged different parts of a close-knit network that connected the boardrooms of the largest companies in the Netherlands. Banks played a central role in this network. ‘Banks have the power’, ran the headline in one newspaper. But entirely contrary to their aim, attention in the media then focused far more closely on the people who spanned the network than on the organisations and businesses whose interests were being served. The conclusion that there was a connected close-knit corporate elite in the Netherlands was to a large degree in line with the conclusions of the elitists in the United States. The network analysis was, however, a more powerful test, because other outcomes had been possible, namely that there were multiple networks operating separately.

Politics and Power

1.8

27

Research on power in the twenty-first century

Politics and power are key concepts in political science, and form the basis for much of the research in the field. Today, research on power is no longer limited to fairly specific investigations, such as those done by Dahl, Hunter and Mills, but is conducted on a wide range of topics and issues. If you look closely, however, you will see that the theoretical and methodological discussion between the pluralists and the elitists still influences presentday political science research. We will mention a few examples of current research themes where power and influence play a more or less explicit role. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, and during your studies you will regularly encounter fundamental issues relating to politics, power and influence. Power and influence naturally play a role in research on lobbying activities. Through lobbies, interest groups (companies, NGOs, governments, and so on) aim to influence political decision-making. The power base of a lobby is closely linked to the advantage it has in terms of knowledge, financial resources and political contacts. The car industry lobby, for example, has both strong political networks and a solid financial base. It has effectively exerted its influence to ensure, for instance, that the strict limits on the emissions of pollutants were measured and recorded in a flexible way. An effective lobbying campaign does not start when a topic is ready for decisionmaking, but long before that. You have the greatest impact when the agenda is being shaped (see also chapter 9). An important period for lobbyists in the Netherlands is therefore the moment when political parties are setting up their election platforms. A good lobbying effort ensures that all its interests are being promoted at that early moment when agendas are being shaped. In the process of European policy-making, lobbyists play an even more important role than in the Netherlands (Lelieveldt & Princen 2015). Comparative political economists study the direct influence of businesses through lobbies, as well as the ‘structural power’ of corporate business. Political parties and politicians depend on business, because they make important investment decisions that affect the economy and employment. Because politics depends on business, it will try to serve its interests well. The argument is that politics does this on its own initiative, without any need for business to ask. Thus, business has a ‘structural’ influence on politics (Culpepper 2015). A related field of political-economic research focuses on the politics relating to financial markets. Stock exchange and currency rates are unruly and sometimes chaotic, but at the same time they have an enormous influence

28 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

on our well-being. Consider the financial crisis that began in 2008 and the plight that then arose when governments such as in Greece, through the failure of bailouts and through declining economic growth, proved to be technically insolvent. A key issue in political economy is who wins and who loses in such times of economic uncertainty, and this is largely determined by which groups have more power and influence and can thus affect the results. Another important field of research in political economy examines how financial and other markets are regulated by national and international institutions, and just what power and influence these institutions can exert. There are international rules on how much capital banks must keep in reserve in relation to the loans they make. Small changes can have a major impact on economic growth, but also on the emergence of market bubbles and crises. The decision-making process generally has a rather technical character, but this does not mean that important issues of power do not play a role (Pagliari & Young, 2013). In public administration, close attention is paid to the power and influence that citizens and interest groups wield over political decision-making at the local, regional, national and international levels. An ongoing topic of research is how the decision-making process can be set up in such a way that there is an optimal mix of input and influence from all concerned parties without this hindering the effective exercise of policy. This kind of research goes beyond the idea that power involves a relationship between two actors. Here, power is studied as a set of interactions within a policy network. Research is also being done on how actors can exercise power by giving an authoritative interpretation of the rules, and thus in effect, exercising power and influence. Consider, for example, the government that, in view of the changing welfare state, calls on citizens to behave responsibly and to take an active part in civil society. We clearly see here elements of the third dimension of power discussed above (Lukes 1974). The research tradition initiated by the Amsterdam school of network research on power and influence has also been continued. The pioneering early work of Meindert Fennema on international power networks between banks and industry (1982) is the basis for follow-up studies that map out how and to what extent the financial-economic elites around the world are cross-linked with each other (Heemskerk et al. 2016). With the help of advanced analytical techniques and increasingly large data files, we are getting better at measuring how business is cross-linked around the world and what this means for, among others, global geopolitical relations (Heemskerk & Takes, 2016). Recent network research also gives us a better understanding of the rapidly growing position of power that financial

Politics and Power

29

institutions, such as passive investment funds, have on business through the concentration of ownership (Fichtner et al. 2017). These are just a few examples of how power and influence are the subject of research in political science. In addition, there are numerous other social issues where power turns out to be crucial, such as in discussions on limiting top incomes in business and the public sector, or in the debate triggered by Thomas Piketty (2014) on the inequality created by the consolidation of power in the hands of the richest one percent. Also, there is still much attention being paid to the lists of who does and who does not belong to an elite. For example, the Quote 500 defines a Dutch elite on the basis of capital as a source of power, but beyond that, does not necessarily seem interested in just how powerful these people are. The annual ‘200 Most Powerful People’ in de Volkskrant newspaper is interested, though. This ranking of the governing elite is drawn up on the basis of a positional network analysis and a journalistic interpretation of the results. Power and influence continue to be key concepts in both academic research and public debate.

1.9 Conclusion This discussion of a number of currents in research on power shows that good research is no simple matter. Following in the footsteps of many others, we have defined power as a capacity that does not necessarily have to be used. This means that power often is invisible, making research on it quite difficult. The danger is that the concept will quickly be equated with the sources of power available to actors. Comments such as ‘the rich are powerful’ are true, then, by definition, and cannot be subjected to empirical scrutiny. This problem also makes itself felt in the work of Mills, since he uses only important positions as a source of power in defining the power elite. The behaviourists’ solution – to put only the observable exercise of power at the centre – is, however, similarly problematic, especially because determining just who is exercising power is not always straightforward. Research on power research is also tricky because most people are inclined to ascribe less power to themselves and more to others than is realistic. This can lead to conspiracy theories in which the power of certain groups is overestimated by exaggerating cooperation within those groups and denying the social dynamics that produce certain outcomes. When looking from the outside at the elite, one is prone to overestimating the power that they have and the unity and connectedness that bind them. We should avoid these kinds of pitfalls by investigating power relations systematically.

30 

Wouter van der Brug and Eelke Heemskerk

References Bachrach, P. & Baratz, M.S. (1962). ‘Two Faces of Power’, American Political Science Review, 56 (04): 947-952. Culpepper, P. (2015). ‘Structural Power and Political Science in the Post-Crisis Era’, Business & Politics, 17 (3): 391-409. Dahl, R.A. (1961). Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven/London: Harvard University Press. Dahl, R.A. (1963). Modern Political Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Easton, D. (1965). A Systems Analysis of Political Life. New York: Wiley. Fennema, M. (1982). International Networks of Banks and Industry. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Fichtner, J., Heemskerk, E.M. & Garcia-Bernardo, J. (2017). Hidden Power of the Big Three? Passive Index Funds, Re-Concentration of Corporate Ownership, and New Financial Risk, Business & Politics, 19(2): 298-326. Heemskerk, E.M., Fennema, M. & Carroll, W.K. (2016). The Global Corporate Elite after the Financial Crisis: Evidence from the Transnational Network of Interlocking Directorates, Global Networks, 16 (1): 68-88. Heemskerk, E.M., & Takes, F.W. (2016). The Corporate Elite Community Structure of Global Capitalism, New Political Economy, 21 (1): 90-118. Helmers, H.M., Mokken, R.J., Plijter, R.C. & Stokman, F.N. (1975). Graven naar macht [Tracing Power]. Amsterdam: Van Gennep. Hunter, F. (1963). Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers. Doubleday. Lakshman, H. & Princen, S. (2015). The Politics of the European Union (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laver, Michael (1983). Invitation to Politics. Oxford: Martin Robertson; New York: Basil Blackwell. Lukes, S. (1974/2005). Power: A Radical View. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Mills, C.W. (1956/2000). The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pagliari, S. & Young, K.L. (2014). Leveraged Interests: Financial Industry Power and the Role of Private Sector Coalitions, Review of International Political Economy, 21 (3): 575-610. Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge (MA): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Weber, M. (1978). Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

2

Social and Political Inequality Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

2.1 Introduction In recent years, the public debate on social and political inequality in relation to ethnicity, gender, age, income and education returned in all its intensity, both within and outside the Netherlands. Take the Occupy protests against the yawning wealth gap between the rich and the poor in the Western world and the great success of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in which the French economist describes how patterns of inequality and concentration of wealth have developed over the last two centuries. Education is also gaining visibility as a social and political cleavage. For example, Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille, in their book Diplomademocratie [Diploma Democracy], focused attention on the almost complete absence of people with a secondary education or less from politics and civil society. Or consider the rise of political parties such as Denk [Think] and Artikel 1, which are committed to the interests of the ‘new Dutch’, or the Black Lives Matter movement, which has put police violence against Black Americans on the agenda. The inequality between men and women is regularly in the news, too, whether it is about expressions of sexism, sexual violence against women, or the male-female ratio in politics. Social inequality is the subject of research in political science, in at least two ways. First, social inequalities lead to a lot of political conflict and political struggle. Some people and social groups have more economic, social or cultural resources than others, and they therefore have many more opportunities in their lives than others. For these and other reasons, social inequality is an ‘inexhaustible breeding ground’ for potential conflicts of interest and conflicts (Bader 1991: 87). Second, political scientists are interested in the relationship between social inequality and inequality in terms of politics and power. Certain people and social groups have more opportunities than others to have their wishes and interests prevail and to turn collectively binding decisions to their favour. This inequality in terms of power is not self-explanatory, and certainly not in democratic political systems in which the interests and needs of all citizens have equal weight and all citizens have an equal voice, on paper at least. (Dahl 1998, 2006). Within political science, research into the relationships between social inequality and inequality in terms of power or politics has traditionally

32 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

been of considerable importance, and many political scientists study the extent to which democratic ideals are realised in political practice (Lijphart 1997; Gilens 2012). In this chapter, we discuss how political scientists look at social and political inequality. In so doing, we also use sociological concepts and theories on social inequality. We begin with an outline of the historical development of social inequality and introduce the thinkers who have shaped the debate. We then discuss some key concepts according to which social inequality can be conceptualised. The second part of the chapter is about political inequality and research within political science into unequal political representation.

2.2

Equality and inequality, both social and political

Social or societal inequality concerns the unequal distribution of life chances among different people and groups. This includes the uneven distribution of opportunities within a society, but also inequality between citizens in various regions of the world. In this chapter, we focus on unequal distribution within societies, even though we are aware that these inequalities are closely related to international relations. Life chances enable people to realise certain goals, ambitions and expectations, individually but also in coordination with others. Since societies have existed, and right up to the present day, life chances have been unevenly distributed. Some people have more access to food, prosperity, security, good housing and health than others, and therefore have more opportunities to freely choose what they want to do or be, to be healthy and live a long time, get an education, travel, have leisure time, go on holidays, maintain personal relationships, have children, and so on. In this chapter, we take as a point of departure the idea that life chances are determined by access to resources on the one hand and, on the other, by certain freedoms that people have, for example in terms of formal rights, but also in relation to social norms about what someone may or may not do, or what is or is not deemed appropriate to do. The distribution of life chances is intertwined in countless ways with the unequal distribution of political resources and opportunities to gain power in situations of political conflict and collective decision-making.1 1 The authoritative political scientist Robert Dahl describes political resources as ‘everything to which a person or a group has access that they can use to influence, directly or indirectly, the conduct of other persons’ (1998: 177).

Social and Political Inequalit y

33

People and groups have unequal opportunities to decide on important matters that concern them or to occupy positions of political authority. In this chapter, we make a distinction between social and political inequality. When we speak about social inequality, we mean the unequal distribution of life chances, while political inequality has to do with unequal opportunities to influence binding collective decision-making, to be heard, and to settle political conflicts to your advantage.2 We address the relationships between social and political inequality in the second part of the chapter. As noted above, life chances have been distributed unequally since time immemorial. In the feudal societies of medieval Europe, for example, your life chances were completely different if you were born in a farming family than if you came into the world as the son or daughter of an aristocrat. As the child of a farmer, you were dependent on a landlord, you had to work your entire life, you died relatively young, and you had virtually no say in the social and political relations in society. In the colonial societies in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, European settlers had access to all sorts of resources, rights and privileges, while the colonised indigenous people were oppressed and exploited. Today, there is still a world of difference between your life chances if you are born in a prosperous country in say Europe or North America and those you have if you are a child of parents in a country torn apart by poverty and war in Africa or the Middle East. But even in a prosperous country such as the Netherlands, the distribution of life chances depends, for example, on gender, skin colour, religion, sexual orientation, the social class of your parents, your education, whether you have a physical disability, and on countless other characteristics and factors. Although there are considerable social inequalities in every era, there are important differences among societies and types of societies. Historical sociologists refer to the fundamental structure of a society. It is a matter then, for instance, of economic conditions that have a significant influence on the formation of social classes; consider the differences between and among feudal, capitalist, industrialised and late-capitalist economies. But we also have to consider types of political relationships and relationships of authority that characterise a society. International relations also determine to a large extent the fundamental structure of a society and the social inequalities that go with it. For instance, research into macro factors and historical formations of this kind is being done by Marxist historians, in 2 As described in Chapter 1, section 3 above, the inequality of power has to do with the unequal distribution of a capacity, and not exclusively the exercise of that capacity.

34 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

structuralist approaches to social change, and in the so-called ‘systems approach’ in international relations. The question is, however, whether, social inequalities in a particular type of society and in a given period are being thematised and problematised – and, if so, which ones. Social inequalities are almost always pointed out, but they are not always regarded as objectionable or unjust. Social inequalities were and are legitimised or condoned in all sorts of ways. According to the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, people were essentially unequal and it was therefore logical that social privileges should be unevenly distributed, and that some people were free citizens while others were slaves. In feudal societies, inequalities were justified by an appeal to a God-given social order in which social origin largely defined one’s life chances. Exploitation and slavery in colonial societies were justified on the basis of racist ideas about the superiority of white Europeans, and these ideas were widespread and accepted in Europe and the United States. The same applies to the fact that inequality between men and women in all sorts of societies was and is legitimised. This is not to say, though, that oppressed individuals and groups did not resist their distressing lack of life chances and their poverty and exploitation. They did indeed resist. However discriminatory ideologies were widespread and whatever level of violence those in power were willing to use to suppress certain groups, the fact is that resistance to inequality and exploitation has existed since time immemorial. However, the rise of modern natural law in the seventeenth century is widely considered a major turning point in thinking about social inequality as something inevitable. Thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and, later, JeanJacques Rousseau formulated the postulate that people were in fact equal. This postulate of equality, or more precisely of moral equality (the argument that the interests and needs of every person matter) was given extra weight when it was included in the universalist discourses of the Enlightenment and in thinking about political and social relations in important democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century, such as the independence struggle waged by the English colonies in North America (1773-1783) and the French Revolution (1789-1795). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there arose in this way a fundamental critique of social inequality and unequal distributions of life chances, but also of political inequality and the lack of democracy. Both were powerfully articulated at the end of the eighteenth century in a way that is still inspiring. In 1776 the American Declaration of independence read in part: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain

Social and Political Inequalit y

35

unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ In the following decade, the French revolutionaries proclaimed, in the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen of 1789: ‘Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.’ Modern natural law, the Enlightenment and the democratic revolutions converged in a fundamental criticism of feudal society, in which social and political privileges were fully intertwined with one’s lineage. At the same time, a fundamental change of economic and social relations took place in modernising Europe. The rise of capitalism, modern science, the formation of nations and modern states, later followed by industrialisation and the rise of imperialism, meant that the world at the end of the nineteenth century looked very different than it had 100 years earlier. The new forms of social and political inequality that emerged could be critically questioned again from the postulate of moral equality. The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, who travelled throughout the United States in 1831 and 1832 to investigate social relations in American society, wrote that in democratic societies there was an inexhaustible passion for equality: ‘People and forces who set themselves against equality will be destroyed by it’ (Tocqueville 2000: 212-213). But, despite the lofty ideals of many Enlightenment thinkers, there was a world of difference in Europe and the United States between the recorded ideals of equality and the elaboration of those ideals in people’s everyday lives. Marxists, socialists and liberals criticised various forms of inequality, and in social movements and revolutions a struggle was waged for more-equal civil, social and political rights for all groups in society. This social criticism, these social revolutions and this fight against social inequality continued well into the twentieth century and remain relevant to this day. Against the background of the horrors of Nazism and fascism, in 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human rights was adopted by the United Nations. In it, the postulate of universal ‘moral equivalence’ as a foundation for a just and decent world was formulated once again. The Declaration spoke of the ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’. The rise of the modern welfare state can be considered an illustration of the institutional attempts to correct unjust social inequalities and to rearrange the distribution of prosperity and life chances (see Chapter 4). The dialectical movement between, on the one hand, developing social structures that are characterised by the unequal distribution of life chances and political power and, on the other, political-theoretical and

36 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

political-ideological criticism of existing inequalities linked to social movements and political struggle, is also continuing in the twenty-first century.

2.3

Social inequality

If it is not ‘natural’ or inevitable that life chances are so unevenly distributed, questions arise about what types of social inequalities there are, how their existence can be explained and what might possibly be done, and what must be done. From the middle of the nineteenth century on, questions of this kind became the subject of what we now call the ‘sociology of social inequality’, where all kinds of schools and theories arose, often closely associated with political and social movements. The work of Karl Marx (18181883), Max Weber (1864-1920) and Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) is extremely influential in this context. In this section, we will briefly discuss a few basic concepts that these and other sociologists developed to describe and analyse patterns of social inequality.3 We will then look at further approaches within political science. A first conceptual distinction is that between diversity and inequality. Both concepts are relative: they have meaning only if we compare two or more entities (for example, individuals, groups, neighbourhoods, cities, countries, and regions). We speak of diversity or variety when we want to say that entities are not the same, that they are ‘different’. A neighbourhood with blue houses is different from a neighbourhood with red houses, curls are different from straight hair, tennis is different from judo, and so on. On the other hand, we speak of inequalities if in a comparison there is more versus less, better versus worse, safer versus more unsafe, healthier versus more unhealthy, and so on. A similar discussion on the distinction between ‘different’ and ‘unequal’ has to do with the delimitation of the concepts of social differentiation and social inequality. Modern, complex societies are differentiated in all kinds of ways: people do various things and have various roles, and there are various professions (dentist, university instructor, baker and so on). We can imagine that all of these different activities, roles, functions and professions might be valued quite equally, for instance because all professions paid exactly the same and also had the same status. In that hypothetical situation, a society would indeed be differentiated, but there would not necessarily be any inequalities. The reality is, of course, 3 We make good use of the standard work of Bader and Benschop (1988), which offers a really thorough overview of the development of theories on social inequality.

Social and Political Inequalit y

37

different. We see social differentiation go hand in hand with inequalities, some significant, which are expressed in unequal evaluations in the form of salaries, status or privileges. The sociology of inequalities focuses, as its name suggests, on inequality and not so much on diversity or ‘social differentiation’. A second important conceptual delimitation lies in the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘social’ differences and inequalities. 4 There are several natural differences between people, such as hereditary differences (skin color, hair color, eye shape and so on), congenital differences (some physical and mental handicaps, for instance) as well as individually acquired traits, such as body strength and mental faculties (Bader & Benschop 1988: 52). Social and historico-social conditions jointly contribute to ‘natural’ differences between people. Consider, for instance, how environmental conditions in a country, a social class or a family affect health and physical growth (including of children before they are even born). People do differ from each other in a natural sense, but that does not yet determine whether these differences also lead to unequal life chances. Whether natural differences are evaluated – and if so, how – does not, in and of itself, depend on these differences. Rather it ‘is determined by common interpretations and social power relations that are predominant at a given moment’ (1988: 51). This social evaluation is partly determined by what type of activity or social role someone plays and in what context they play it (sometimes someone’s being tall is valued greatly, sometimes it’s being strong, and sometimes being fat or thin). Broader social evaluations are also of great importance, for example with regard to natural differences such as skin colour, sex, weight, disabilities, and so on. Inequality occurs only when certain evaluations are applied to these ‘natural’ traits.5 Now that we have more fully delimited the concept of social inequality from closely related concepts such as natural inequalities, diversity, and social differentiation, it is important to define more precisely what we mean when we say that social inequality concerns the distribution of life chances among people and groups in a society. We outlined above that life chances are the opportunities that people have to realise in their lives certain goals, ambitions and expectations, individually but also with others. 4 Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1755) is a classic in this regard. He argues that there is no necessary or natural relationship between natural and ‘social inequalities’. 5 Today, moreover, people rightly question the casualness with which people were categorised on the basis of quasi-objective ‘natural’ differences such as race, gender (m/f) or ‘physically impairment’.

38 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

We can now be a bit more specific and say that life chances are formed by having a combination of resources and of freedoms at one’s disposal.6 We can interpret ‘resources’ broadly to mean material resources (money, property, food, and power), qualifications (a degree), capacities and talents, but also, for example, a social network you can call on, an organisation that can help you, a school you can go to, and so on. It can mean resources that you yourself can really claim as your own (that you can possess), but also resources you have, or can get, access to, such as healthcare and public transport. In addition, your life chances are linked closely to the freedoms you have. This includes both formal freedoms that are often enshrined in civil, social and political rights, and freedoms and restrictions that are often socially determined, for instance because of a prevailing norm. In order to get a clear picture of the way in which having resources and freedoms, in their mutual relations, at one’s disposal determines one’s life chances, three other factors should be mentioned here. First, there is the value of a given resource – that is, exactly what you can do with it, which depends, among other things, on the social arena or the social interaction within which you want to do something. If you want to purchase something in a supermarket, money is a really useful resource, while good education and good physical condition, for instance, are not resources you can use directly to pay at the checkout. The meaning and the value of certain resources also depend on where and for what purpose you want to use them. Second, there are what is known as transformation or conversion factors. This has to do with whether and how you can in fact convert a certain object or resource into something that can help you realise your goal or ambitions. That can depend on many factors. If you have a car at your disposal as a resource but you live in a country where there are no roads and no petrol, you still cannot realise mobility as a capability. It could also be that you have a car but cannot use it, either because you have no driver’s license or because you should have a specially adapted car since you have a physical handicap. Another example: as a woman, you could have a good education, for instance, but the social norm could be such that women do not work outside the home but care for their children. And as we shall see, income can be a resource in the political arena when you live in a country where you can buy influence by donating to a politician’s campaign, but converting money into political 6 This conceptualisation of life chances as having at one’s disposal a combination of resources and freedoms, corresponds to how the concept of the quality of life is defined in the so-called capability approach developed by the economist Amartya Sen (2001) and the political philosopher Martha Nussbaum (2011).

Social and Political Inequalit y

39

power is a lot less straight forwards in a system where political donations are highly regulated. To get a good picture of the relationship between having resources and opportunities at one’s disposal on the one hand and having chances on the other, we must also look at conversion factors of this sort. Third, the concept of life chances expresses the idea that someone doing research on inequality is primarily interested in distribution issues and the chances that people have. This is important because, in describing and assessing someone’s social life situation, we also want to take into account what this person wants. We think there’s a relevant difference between whether someone does not go on vacation because he does not want to, and whether he does not go because there are financial barriers in the way. Your social life situation is different depending on whether the reason you’re not going to study is that there is no money for it, or that your parents and those around you do not think it is appropriate for girls to go to university, or that you yourself would rather do something else. Sometimes social scientists are not primarily interested in describing the distribution of life chances at the level of individuals, but want to get a picture of social inequality at higher levels of aggregation, such as at the level of an entire society. An important concept in this context is the stratification structure or the structure of social inequality (also referred to as class structure). The concept of structure expresses the idea that the unequal distribution of freedoms and control over resources is not accidental, but that there is a pattern and a certain degree of coherence. Certain combinations of inequality occur together. Thus, someone with a higher education generally has a better-paying job and lives in a nicer house in a better neighbourhood. The concept of social structure also expresses the idea that there is a relatively enduring pattern of behavior that persists for quite some time. Finally, the concept of structure denotes that the actions of people and groups are shaped and bound (‘structured’) to an important degree by social patterns and relations. The structuring of social inequality has two basic forms (Bader & Benschop 1988). First, the resources and freedoms that come with certain social positions are unequally distributed. This is called positional inequality, because the inequalities in question result from positions in the social structure. An important example of positional inequality is the various rewards and evaluations that come with different professions. Every social position has a certain combination of resources and freedoms. Individuals who land on such a position have that bundle of benefits at their disposal. In some cases, these are positive evaluations and relatively ample resources; in others, negative evaluations and few resources. The second basic form

40 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

concerns the criteria and mechanisms on the basis of which individuals land these unequally structured social positions or, on the contrary, are excluded from them. These are called allocative or ascriptive inequalities. Individuals can access social positions on the basis of strictly individual characteristics such as talents, achievements, diplomas, character, and so on.7 But in reality, the opportunities individuals have to get more or less access to social positions are determined to a large extent by characteristics that are attributed to them by others or by society as a whole. Characteristics of this kind are attributed, then, to certain individuals because they are seen as belonging to a particular social group or category (such as ‘female’, ‘Muslims’, ‘immigrants’). These forms of ascriptive inequality are quite widespread and are deeply embedded in all types of power structures and social and cultural norms in society, and they explain why ascriptive inequality is so persistent when it comes to outward appearance and gender (Young 1989; Anderson 2010). With the help of these basic concepts and theoretical notions, it becomes possible to do research on social inequalities. This can be done by looking at how structures of inequality take shape in certain domains, such as income inequality, inequality in education, inequality in relation to health and life expectancy, or spatial segregation. Within the social sciences, a lot of attention is paid to ascriptive inequalities, for example on the basis of gender (consider the unequal distribution of care and labour between men and women, inequalities in the labour market, discrimination against women and their systematic subordination, or underlying gender norms that contribute to social inequality). Research on ascriptive inequality on the basis of skin color, ethnic origin and faith is also of considerable importance, for example when it comes to employment discrimination, racism and exclusion.

2.4

Political inequality

As noted earlier, social inequality is substantially connected to inequality in terms of power: individuals and groups have unequal opportunities to achieve their goals in situations of scarcity and conflict. In the rest of this chapter, we will focus on questions that political scientists pose about 7 The idea that people should be judged only on their talents and performance, and that the allocation of individuals must take place only on the basis of their strictly individual qualities, is sometimes described as the meritocratic ideal.

Social and Political Inequalit y

41

social inequality, and we will discuss examples of research on political inequality and political participation. Political scientists have always been interested in how all sorts of social inequalities and unequal distributions of income, rights, resources, privileges, capacity, and possessions constitute an ‘inexhaustible breeding ground’ for conflict. Historically, the work of Karl Marx and of researchers working in the Marxist and neo-Marxist traditions has been of great importance. For a long time, this was the paradigm for investigating how social and economic conditions meant that groups that were worse off came into conflict with the groups that, by contrast, benefited from a certain social and political order. But many non-Marxists, too, define politics as essentially a battle over distribution issues, or as the American political scientist Harrold Lasswell wrote in 1936: ‘Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How’. For many political scientists, conflict, broadly defined, is at the heart of politics. If social inequality underlies many political divisions and political conflicts, it should come as no surprise that a lot of research in political science deals with this issue. It is important to examine how social inequalities and the unequal distribution of resources relate to political inequality. For, as we noted above, it is true that, in democratic political systems especially, all citizens should be able to participate as equals in the decision-making process. Democracy assumes the participation of citizens as equals. In 1863, in his Gettysburg Address, US president Abraham Lincoln spoke of democracy as ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’. More than 150 years later, during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, president Barack Obama emphasised that democracy requires citizens’ involvement: ‘Democracy isn’t a spectator sport.’ Political participation is not just about casting your vote at elections. It also encompasses a range of attitudes and behaviours, from political interest to political knowledge, from contacting politicians and lawmakers to participating in protests and rallies. That also includes running for elected office as a citizen. In empirical research on political behaviour, it is especially important to investigate whether social inequalities are linked to unequal levels of political participation, and the related questions of whether this leads to inequalities in political representation and unequal influence on decision-making and policy. In other words, we should look not only at normative principles such as political equality (‘one person, one vote’) and at the formal rules around political participation, but also at actual levels of participation by citizens. When some groups participate more often, the fact is that there is a big chance that only the voices of these groups are heard in the political arena.

42 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

In many established and stable democracies in Europe and the rest of the Western world, over the last 100 years the formal barriers that hampered the participation of certain social groups have been lifted. Up until then, the rights to vote and to stand as a candidate were reserved for male citizens with a certain amount of property and wealth. Women were also excluded for a long time. France granted women the right to vote only in 1944, while in Switzerland it would be as late as 1971 before women were granted the right to vote in federal elections (for elections at the regional level, the last canton, Appenzell Innerrhoden, came around only in 1990). In the United States, up until 1965 Black citizens in some Southern States had to take literacy tests to prove that they had enough knowledge before they were allowed to cast a vote. In the Netherlands, too, it is not all that long ago that all adult citizens were granted the rights to vote and be elected. The 1917 amendments to the constitution introduced a number of far-reaching reforms, including the introduction of universal male suffrage, a system of proportional representation, and compulsory voting. Up to 1917, the Dutch Constitution stated that only male residents who had ‘the social characteristics of fitness and success’ were allowed to vote. The electoral law of 1896 included a number of financial criteria that these male residents had to meet. This was known as census suffrage. Women were granted the right to vote in 1919, with the introduction of a new election law (see Elzinga et al. 2012). The minimum age for voting and standing as a candidate was originally 25 and 30 respectively, but both were later lowered to 18 (only in 1972 to vote, and in 1983 to stand for election). In the Netherlands, thanks in part to political mobilisation by the workers’ and women’s movements, many formal, legal obstacles to participation have been removed. That does not mean, however, that there are no other – informal or non-legal – barriers that impede political participation by certain groups. The unequal distribution of all kinds of resources such as income, education and access to media continues to shape the political views and behaviour of citizens, and also has a considerable effect on the extent to which they participate in politics. We will look at this further in the next part of this chapter. Unequal participation One way to realise the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ is by obliging everyone to cast a vote in elections. Suffrage for men was introduced in the Netherlands in 1917, along with compulsory voting for men. Partly as a result of this requirement, turnout at elections was extremely high. About 95% of eligible voters

Social and Political Inequalit y

43

voted in elections for the Lower House of Parliament, and the turnout for local elections was not much lower. This is striking, because violations of this requirement almost never led to prosecution. People voted because it simply was the law of the land. But the requirement was controversial from the get-go. Opponents found it condescending to voters. Compulsory voting was abolished in 1970. The election for the Lower House of Parliament in 1971 was the first in which it was legal not to vote (see also Chapter 7). The consequences of scrapping the requirement to vote were immediately clear. Turnout dropped from 95% in 1967 to 79% in 1971. But it did not fall equally among all groups of citizens. When the requirement to vote was still in force, differences in turnout, set against demographic factors such as education, social class, age and religion, were negligible. Everyone had to vote by law, and pretty much everyone did so. But as early as 1974, political scientist Galen Irwin observed a particularly large decline in the participation of less-educated voters of voters with little political interest. The abolishment of compulsory voting also led to decreased levels of political participation among young, non-religious, and lower income voters (Irwin 1974). This illustrates the fact that certain population groups are more likely to refrain from participating than others. By law there are certain opportunities for political participation, but that still does not mean that it will be evident for everyone to make use of them. Unequal participation was thus a reason for the famous Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart to argue for reintroducing compulsory voting (Lijphart 1997). One of the most important variables that affects political participation is education. Over the past few years, a lot of research has been done on this particular aspect of political inequality in the Netherlands. The participation gap between higher and lower educated citizens can be explained in at least two ways, if we think back to the discussion on social inequality earlier in this chapter. On the one hand, education produces more human capital, by which we mean primarily the cognitive skills needed to be active in the political domain. These include reading comprehension, expressing oneself verbally or in writing, and developing the capacity to engage in analytical reflection. Less-educated people themselves often indicate that they lack the necessary means to take part in political debate. On the other hand, training and education are not only coupled with the acquisition of knowledge and skills. The education someone receives enables people to join certain social circles where the same norms and values are cultivated. These social circles are quite resilliant, and in the case of the higher educated this often means that participation in politics is valued and encouraged at a much higher degree than in lower educated circles.

44 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

For this and other reasons, it is troubling that the education system in the Netherlands fails to prevent the education level and the social class of parents from having a continued effect on the academic performance of children (Schools Inspectorate, 2017). According to many sociologists, education plays an important role in the reproduction of all kinds of social and thus political inequalities: the children of well-educated parents enjoy numerous benefits throughout their school career, something they will also eventually pass on to their own children. After all, not every child can fall back on a social environment in which things such as tutoring or examination training, whether by the parents themselves or by hired tutors, are among the possibilities. The fact that at a relatively young age in the Netherlands children are selected into different educational tracks also makes it quite difficult later in life to move to a higher level of education. Descriptive representation We can organise different forms of political participation based on how often people make use of them. Voting in elections is a fairly common form of participation that takes relatively little effort. Still, although a majority of the less educated vote in elections for the Lower House of Parliament, the discussion on compulsory voting shows that, in this form of participation, too, there may already be considerable inequalities. Taking part in everyday conversations about politics is also among the more common forms of political engagement, as is participation in organisations within civil society, such as trade unions and sports clubs. Membership in interest groups, or participation in citizens’ initiatives, is less widespread. The most select form of political participation involves applying to and holding political office. Let us take a look at the backgrounds of elected representatives. Today, virtually all members of the Lower House can be designated as higher educated more than 90% of them hold a bachelor’s degree.8 We see similar percentages when we look at the educational level of cabinet ministers, members of the Upper House, and mayors (Bovens & Wille 2016). Nine out 8 Statistics Netherlands (CBS) uses a three-tier system to delineate educational attainment, whereby those in the highest tier have a bachelor’s degree: either at the higher vocational (hoger beroepsonderwijs [hbo]) or university level; those in the second tier hold a middle vocational degree of higher levels of secondary education (middelbaar beroepsonderwijs [mbo or hoger algemeen voortgezet onderwijs [havo]), or a pre-university education diploma (voorbereidend wetenschappelijk onderwijs [vwo]); and those in the third tier have completed lower vocational training (voorbereidend middelbaar beroepsonderwijs [vmbo]) or less.

Social and Political Inequalit y

45

of ten members of parliament have a higher education, while this is true of only about three out of ten Dutch citizens. For local representatives, the percentage lies between that of members of parliament and citizens: about six out of ten municipal councillors are highly educated. This makes a big difference for the political representation of voters according to their level of education, at the local and national levels. If we look at these percentages over a longer period of time, we can sum up the socio-economic background of representatives in a U-shaped chart. In the second half of the nineteenth century, when there was still no universal right to vote or stand for election, the percentage of those with a higher education in Parliament was almost as high as it is now. Democratisation, in the form of the extension of the rights to vote and to stand for election, subsequently meant that groups that had up to then been marginalised became more active politically. The average level of educational attainment among elected representatives was thus at its lowest between the two world wars. Since then, according to Bovens and Wille (2011), partly as a result of the ‘professionalisation of politics’, the percentage of those with a higher level of education in representative bodies rose steadily again to its current level. Voter and representatives are quite dissimilar in terms of other characteristics too. Women have been allowed to stand for election in the Netherlands since 1917, and on 3 July 1918 Suze Groeneweg became the first (and at the time, the only) female member of Parliament, having been elected on the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP) ticket. After the elections of 1922, the number of women increased to seven (of the then one hundred seats). While the proportion of female members of parliament has grown since then, gender parity has never been on the cards. In fact, since 1994 the proportion of female members of parliament has stagnated between 30% and 40%. And in the top echelons of politics, the situation is even more unequal. None of the three largest governing parties – the Labour Party (PvdA), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), and the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) – has ever had a female leader. In the meantime, seventy countries around the world have, or have had, a female leader, but up to now the Netherlands has not been among them.9 The political elite in the Netherlands remains predominantly male. Finally, let us turn to ethnicity. The percentage of members of parliament with a migration background is 12% – about equal to the percentage of 9 Monarchies and ceremonial heads of state are not included here. See www.pewresearch. org/fact-tank/2017/03/08/women-leaders-around-the-world/.

46 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

citizens belonging to that group. But two caveats are in order here. First, it took an awfully long time before there were any non-white members of parliament at all. The Indonesian Roestam Effendi was a member of parliament for the Communist Party of the Netherlands from 1933 to 1946. After that, it would take 40 years before John Lilipaly, who is of Moluccan origin, was elected on behalf of the Dutch Labour Party in 1986. In 1994 the first woman with a migration background was elected to the Lower House of Parliament: the Dutch-Surinamese Tara Singh Varma of GreenLeft. Since then, more and more Dutch people of Turkish or Moroccan origin have been elected to the Lower House. Second, it is important to note that the diversity within the groups of non-white parliamentarians has decreased drastically. Research by Liza Mügge shows that Dutch people with a Surinamese or Antillean background have all but disappeared from the Lower House, and that within the group of Dutch people with a migration background, those with Turkish or Moroccan background now dominate.

2.5

Inequality and political representation

An important question is whether and to what extent it is undesirable for higher educated white men to dominate politics. Unequal participation would not particularly problematic, if there were a broad consensus among all kinds of groups in society regarding political matters such as the tax system, European integration, sustainability, immigration and integration, and so on. In that case, it doesn’t matter whose preferences are heard, because those preferences would be almost identical between participants and non-participants. But this is by no means the case. A long and rich tradition in survey research has shown that the political preferences of citizens, can to a certain degree be traced back to their material and non-material interests. Social class and occupations matters for views on the redistribution of wealth. Educational attainment continues to shape cultural attitudes of citizens, and ensures that people have a variety of opinions on issues such as immigration and integration, with the higher educated holding multiculturalism to much higher regard than the lower educated. Attitudes towards European integration are also related to differences in educational attainment. Whether we look at voting behaviour in European elections or referenda, or at attitudes as they emerge from survey research, those with a higher level of education are much more positive about numerous aspects of European integration than those with an intermediate level of education or less. The religious

Social and Political Inequalit y

47

background of citizens is reflected in their views on ethical issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and euthanasia. On average, men and women differ in the degree to which they find certain topics important for political decision-making, such as maternity leave or childcare. In short, when certain social groups are more inclined to participate in politics and these groups also hold diverging ideological views, the possibility of unequal political representation of interests and preferences is always lurking. Not only are some groups able to make their voices heard more often and more loudly, but, as is often said, their voices are also radically different from those whose voices are more muted. Moreover, it is a mistake to assume that the connection between people’s social characteristics and their political positions and attitudes disappears when they become politicians or lawmakers. Male elected representatives often behave differently from their female counterparts. Elected representatives with a higher education have different values and opinions than do less-educated representatives. This is the main reason why citizens from underrepresented groups advocate making representative bodies such as the parliament a reflection of the electorate in all its diversity. The direct presence of members from within these underrepresented groups can lead to different political outcomes than if these groups remain absent (Mansbridge 1999; Phillips 1995; Young 1989). A decision-making body that consists only of men will take different decisions and adopt a different policy agenda than a body that consists solely of women. And the same goes for some of the other variables that have been discussed above. Following Bovens and Wille (2011), Armen Hakhverdian and Wouter Schakel (2017) focus on the political dominance of the higher educated in Dutch politics. They compare the political views of citizens and elected representatives (both at the national and local level) in order to get a clearer picture of the oft-mentioned ‘gap’ between politicians and voters. All these authors call upon parties to take greater care of the recruitment of lower and middle educated citizens when selecting candidates for elected office Take the topic of integration, for instance. Table 1 shows, on the basis of representative surveys conducted among citizens and members of parliament, that the views of voters and elected representatives are not always fully in sync. Citizens are much more likely than members of (the lower house of) parliament to feel that so-called ‘minorities’ have to ‘adjust’ to Dutch culture. On other important policy matters, too, both groups turn out to have different opinions. For example, citizens are more concerned about income inequality than are members of parliament, and they are more likely to feel that European integration has gone too far.

48 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian Table 1 Member of parliament and citizens on integration

Members of parliament Citizens

1 (‘preserve own culture’)

2

3

4

5

6

7 (‘adapt’)

3.6%

7.2%

13.5%

27.0%

24.3%

19.8%

4.5%

3.2%

3.6%

7.9%

16.5%

19.8%

21.2%

27.8%

100% (N=114) 100% (N=2790)

Note: The wording of the full question is as follows: ‘In the Netherlands, some people feel that immigrants should be able to live here while preserving their own culture. Others feel they must adapt fully to Dutch culture. Where would you place yourself on a line from 1 to 7, where 1 means immigrants can preserve their own culture, and 7 that they must adapt fully?’ Source: Hakhverdian & Schakel (2017), on the basis of the 2006 National Voter Survey and the 2006 National Parliamentary Survey

If we then divide up the electorate by level of education, we see just how distorted political representation can become. Figure 1 gives a visual rendition of the same percentages that were displayed in table 1. Figure 1a shows that less-educated citizens envisage a much stricter integration policy than members of parliament. At the same time, we see from Figure 1b that the preferences of members of parliament and those with a higher education are just about fully in sync. Hakhverdian and Schakel show that, in almost every policy area they looked at, the Lower House reflects the views of those with a higher level of education. Those with an intermediate level of education or less are getting left out in the cold, at least in this important regard. The unequal reflection in educational level that Bovens and Wille pointed to translates to an unequal reflection in terms of ideology. And education is not the only source of inequality – far from it. When it comes to views on the economy, Hakhverdian and Schakel show that the opinions of members of parliament reflect especially the views of citizens with a higher income. The same study shows, by the way, that the process of ideological representation works a good bit better at the local level. The economic preferences of municipal councillors are much more congruent with the preferences of citizens. And even though those with a higher education are also better represented by councillors, the inequalities are a lot smaller than at the national level. Hakhverdian and Schakel maintain that these results arise due to the presence of more local representatives that hold lower and intermediate levels of education.

49

Social and Political Inequalit y

Figuur1  3.1Members Kamerleden en hoogen laagopgeleiden Figure of parliament and those with high and lowover levelsintegratie of education Figuur 3.1

Kamerleden en hoog- en laagopgeleiden over integratie

on integration

(a) Lower educated

(a)Lower Lower educated (a) educated 50 50

Percentage Percentage

40 40

53,0% overlap 53,0% overlap

30 30 20 20 10 10

0 01 1 culture Preserve Preserve culture

2 2

3 3

4 4

Representatives Representatives

5 5

6 6

7 7 Adapt Adapt

6 6

7 7 Adapt Adapt

Citizens Citizens

(b) Higher educated

(b) educated (b)Higher Higher educated 50 50

Percentage Percentage

40 40

94,1% overlap 94,1% overlap

30 30 20 20 10 10

0 01 1 culture Preserve Preserve culture

2 2

3 3

4 4

Representatives Representatives

5 5

Citizens Citizens

Source: Hakhverdian & Schakel (2017)

Bron: Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek 2006, Nationaal Parlementsonderzoek 2006. Bron: Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek 2006, Nationaal Parlementsonderzoek 2006.

It is by no means straightforward to prove that the unequal representation of lowerniet and zo middle incomes and education groups is the result of disgroep dramatisch als bij het onderwerp integratie, de groep niet zo dramatisch als bij het onderwerp integratie, de parities in educational attainments between citizens and representatives. congruentie tussen burgers en Kamerleden neemt ook hier congruentie burgers en whether Kamerleden neemtmembers ook hier To test this, we tussen would have to check less-educated of

duidelij duidelijkk toe toe met met het het inkomen inkomen (fijiguur (fijiguur 3.2). 3.2). De De fijiguren fijiguren laten laten ook ook zien waar de verdeling van de lage inkomens uit de pas loopt zien waar de verdeling van de lage inkomens uit de pas loopt

55

50 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

parliament hold political views that are more congruent with the views of less-educated citizens than do members of parliament with a higher education. In practice this cannot be investigated, because pretty much all members of parliament are higher educated. The data on which table 1 and figure 1 are based are from 2006, when Remi Poppe of the Socialist Party was the only lower educated member of parliament. When there is insufficient variation within a variable, we cannot make meaningful statements about group differences. Fortunately, there is enough variation within the educational level of municipal councillors to map out whether educational level brings about a similar sifting out of political attitudes among both elected representatives and voters. Even though those with a higher level of education are also over-represented among councillors, about a third of councillors do not have a higher education. We can thus get a reliable picture of group differences between higher and lower educated representatives at the local level. Table 2 shows that, particularly when it comes to attitudes towards multiculturalism, European integration, and law and order, the educational differences between councillors come noticeably to the fore. It is therefore not surprising that citizens with a higher education bear closer resemblance, in terms of the political views they hold, with councillors who also have a higher education. The same holds for less-educated citizens and less-educated councillors. Education simply leaves a comparable mark on the ideology of representatives and the represented. The political science research agenda on unequal representation goes far beyond analyses of distortions in how governing bodies and parliaments reflect the views of citizens. As a crucial next step, the question must be asked whether different demographic or socio-economic groups in society have more or less influence on policy outcomes. Many American political scientists have explored this theme in terms of the unequal influence of income groups. The seeds for these studies were already sown in the 1950s and 1960s, with the fierce debates on pluralism versus elitism (see Chapter 1, section 4). More recently, two books in particular have revived the debate: Affluence and Influence by Martin Gilens, and Unequal Democracy by Larry Bartels. Gilens (2012) and Bartels (2008) show that a disproportionate amount of attention is paid in American politics to the preferences and interests of wealthy Americans. Such a stark conclusion needs to be backed by strong evidence. Gilens’s study is extremely impressive in this regard. He gathered nearly 2,000 survey questions from 1981 to 2002, and then broke down the answers that were given by income level. Because all survey questions were about concrete policy measures, Gilens was able to figure out whether the policy each question was about was actually implemented in the years that followed.

51

Social and Political Inequalit y

Table 2 Political views of Dutch local representatives by level of education Subject

Differences in income 1 (increase) to 7 (decrease) European integration 1 (even farther) to 7 (gone too far) Military missions 1 (no military lives on the line) to 7 (always send in troops) Asylum seekers 1 (let more in) to 7 (send them back) Crime 1 (government is too tough) to 7 (government needs to get tougher) Integration 1 (immigrants can preserve their own culture) to 7 (they must adapt to Dutch culture) Nuclear power stations 1 (build more) to 7 (do not build)

Level of education Low

Middle

High

4.8

4.9

4.8

4.7

4.0

3.5

4.7

4.3

4.3

4.6

4.1

3.8

5.6

5.4

4.9

4.8

4.6

4.2

5.0

4.9

4.9

Note: Entries are average scores by educational group. Source: Hakhverdian & Schakel (2017) based on the Survey of Councillors by Mathilde van Ditmars (2012)

This research is in many ways ground breaking, but it remains to be seen whether US results generalize to non-US settings. That is, the factors that can explain unequal influence in the political arena are highly dependent on the institutional structures of a given country. For the United States, income is an important political resource, because money plays a much greater role in American politics than it does in the politics of many European countries. Americans donate large sums of money to candidates and to political action committees (PACs), as they are called, which, although they are not officially affiliated with a candidate, still campaign for them and, not unimportantly, go after their opponents in various ways. Although donations to candidates are limited, the US Supreme Court has ruled that curbing PACs would go against the constitutional right to freedom of expression. As a resource, income can thus be converted directly into political influence on policy. This is much less so in the Netherlands. Dutch elections are run on a relatively low budget, and American style PACs just do not enter into the picture. In addition, recruitment for elected office takes place in a completely different way. The American system has primaries in which party members compete against each other, and

52 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian

this process, too, involves huge amounts of money. In the Netherlands, the responsibility for recruiting candidates lies with the political parties themselves, which use candidate committees to draw up provisional lists of candidates, who are then presented to the party conference for approval. It is not clear how wealthy citizens could shape this process directly and legally, such as is possible, and permitted, in the United States. Hakhverdian and Schakel’s research (2017) shows that the economic preferences of citizens with a higher income better fit those of members of parliament than those of citizens with a lower income, but it remains to be seen whether or not policy outcomes are therefore also more in line with the preferences of wealthier citizens.

2.6 Conclusion Social and political inequality characterises all societies and political systems. For political scientists, research on inequality has always been important. The democratic revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century took the postulate of moral equality as a starting point and bore the promise that the modern era would lead to a more equal distribution of life chances and democratic citizenship for all. It was also thought that both trends would reinforce each other: the less fortunate would acquire the political power, through democracy, to reform society, so that life chances would be more equally divided, and because all citizens had more-equal opportunities for income, education, status and recognition, they would also be able to take part in politics as equal. It is one thing to postulate equality, and quite another to realise it in practice. Although many formal barriers were removed, and although the prohibition on discrimination was enshrined in European law and in many a constitution, modern societies are still characterised by inequality in every way, shape and form. Despite this apparent continuity, it is quite important to keep researching the continuing tension between the promise of equality and the inequality that actually exists. Not every difference in life chances is socially or politically relevant in every period and every context. The question of how social inequalities are related to political inequalities and particularly to unequal political participation, is still really important, as is evident from the research done in the Netherlands and cited above on ‘diploma democracy’, and from the empirically result that groups with different levels of education hold different political views and also differ in their political

Social and Political Inequalit y

53

participation. At the same time, it is clear from a lot of sociological research that unequal chances in education mean that children from lower social classes generally end up with a lower exit qualification and a lower level of education. The strong correlation between level of education and political inequality underscores the need to tackle inequality in education for the sake of the quality of democracy. It is certain in any case that research and discussion on social and political inequality will continue to be of considerable importance in the coming years, both in public and academic debates.

References Anderson, E. (2010). The imperative of integration. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Bader, V.M. & Benschop, A. (1988). Ongelijkheden [Inequalities]. Groningen: Wolters Noordhoff. Bader, V.M. (1991). Collectief Handelen [Collective Action]. Groningen: Wolters Noordhoff. Bovens, M. & Wille, A. (2011). Diplomademocratie. Over de spanning tussen meritocratie en democratie [Diploma Democracy: On the Tension between Meritocracy and Democracy]. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Bovens, M. & Wille, A. (2016). ‘De meritocratisering van de politieke elite’ [Meritocratising the Political Elite]. In: Paul de Beer & Maisha van Pinxteren (eds), Meritocratie? Op weg naar een nieuwe klassensamenleving, 165-197 [Meritocracy? Moving towards a New Class Society]. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Dahl, R.A. (1998). On Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dahl, R.A. (2006). On Political Equality. New Haven: Yale University Press. Elzinga, D.J., Kummeling, H.R.B.M. & Schipper-Spanninga, J. (2012). Het Nederlandse kiesrecht [The Right to Vote in the Netherlands], Monograph on constitutional and administrative law. Deventer: Kluwer, 2012. Gilens, M. (2012). Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Hakhverdian, A. & Schakel, W. (2017). Nepparlement? Een pleidooi voor politiek hokjesdenken [Sham Parliament? The Case for Descriptive Representation]. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Irwin, G. (1974). ‘Compulsory Voting Legislation: Impact on Voter Turnout in the Netherlands’, Comparative Political Studies, 7 (3): 292-315. Lijphart, Arend (1997). ‘Unequal participation: Democracy’s unresolved dilemma. Presidential address, American Political Science Association, 1996’, American Political Science Review 91 (1): 1-14. Mansbridge, Jane (1999). ‘Should blacks represent blacks and women represent women? A contingent “yes”’, The Journal of Politics 61 (3): 628-657. Nussbaum, M.C. (2011). Creating capabilities. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Onderwijsinspectie [Inspectorate of Education] (2017). De staat van het onderwijs 2015/2016 [The State of Education in 2015 and 2016]. Onderwijsinspectie: Utrecht. Phillips, A. (1995). The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rousseau, J.J. (1983 [1755]). Vertoog over de ongelijkheid [Discourse on the Origin of Inequality] (translated by W. Uitterhoeve). Amsterdam: Boom. Sen, A. (2001). Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

54 Marcel Maussen and Armen Hakhverdian Tocqueville, A. de (2000 [1835, 1840]). Democracy in America [De la démocratie en Amérique]. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Young, I.M. (1989). ‘Polity and group difference: A critique of the ideal of universal citizenship.’ Ethics 99 (2): 250-274.

3

Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State Luuc Brans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

3.1 Introduction In his classic work, Nations and Nationalism, sociologist Ernest Gellner (1983: 6) wrote that we are so used to the idea of nations that we simply cannot imagine a world without them. Nations, nationalism and nation states have become a vital part of modern politics, and are invariably the subject of social and scholarly discussions. Just think of the election campaign of US president Donald Trump – America First – or of the slogans and names of right-wing populist parties, particularly in Western Europe, such as True Finns, the (French) National Front, Proud of the Netherlands, and Flemish Interest. In 2017, the Dutch and Turkish governments got into a spat during the campaign season about the loyalty and dual nationality of Dutch citizens of Turkish origin. In the wake of the European sovereign debt-crisis (2011-2014) and in the Brexit referendum (2016), lacking feeling of community of fate challenged solidarity within the European Union. So what is a nation anyway, and when did nations arise? What are the different traditions of nationalism we can distinguish? Is there such a thing as a nation state, and, if so, is it under pressure these days? Historians have been debating questions like these since the nineteenth century. Since World War II, the nation, and the nationalism linked to it, have also been an important object of study for the social sciences. With the end of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the attimes genocidal nationalism during the wars of secession in the former Yugoslavia, and the emergence of new political movements in Western Europe in response to migration and Europeanisation, the discussion has continued to be relevant and has remained the focus of attention. At the same time, the main concepts themselves – collective identity, nation, nationalism, and nation state – have been discussed since the nineteenth century. There is no unequivocal view on whether the nation is a society that can be defined objectively or is experienced above all subjectively by citizens. With the revival of populist movements, the social and scholarly debate is once again looking at whether nations are inherent and have long-term historical roots, or are, rather, naturally variable.

56 Luuc Br ans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

Such fundamental questions invariably arise in discussions on nations and nationalism.

3.2

Collective identity

In order to understand phenomena such as the nation and nationalism, we will start out from the concept of collective identity. Identity is key to understanding political behaviour: it is understood as a non-instrumental motivation for social and political action that often operates in opposition to self-interest. Identities consist of an individual part (which is unique to each person) and a social or collective part (which is shared with others). In this chapter, we will focus on the collective part. There is a broad consensus among researchers today that collective identities cannot be taken for granted and are not an objective factor – that they are the result of all kinds of interactions and active identification. Being a supporter of a football club, for example, is not in your blood or your genes. It is a conscious choice, and is inseparable from your environment. Social-identity theory is a really important theory of collective identities. Researchers who take this approach consider identity as the conviction that one belongs to a certain social group that is emotionally valuable and important to the individual (Tajfel 1981: 255). This includes cognitive, evaluative and emotional processes. The cognitive part refers to the process of self-classification: ‘[P]eople cognitively represent a category or group as a prototype--a fuzzy set of attributes (perceptions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviours) that are related to one another in a meaningful way …’ (Hogg 2006: 118). By counting (that is, categorising) oneself as part of a group, individuals become increasingly convinced that they themselves have, and exude, the (proto)typical characteristics of the group. Once individuals see themselves as group members with the specific characteristics that go along with that, the emotional charge they get from group ties also increases, for example through feelings of adhesion, fraternity or pride. We can differentiate a collective identity on the basis of a series of characteristics. Thus, collective identity is often based on putative standards, values and ideas based on the confident assumption that these are shared within the group and distinguish it from other groups. Collective identities can take many forms. Individuals often consider themselves members of multiple groups. You can characterise yourself, for example, as a student at a university or school of applied sciences, as a woman, and as British. Sometimes such combined identities produce

Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State

57

mutual tensions or are even in conflict with one another. Such conflicts arise especially when different identities intersect. For instance, is it possible to be a woman, Western (British, French, or German) and Muslim? Which of these identities (that is, which group membership) determines one’s behaviour depends on what importance is attached to each identity (by the individual and by society), but also on the specific context around one’s behaviour. For a long time, the Netherlands and Austria were societies compartmentalised into different ideological groups: Catholics, socialists, liberals, and – in the Netherlands – Protestants (of various denominations) each had their own dominant collective identity. In the United States, the distinction between Americans of Irish origin and those of Italian origin was really important for decades. But those identities petered out over time. In Western Europe, the importance of these collective identities decreased starting in the 1960s with the ongoing depillarization and the socio-economic emancipation of the working class. In the United States, the distinction between Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans lost part of its relevance – but that was far less true of racialised antagonisms. The importance and content of collective identities can thus change. Although these days social identities are understood especially as social constructs that are fluid and subject to change, this absolutely does not mean that they are superficial or easy to change in the short term. In fact, the reason collective identities are so interesting for political scientists is that they help explain all kinds of political behaviour, such as how people vote in elections for a party they identify with. Parties try to take advantage of this by appealing to these collective identities in campaigns, for example. Collective identities can be exploited to feed political conflicts. Many researchers believe that collective identities almost by definition create a social other, an outsider, from whom they can distinguish themselves. The result is that such ‘outgroups’ are maligned or even treated as enemies. For example, when we think of national identities, the outgroup comprises ‘rival’ or even ‘threatening’ nations, or members of one’s own nation that seem to undermine its core values. But not all researchers share the view that identification with a group of your own necessarily leads to a negative image of the outgroup. That would depend on the standards and values within the collective identity of one’s own group. A typical example is national identity in some countries, where the emphasis is on cosmopolitan values and tolerance. Whoever has such a national identity will be less inclined to be hostile towards other nations. We will return to this below. Collective identities can also be paradoxical when they produce tensions, because some norms and values within the group are not shared as evidently

58 Luuc Br ans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

as is thought. Consider, for instance, progressive values such as those around homosexuality and democracy. Such values are regarded by some politicians as epitomising core Western European or enlightened values, although they are not shared by many diverse groups in society: young and old, natives and foreign-born, on both the left and the right. In fact, in various Western European countries, there are parties that set themselves up as guardians of the ‘original’ values and culture of a society (nativist parties) and that strategically proclaim themselves to be protectors of such progressive values against encroachments by migrants, even though the rank and file of those parties themselves do not broadly endorse these values. Collective identities are also a solid basis for political cohesion, collective action and solidarity. They are, as it were, the ties that bind, socially and politically. By identifying with a group, individuals feel solidarity with a broader group and are therefore more willing to make individual contributions if the group benefits from these. For instance, solidarity seems stronger within welfare states (such as the solidarity that residents of Paris feel with those in the Provence, or that residents of New York feel with Louisianians in the United States) than between them (such as the lack of solidarity in North-Western Europe with Greece during the euro crisis). Finally, collective identities are important for political scientists because they can serve as a source of political legitimacy. This topic is high on the agenda in the ongoing project of European integration. Thus, academics raise the question: to what extent is there a growing European collective identity? This is a relevant question, because the absence of a European identity is often regarded as a stumbling block when it comes to further European integration. For these reasons, collective identity is an important concept in political science – but one that is also criticised. Brubaker and Cooper (2000) are probably the most vocal critics. They hold that the concept is not useful for the study of society and politics. They reproach researchers for implicitly assuming that collectives with a shared identity have an objective existence, and thus confirm stereotypes in particular. On the other hand, Brubaker and Cooper also criticise those researchers who adhere to a more constructivist understanding of identity. According to this way of thinking, identities are a social construction, and thus less homogeneous and more fluid. Brubaker and Cooper hold that identities under this approach are too vague and elusive to be useful for any research at all within political science. They propose dispensing with the concept of identity and putting more emphasis on self-identification.

Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State

3.3

59

The nation

An important collective identity is formed around the nation. The nation has long since been an extremely ambiguous and contested concept that often leads to confusion. There are a number of reasons for this. In everyday language, ‘the nation’ is often used interchangeably with ‘the state’. This terminological confusion shows up in many quarters. Consider, for instance, the term ‘international’, which is used mainly to describe relationships and processes among states – or think of the United Nations, to which only internationally recognised states can belong. ‘Nation’, a term that describes a social unit, is in these cases used interchangeably with ‘state’, a term for a political-administrative unit. The essence of the nation is strongly linked with collective identity. An important discussion in academic debate revolves around whether nations inherently exist and are unchanging (primordialism), or are variable social constructions that have meaning because we think they exist and accord them an important social meaning (constructivism). Thinking about nations according to these approaches cannot really be separated from the debate on the historical origins of nations. We will expound on each of these approaches in turn. Primordialism Already in the early nineteenth century, in what we now describe in culturalhistorical terms as the Romantic period, the idea arose that the nation was a naturally existing community characterised by a shared history, origin and future. Because of the emphasis on the inherent and immutable character of the nation, this idea is called primordialism. This primordial approach was epitomised by the German poet-philosopher Herder. He assumed that humanity has traditionally been divided into different peoples, each with its own specific language and its corresponding way of thinking. Primordialism stresses the idea that the nation is not only a cultural community with its own traditions and customs, but also an ethnic community that is connected by a shared origin. Just as at birth one is immediately part of a family, people are also naturally born into a nation. The most extreme form of the primordialist approach therefore equates the nation with a community bound by blood ties. This radical-primordialist approach, which emphasises the supposed ‘racial’ properties of nations, lost its following in academia largely after World War II.

60 Luuc Br ans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

Primordialism holds that nations have existed in this way for centuries and that they do not change substantially in character through the ages. The essence of the nation – its traditions, customs and cultural traits – have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries. Historical circumstances such as the rise of modernity, industrialisation and urbanisation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would not have had substantial influence on the essence of the nation (Smith 1995). For example, you could draw a line straight from the Dutch nation in the Golden Age (17th century) to the Dutch nation in 2017 and assume that both have the same essential characteristics. In short, in the primordialist approach nations are natural, inherent and unchanging. Constructivism Primordialism has few followers among political scientists and sociologists these days. The dominant approach among social scientists holds that the nation is not inherent or natural but a social construction (Gellner 1983). It is not a naturally occurring community, but a political product of social developments during the rise of modernity, just like the modern state, for instance. In that context Benedict Anderson (1983) referred to the nation as an ‘imagined community’. This seems a striking notion in a world in which the existence of nations seems self-evident. But the very fact that the nation seems so obvious shows, according to Gellner, the success of the modern political ideology of nationalism, which points to the nation as the natural holder of political power. Gellner argues: Nations, as a natural, God-given way of classifying men [sic], are a myth … Nationalism, which … takes pre-existing cultures and turns them into nations … invents them … Nations are not inscribed into the nature of things, they do not constitute a political version of the doctrine of natural kinds. (Gellner 1983: 47)

The nation exists, not naturally, such as family relationships, but only by virtue of the meaning we give to the idea of it. This view implies that nations are also not as immutable as the primordialist approach assumes. What is socially constructed can also be socially constructed in a different way. This does not mean that the nation is trivial or any less ‘real’. The idea that the nation is a social construct can best be seen in the light of the Thomas theorem. This guiding principle in sociology reads: ‘If men define

Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State

61

situations as real, they are real in their consequences’ (Thomas & Thomas 1928). Since most people regard the nation as self-evident, it also has real consequences. For example, we can think of major events such as the two world wars, which were fought mainly in the name of the nation, but also of all kinds of everyday events such as cheering for one’s national football team or the generally accepted idea of national self-determination. An ethnic versus a civic concept of the nation The distinction between an ethnic and a civic concept of the nation can be traced back to the work of the academic Hans Kohn (1944), who talked about Eastern and Western forms of nationalism. Western nationalism, according to Kohn, is a continuation of the enlightened ideals of the French Revolution: freedom, equality and especially fraternity. It is democratic, progressive and liberal in character. Writing during World War II, Kohn saw nationalism from Central and Eastern Europe, by contrast, as retarded, irrational and authoritarian. The distinction between the ethnic and civic concepts of the concept of the nation is still a popular point of departure. The ethnic concept is similar to the early primordialist approach. In this tradition, the nation is a community linked by ethnicity, culture, customs, traditions and possibly even blood ties. It is not that you choose to become a member of the ethnic nation – rather, you are born into it: on this view, membership in the nation is accorded to you only if you can prove that you are part of the ethno-cultural community. This fits well with the primordialist vision that we discussed above, and that regards the nation as indivisible and inherent. The civic idea of the nation stands in contrast to the concept of the ethnic nation. This idea emphasises the voluntary and political nature of the nation. The nation is connected not by ethnicity, language, religion or culture, but by common social and political ideals. Anyone who supports the social and political ideals of the nation could in principle be part of the national community. The nation is, under this approach, especially a community of the will. As early as 1882, the French thinker Ernest Renan argued in his famous lecture ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?’ (‘What is a Nation?’) that the nation should be understood as a daily plebiscite. The most tangible distinction between these two nationalist traditions was reflected for a long time in the different notions of citizenship to be found in the legislation on nationality in Germany on the one hand and France on the other (see Brubaker 1992). National citizenship is an important way to demarcate membership in the nation.

62 Luuc Br ans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

Germany based its policy on the idea of ius sanguinis, literally ‘the law of blood’. For a long time, only natives and immigrants with German parents obtained German citizenship, and thereby were made members of the German nation. Thus, the children of Turkish immigrants did not get a German passport, even if they were born on German soil and grew up and spent their whole lives in Germany, without ever setting foot in Turkey. By contrast, Eastern Europeans and Russians with German grandparents obtained German citizenship relatively easily, even if they did not speak a word of German. Finally, for quite some time it was impossible for a lot of groups in Germany to hold dual citizenship. All of this reflects the idea of the nation as an ethnic community of which you can be a member only by sharing its ethnic origin. France, by contrast, granted citizenship based on the idea of ius soli, or ‘the law of the soil’. This means that one would obtain a French passport if you were born in the territory of the French State, even if your parents were not French. France also has less restrictive laws on dual citizenship. For a long time, naturalisation was also a lot easier in France than in Germany. The sharing of French political ideals was an important condition for naturalisation, while French ethnicity played no major role. This reflects the idea that the nation is a political community that is divisible and open to non-ethnic-French outsiders. This distinction between the ethnic and civic concepts of the nation is used not only to describe various traditions and movements, but also to express a normative moral opinion about them. Ethnic nationalism is often conceived as malignant. It is thus mentioned in the same breath as the wars and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. Civic nationalism usually has more positive connotations, with reference being made to democratic nationalist movements. One example is the Scottish National Party (SNP), which explicitly labels itself ‘civic nationalist’ and which seeks, through peaceful means, to have Scotland break away from the United Kingdom. Although the distinction between the ethnic and civic concepts of the nation feels intuitive, and although it has been influential for quite some time now in the study of nationalism, it is coming up against more and more criticism. There are a number of reasons for this. On the one hand, we can say that the idea of the civic nation as a community of wills cannot be sustained in practice. Someone who was born a Frenchman has never actively chosen the French nation: they are simply born French. Membership in a nation is thus ultimately not the result of a free choice, but a matter of birth. On the other hand, the two concepts of the nation are often mixed in practice, as Anthony Smith (1991) also shows. France and the United States, often referred to as typical civic nations, not only ask, when it comes

Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State

63

to naturalisation, for fidelity to their political ideals, but also require an extensive knowledge of language, culture and national customs. Moreover, the concept of the nation is itself subject to change. That suggests that nations are actually social constructions. We see such changes in the shifting legislation on citizenship in Germany and France, for instance. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the German legislation on naturalisation reflects more fully the civic concept of the nation than it did before. It has become easier for immigrants of non-German ethnicity to get citizenship, but more difficult for Russians with German grandparents, for instance. German legislation on nationality is thus changing gradually from a strict ius sanguinis model towards a more open ius soli model. It is the other way around with French legislation: children of migrants no longer obtain citizenship at birth. And there are increasing calls to limit the possibilities of dual citizenship. We see, then, that France is, in a sense, moving towards the ethnic concept of the nation. The ethnic and civic concepts of the nation can be better understood as two ideal types. On the one hand, nations can become more open by making it easier to get citizenship, by in turn putting less emphasis on ethnic or cultural ties and more on subscribing to constitutional values. On the other hand, nations can close themselves off by putting greater emphasis on historical blood ties or by giving a central role to traditions that newcomers might find offensive. In the end, nation-building is an ongoing process in which individuals compete to interpret the concept of the nation. These discussions are often experienced as existential because they go to questions such as, ‘Who is Danish, who is German, or American, or Turkish? Who belongs and who does not? Who are we?’ This sort of discussion can be quite fierce. When then-president Hollande of France suggested limiting the possibility of dual citizenship, he was reproached by the left for ‘betraying the Republic’, and his Minister of Justice resigned in protest. And the liberalisation of the German legislation on nationality took decades because of the scale of the discussions in the political and social spheres. All these discussions are part of the constant process of nation-building that leads to permanently changing views of the nation in politics and society.

3.4 Nationalism Nationalism is strongly related to the nation. There is even more discussion about the meaning of nationalism than there is about that of the nation – if

64 Luuc Br ans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

that is possible. For example, in more psychological approaches, nationalism is above all a state of individual citizens. In that case it is distinct from chauvinism and patriotism, for example. But even then it is not clear what exactly the differences are between chauvinism, patriotism and nationalism. For some people, the differences are typological (referring, for instance, to an identity derived from a civic or ethnic concept of the nation), while for others the differences are rather a matter of degree (extreme or, on the contrary, moderate). In political science, the term nationalism is often used to refer to social movements. Nationalism in this connection is sometimes described as the effort of a group to achieve national selfdetermination. That can happen, for instance, in separatist movements that want to create a state of their own, in nativist movements that turn against immigration and immigrants, or in Eurosceptic movements that do not want to transfer the sovereignty of the nation state to a supranational organisation. Nationalism is often presented as an emphatically modern phenomenon: the rise of nationalism went hand in hand with the development of the modern state. Today, theories of nationalism take somewhat less far-reaching views. They pay more attention to the diversity of nationalist ideologies, and to different manifestations of these. Since the 1990s, some political theorists have suggested that a more liberal version of nationalism is a necessary basis for a democratic society, social justice and/or individual autonomy. At the same time, other thinkers have defended a more post-national and cosmopolitan concept of political community. Since World War II, the term nationalism has had a negative connotation in public debate. Especially in Germany, expressions of national pride were taboo for a long time. The country surprised itself in 2006 with an optimism about the national football team during the World Cup, which was accompanied by the unprecedentedly widespread display of flags and national symbols. Given the origin of nationalism in the nineteenth century, the negative interpretation is striking. For a long time, the term nationalism had a significantly more positive connotation as an emancipatory movement against absolute monarchy. Because of these contradictions, it is difficult to come to a neutral description of nationalism. Influential authors such as Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson and Anthony Smith each put their own emphasis on what they see as the key characteristics. One of the most neutral descriptions comes from Greenfield and Eastwood (2005: 251). The describe nationalism as ‘a perspective or style of thought, an image of the world, at the core of which lies the idea of the ‘nation’, which, in turn, we

Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State

65

understand to be the definition of a community as fundamentally equal and sovereign’. In their definition, popular sovereignty is at the core of nationalism: ‘Because of the principles of popular sovereignty and equality, membership in the nation bestows dignity on the individual.’ This definition is open to both a primordialist and a constructivist concept of the nation: it highlights the essence of a nation, but does not specify whether that source can be found in objective sources (as primordialists believe) or merely a social construction (as constructivists hold).

3.5

Nation and nation-building

The historical roots of the nation The aforementioned distinction between primordialists and constructivists is also reflected in the evolution of the theory about the historical development of nations. Modernists, as they are called, assume that nations are purely the product of modernity and that they have no pre-modern roots. The most famous modernist, British-Czech sociologist and philosopher Ernest Gellner, calls the nation the product of the modern ideology of nationalism, which latter arose in modernity. He argues that urbanisation and changing social relationships (as a result of social mobility) enabled the development of nationalism and thus nations in the nineteenth century (Gellner 1983). Other modernists look elsewhere for the origin of nations. Benedict Anderson (1983) states in his book Imagined Communities, for instance, that the rise of commercial printing meant that national languages became more important than Latin, the language of the elites. Because larger groups of people were now reading in the same common language, national consciousness grew. Some social scientists do not subscribe to the view of nations as an exclusively modern social construct. Nations, they argue, do indeed have thoroughly pre-modern historical roots. The most important representative of this so-called ethnosymbolist approach is Anthony Smith (1991; 1995). In his view, before modernity there were certain ethnocultural communities, also called ethnies, which, with the advent of modernity, turned into nations. Nations carry on certain traditions as well as cultural and symbolic aspects of these pre-modern ethnies. Smith stresses the historical, ethnocultural origin of nations, and thus establishes a link with the primordialist tradition.

66 Luuc Br ans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

State-building and nation-building Nation-building can hardly be understood in isolation from state-building. Charles Tilly (1996) argues that statebuilding has generally gone hand in hand with the creation of the concept of the nation. As Tilly sees it, it followed two patterns: a top-down, state-led nationalism and a bottom-up nationalism in search of for a state. On the one hand, there were countries where top-down nationalism was carried out: the nation was, as it were, created by a central political elite. This happened, for instance, in France, in the Netherlands, and – at the end of the nineteenth century – in Germany. Nationalism thus served the process of nation-building by imposing unequivocal ‘doctrines and practices’ so that the ‘collective interest, as interpreted by the rulers of the state, is accorded priority’ (Tilly 1996). The modern state could thus make use of new institutions such as a bureaucracy, conscription and compulsory education. On the other hand, we can distinguish countries where the concept of the nation grew from the bottom up, such as happened in multinational states such as Austria-Hungary, tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire. There, too, Tilly argues, political elites created the basis for nation-building. In this case, it was mainly regional political and cultural elites (the intelligentsia) who felt threatened by the power of the central government. The concept of the nation was thus rather revolutionary and exclusive, with the aim of ‘securing support in the name of nations that are oppressed and threatened’. The Greek struggle for independence against the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century was understood as a shining example of revolutionary nationalism by contemporary regional elites elsewhere . The form that this nationalism took – ethnic or civic – can be seen in the historical context of nation-building. German political unification took place relatively late, compared with British and French nation-building. Without the political home of a unitary state, the German nation was ‘homeless’ until well into the nineteenth century. As a result, German nationalism sought the connection especially through an emphasis on language, culture and common origins. In Eastern Europe and the Balkans, nation-building took place within multinational states such as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. There, too, it thus took on an ethnic rather than a civic form of nationalism. Symbols Regardless of whether the nation originally formed a state or was in search of a state, we see that, from the nineteenth century on, modern states have bet

Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State

67

heavily on the strengthening of the concept of the nation. This happens not least through the cultivation of national symbols such as flags (such as the stars and stripes, or the bleu-blanc-rouge), folk songs (the national anthem), monuments and origin myths. We see symbols of the nation in allegorical figures such as Uncle Sam in the United States, the French freedom fighter Marianne, and the Dutch and Flemish lion. National symbols and historical figures are also to be found in street names and on coins and stamps. Origin myths could be spread through education, especially after general compulsory education was introduced. Schoolbooks thus laid emphasis on the long history of the Netherlands, from the Batavians during Roman times, up to the eighty years’ war and the Golden Age, for instance. Another means used in the nineteenth century was the introduction of national holidays. In the Netherlands, King’s Day can be traced back to Princess’s Day, (later known as Queen’s Day), which was first celebrated in 1885. Since the nineteenth century, Sweden has been celebrating a day to commemorate the first king of an independent Sweden in 1523. In 1880 France proclaimed le Quatorze Juillet (14 July) as a national holiday to commemorate the storming of the Bastille in 1789. Independence Day in the United States was made an official Federal holiday in 1870, although it was already being celebrated before that. The celebration of such holidays is often based around origin myths, national heroes, flags and other symbols.

3.6

The nation state

From the intertwining of state-building with the development of the nation, it is a small step to the last major topic in this chapter: the nation state. The nation state is described as a state (that is, the highest sovereign in a delimited territory with monopolies on violence and taxation) whose boundaries coincide with those of the nation (hereinafter: a population with a collective identity based on a shared history, culture, language and/or origin myth). The nation state as an ideal type In this description, the nation state is above all an ideal type. Only a few countries represent the ideal type of the nation state in reality, even if we – for the sake of the argument – ignore international migration. Many states have long been home to multiple groups with their own national aspirations or even secessionist movements. Usually these are cultural or ethnic minority groups. There are Basques and Catalans in Spain, Corsicans in France,

68 Luuc Br ans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

and Frisians in the Netherlands. In Eastern Europe a lot of states contain large ethnic minority groups who come from neighbouring countries, such as the large numbers of Russians in former Soviet republics such as Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine, and the large numbers of Hungarians in Romania (the Székely Land). Some states have been set up explicitly as multinational states. These are states that, within the borders of a single administration harbour various nations. Consider, for instance, Belgium (Walloons and Flemings), Bosnia (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs), Canada (speakers of English and French), and the United Kingdom (Northern Irish people, Scots, the English, and the Welsh). Up until 1919, Austria-Hungary was a typical example of a multinational state, which included present-day Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and parts of Italy, Poland, and Romania. Many of these multinational states nowadays try to find a balance between regional autonomy and national unity. As a result they are often federal states or at least states that grant some autonomy to their regions. Finally, there are stateless nations. In part, this concerns nations that do indeed dwell in a homogeneous territory but whose territory straddles multiple states. These nations strive to one degree or another for their own sovereignty, but do not have it. Examples include the Kurds in the Middle East, the Laps on the Scandinavian peninsula, and the Basques in Southwestern Europe. There are also nations that no longer inhabit a delimited territory. The term diaspora is sometimes used for nations with a scattered population. Nations with a large diaspora include the Jews and the Armenians. Both nations have their origin in a homogeneous territory, but have spread out into various other places. Both the Jews (since 1948) and the Armenians (since 1990) have their own state, but most people in both groups live beyond those borders – in some cases, far beyond them. This patchwork makes it difficult to apply the ideal type of the nation state to specific cases. The nation state is not an empirical reality but an ideal point that states can measure up to, to a greater or lesser extent. Three countries come closest to the ideal of the nation state: in ethnic and cultural terms, Iceland, Japan and Portugal are very homogeneous nations whose boundaries coincide with those of the state. Iceland and Japan were able to preserve their homogeneity because they are island nations. For Portugal, this was less obvious, but the borders with Spain have been remarkably stable for many centuries. International migration flows complicate the creation of the nation state as an ideal type. For a long time, Europe was above all a continent from

Nations, Nationalism and the Nation State

69

which inhabitants emigrated to destinations such as the United States, Canada and Australia. Since the 1950s, Western Europe itself has increasingly been the destination for international migration, attracting both labour migrants and refugees from North Africa, the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia and former colonies. The end of the nation state? In recent years there have been growing discussions about the supposed end of the nation state. As there often are, here too there have been proponents and opponents of this supposed development. Proponents see the end (or erosion) of the nation state as a logical result of increasing inter- and supranational cooperation. Opponents see the end of the nation state primarily as a threat to the nation. Intermingled throughout these discussions of the end of the nation state are the same two meanings of ‘nation’ that we pointed up earlier in this chapter: the nation as synonymous with the state, and with a social community. Many of the arguments about the end of the nation state have to do mostly with state sovereignty: Globalisation, increasing international trade, and supranational projects such as the European Union, have an impact on the power of present-day independent states. For some, the solution to waning state sovereignty lies in extensive international cooperation, while for others it lies, by contrast, in strengthening the (nation) state. When we shift focus from state sovereignty to the social understanding of the nation, the developments towards an end of the nation state are more ambiguous. In many countries in Western and Central Europe, we see on the one hand an increase in the proportion of residents with migration background. Both in countries with a more ethnically based concept of the nation, and in those with a more culturally based one, this has led to new tensions. In the Netherlands, for instance, we see this in fierce discussions about the history of slavery or the blackfaced figure of Black Pete during the Sinterklaas celebrations. On the other hand, in the last few decades nationalism in the form of patriotism has lost its taboo status. It expresses itself, for instance, in the context of sporting events, in music and in TV programmes. In many European countries with a long democratic tradition, right-wing populist political parties appeal to nationalist sentiments with some electoral success. Think of the Danish people’s Party, the True Finns, the Sweden Democrats, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), the French

70 Luuc Br ans, Theresa Kuhn and Tom van der Meer

Front National, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and Donald Trump’s call for ‘America First’. In short, nationalism is not a phenomenon of the past: even at a time of continued globalisation, it continues to be a vibrant political force.

References Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso. Brubaker, R. (1992). Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Brubaker, R. & Cooper, F. (2000). ‘Beyond ‘Identity’’, Theory and Society, 29: 1-47. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Greenfield, L. & Eastwood, J. (2005). ‘Nationalism in Comparative Perspective’. In: T. Janoski, R.R. Alford & A.M. Hicks (eds), The Handbook of Political Sociology, 247-265. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobsbawm, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hogg, M. (2006). ‘Social Identity Theory’. In: Burke, P. (ed.), Contemporary Social Psychological Theories. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kohn, H. (1944). The Ideal or Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background. New York: Collier Books. Renan, E. (1996 [1882]) ‘What is a Nation?’ (‘Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?’) In: G. Eley & R. Grigor Suny (eds), Becoming National: A Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, A.D. (1991). National Identity. Reno: University of Nevada Press. Smith, A.D. (1995). Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era. Malden (MA): Blackwell Publishers. Tajfel, H. (1981). Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, William I. & Thomas, D. (1928). The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs. New York: Knopf. Tilly, C. (1996). ‘The State of Nationalism’, Critical Review, 10: 299-306.

4

The Welfare State under Pressure Franca van Hooren

4.1 Introduction Each child in the Netherlands receives good care from birth on, and can go to a school that is accessible to everyone. When adults lose their jobs or become unable to work, they can rely on a minimum income provision, and after retirement they get an old-age pension. The welfare state provides for individual well-being and opportunities for personal development, and thereby also for social well-being. In countries with a well-developed welfare state, there is less poverty, lower infant mortality and less crime (Wilkinson & Pickett 2009). These provisions come with a price tag. In developed welfare states, about half the government’s budget is spent on social provisions. Because of the high costs and the major societal impact, the welfare state is continuously the subject of political discussions. Should the retirement age go up? Is it fair to require out of pocket payments in healthcare insurance? Should the government subsidise household help for the elderly? Should fathers have the right to take parental leave? Should a refugee be entitled to social assistance benefits? These are some of the topics that have been on the political agenda in the Netherlands and in other countries in recent years and that sometimes stir up emotional debates in society. This chapter discusses the historical development of, and current issues around, the welfare state from a political science perspective. First, it offers a description of what the welfare state does. This is followed by an overview of different development trajectories that welfare states took in Europe and North America. It then turns to the reforms and restrictions that started in the 1980s. And finally, it delves into current issues and their political implications.

4.2

What does the welfare state do?

In a welfare state, the government plays an important role in promoting the well-being of its citizens. The objectives of a welfare state can be summarised in two general points: 1 The guarantee of an income, even in cases of illness, unemployment, occupational disability or old age;

72 

Fr anca van Hooren

2 The provision of services, such as housing, education and healthcare, that everyone needs to be able to develop and to function in society (Van der Veen 1994). These objectives are pursued in different ways. An income is guaranteed by social insurance or by minimum-income provisions. Social-insurance schemes are a collective form of insurance against the loss of income, for example because of dismissal or the inability to work. An example is the Unemployment Insurance Act in the Netherlands. The amount of the entitlement in a social insurance scheme typically depends on how much the recipient used to earn and how long they worked for. Minimumincome benefits such as social assistance, on the other hand, function as the safety net of last resort for those who are otherwise unable to earn an income. In such a case, a benefit does not depend on wages that were earned before, but rather on the lack of other sources of income. Schemes that provide for self-development and functioning in society are sometimes funded directly by the government and are accessible to all citizens, such as public education in the Netherlands or the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. But such schemes can also be developed on the private market with the help of public subsidies, such as children’s day care centres in the Netherlands, or be focused on specific target groups, such as Medicaid and Medicare in the United States. There are significant differences between countries in terms of how, and the extent to which, they pursue the aforementioned objectives. There are also large differences among the various policy choices in terms of the social and individual impact they have. Later in this chapter we will discuss at some length these differences and the historical background to them. In general, there is a clear link between spending on social-security benefits and social inequality in a country: more social spending goes hand in hand with less income inequality (see figure 1). Spending on the welfare state is, in general, highest in Continental and Northern European countries. These are also the countries with the lowest levels of inequality. Anglo-Saxon countries spend less on social-security benefits, and the levels of inequality are higher there. Figure 1 gives a good impression of the big differences among welfare states and the relationship of social spending to inequality. However, two side comments are in order here. First, since ‘generosity’ of the welfare state is measured as social spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), developments in the economy have a direct effect on this indicator. When a country’s economy shrinks but social expenditures remain the

73

The Welfare State under Pressure

Figure 1 Social spending and inequality in 2013

Extent of inequality (Gini coefficient)

0.40

United States

0.38

United Kingdom

0.36 New Zealand

0.34

0.32 Australia 0.30

Spain

Ireland Switzerland

0.28

Italy

Portugal Germany Austria

The Netherlands

0.26 0.24

Norway

France Sweden

Belgium Finland

Denmark

0.22 0.20

30

30

40

45

50

Social spending as a percentage of GDP Source: stats.oecd.org Social expenditures are the sum of public and mandatory private expenditures on social security, healthcare and education. Income inequality is measured as a Gini coefficient: the higher the coefficient, the greater the inequality.

same, social expenditures automatically grow as a percentage of GDP. On top of that, it is precisely in times of economic adversity that social expenditures increase, even though this increase is not caused by a more generous policy: when unemployment increases, so does the number of people who depend on unemployment benefits, so social spending goes up. In better economic times, by contrast, social spending drops, although that does not mean that the welfare state has become less generous. In interpreting the data in figure 1, then, we must keep in mind that the figures fluctuate with ups and downs in economic development. Second, the figure shows only one specific form of inequality – income inequality – whereas many other dimensions of inequality are important to our understanding of how the welfare state affects society. Later in this chapter we will discuss, among other things, how different welfare states help increase or lessen gender inequality. The connection between the generosity of the welfare state and political inequality is also important. In a country such as Sweden, which is a generous welfare state, there is a much smaller difference in political participation between high- and low-income groups than in the United Kingdom. In both countries, those with higher incomes go to the polls more often, but in the United Kingdom

74 

Fr anca van Hooren

the gap between them and those with the lowest incomes is far greater than in Sweden (Van Kersbergen & Jensen 2017). The next section discusses the historical origins of the welfare state, and looks at the large international differences in how, and in the extent to which, welfare states offer their citizens various forms of social protection and services.

4.3

The emergence of the welfare state

The modern welfare state in Europe came into being starting at the end of the nineteenth century (Flora & Alber 1981). The nineteenth century was a time of profound economic, social and political changes, including industrialisation, strong population growth, and urbanisation (Polanyi 1957). Up to that time, the need for social protection was met by family members or by charities – usually affiliated with the church – or by local authorities through poor laws. The significant changes that took place in the nineteenth century made these kinds of arrangement less effective. This led to impoverishment among substantial sections of the population (referred to as the ‘sociale kwestie’ in Dutch and the ‘question sociale’ in French). The dislocation of society wrought by the industrial revolution was a major cause of the emergence of the modern welfare state. In addition, several factors played a role in how and when exactly the first social-security provisions were introduced. One of these was the influence of a growing working class that was rising up – for example, in trade unions that also came into being in this period. In some countries, this workers’ movement was seen as a threat to the stability of the state. Social policy could be a means of reining in this budding labour movement. A second important factor was the relationship between church and state, whereby the church tried to hang onto its role as the provider of social services, while the state tried to take over this role and establish itself as a strong authority. The German Empire, which was governed in an authoritarian fashion, was a frontrunner when it came to introducing social legislation. Between 1880 and 1890, Chancellor Bismarck introduced compulsory collective insurance against sickness, old age and occupational disability. It was his way of trying to take the wind out of the sails of the strongly emerging socialist workers’ movement on the one hand and, on the other, to make Germany, which had been united since 1871, into a stronger nation state (Kuhnle & Sander 2010). The German example was soon followed in the Scandinavian countries, which starting in 1890 introduced their own versions of sickness

The Welfare State under Pressure

75

and disability insurance. In Great Britain and the United States, the first social legislation was introduced only later on. Even though in these countries, too, the industrial revolution had a great impact, the introduction of social legislation was less urgent because of a better-developed system of charity and solidarity-based alternatives such as ‘friendly societies’, which provided for many of the needs of the working class (Hennock 2007). The Netherlands was also among the latecomers. It was slow to industrialise. Consequently, at the end of the nineteenth century the working class was not that big. Moreover, it was divided into socialist, Protestant and Catholic movements. Although as early as 1874 restrictions were imposed on child labour (the well-known Child Labour Act introduced by Van Houten), it was only in 1901, 20 years later than in Germany, that the first compulsory national collective accident insurance was introduced (Hoogenboom 2003). At the same time, the so-called ‘school struggle’ (‘schoolstrijd’) was at least as important an issue in Dutch politics. It had to do with the relationship between church and state. Protestant and Catholic parties tried to safeguard public subsidies for Christian education. The school struggle would finally be settled only when World War I was raging in the rest of Europe. After the upheaval of World War I, the enormous destruction it wrought and the millions of victims it claimed, there began a period everywhere in Europe and North America in which social-security benefits were significantly expanded. The fear that the Communists, having seized power in Russia in 1917, would also manage to do the same in other countries, was one contributing factor. In addition, the introduction of universal suffrage changed the domestic balance of political power. People’s parties and trade unions affiliated with them acquired greater direct influence over government policy. It was at this time that the Swedish Social Democrats introduced the ‘folkhemmet’, or the ‘people’s house’, in which care was to be provided from cradle to grave. In the United Kingdom, too, there was a rapid expansion of social-security schemes after universal suffrage was introduced. In the Netherlands in 1917, the school struggle culminated in a big agreement known as the ‘pacification’, under which, in addition to public education, Christian education was also publicly financed – a system that exists to this day. At the same time, general suffrage for men was introduced. In the meantime, the Netherlands continued to be a latecomer when it came to introducing social security. In 1918 the leader of the Social Democrats, Troelstra, somewhat amateurishly proclaimed the revolution – an appeal that met with no success. After this, a limited number of social-insurance laws were passed, but the religious and liberal parties, which had a majority in Parliament, had no real interest in expanding social security.

76 

Fr anca van Hooren

During World War II, plans were made in various countries to develop the welfare state further. In the United Kingdom in 1942, the economist Lord Beveridge published an influential report in which he called for a state-guaranteed minimum income and collective healthcare coverage. The National Health Service was one of the results of his plans. In general, an active role for government in economic life won broad acceptance after 1945. The predominant Keynesian macro-economic views, which accorded the government an important role in the drive to achieve full employment and stabilise the economic situation, helped make this possible. In the Netherlands, the Van Rhijn Commission, taking its inspiration from Beveridge, published two reports on how social-security schemes could be designed in the future. All main political parties were open to this in the post-war years. As early as 1947, an Emergency Act on Pensions was introduced, followed in 1956 by the General Old Age Pensions Act, which gave everyone a pension from the age of 65, regardless of how many years they had worked or of any possessions they had. Passage by Parliament of the Unemployment Insurance Act in 1949 was also important. A lot of other social legislation would follow, so that the Netherlands turned itself from a laggard into a frontrunner in welfare state development. In many other countries, too, there was a rapid expansion of the welfare state in the post-war years. In a time of reconstruction and continuous economic growth, the welfare state was seen as contributing to healthy economic development. In addition, quick and comprehensive reforms were also introduced on the back of fears that large groups in society would become politically radicalised, often influenced by strong communist parties. The first three decades after World War II are known, indeed, as the Trente Glorieuses, the 30 glorious years of the welfare state. The positive sentiment would go sour in the 1970s, but before we go into that, the next section puts the spotlight on the variations among welfare states. It will show how different power relations between lower and higher social classes and between church and state in the formative period of the welfare state had a lasting impact on its architecture.

4.4

Varieties of welfare states: a much-discussed typology

Although welfare states flourished everywhere in Western Europe after World War II, they differed significantly from one another in terms of their form and their character. In an influential book published in 1990, Gøsta Esping-Andersen identified three types of ‘welfare regimes’, by which

The Welfare State under Pressure

77

he meant the way the welfare state, the market and the family together provided social protection. These three types of regimes – socialist, conservative and liberal – can be distinguished from one another by virtue of: 1 The extent to which they guaranteed people a minimum income, regardless of the market (‘decommodification’). 2 The extent to which they went against, or preserved, the existing segmentation in status differences (‘stratification’). Each of the three types of welfare regime has a specific historical origin linked to the relationships between the working class and the higher classes (Esping-Andersen 1990; Korpi 1983) and between church and state (Manow & Van Kersbergen 2009). Below I will briefly describe how the three types of welfare regimes are distinguished on the basis of the two aforementioned characteristics (decommodif ication and stratif ication) as well as of a third: the division of labour between men and women. Esping-Andersen originally disregarded this third feature (Lewis 1992, Orloff 1993), but he acknowledged its importance in his subsequent work. The description that follows hereafter is based on the situation in the 1970s and ‘80s, but the regime typology has also been used in subsequent decades to interpret differences between welfare states. The social-democratic welfare regime is clearly inspired by the Swedish and other Scandinavian welfare states. Decommodification is at its strongest here. As reflected in the aforementioned ‘folkhemmet’, social provisions are universal: they are intended for every resident, and there is no means test. Examples include public education, universal pensions, and public health care. This type of welfare regime has the explicit objective of reducing status differences and limiting societal inequalities. In addition, this is the type in which differences between men and women are the smallest. The state provides services such as childcare and care for the elderly, so that both women and men can work outside the home and be economically independent. The emergence of the social-democratic type is linked to strong socialdemocratic parties and trade unions and the absence of dividing lines based on religion (see Chapter 7 below for the importance of dividing lines). Because there never was a big struggle between church and state in these countries, the working class united behind the social-democratic party. The latter found a political ally in farmers’ parties, and together they developed a strong and inclusive welfare state. The conservative type is based on the German welfare state as well as those in other continental European countries. In this type, social

78 

Fr anca van Hooren

insurances, for instance unemployment or disability insurance, are central. Social insurances ensure that a worker who loses their job as a result of unemployment or disability does not experience a big drop in income. Because of the guarantee in income, this type of welfare regime is decommodifying but not destratifying. Income is mainly redistributed horizontally: someone with a job saves up, so to speak, so they can provide themselves with an income for whenever they find themselves out of a job or for when they get older. Meanwhile, vertical redistribution, between higher and lower income groups, is much more limited. In addition, within this type, women are expected to care for children and the elderly within the family. The state plays only a subsidiary role when there really are no family members who can provide the necessary care. The emergence of this type of welfare regime was strongly influenced by the relationship between church and state. Much more than in the Scandinavian countries, the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, or both, as well as the political parties affiliated with them, played an important role in continental Europe. Because the electoral support from the lower and middle classes was divided between social-democratic and Christian-democratic parties, social democratic parties were never as strong as they were in Scandinavian countries. The Christian Democratic parties could thus leave their mark on the design of the welfare state. These parties were wary of too great a role for government, and they made sure that the responsibility for many social services remained in the hands of non-governmental organisations, whether Christian or not. In addition, these Christian parties played an important role in shaping social policy based on the breadwinner model. A male breadwinner had to be able to meet the financial needs of his family with his income, while his wife was responsible for caring for the children and the elderly. For this reason, public services for childcare and care of the elderly remained underdeveloped for a long time in these conservative welfare states. Finally, the liberal type of welfare regime is inspired especially by the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. Means testing is at the heart of this type. Thus social-security benefits are intended as a safety net of last resort, and are targeted only at citizens who have no other source of income or care. Such provisions offer only limited help, and on top of that they carry a stigma: those who use them are looked down on. For the rest, it is assumed that citizens themselves are responsible, the Government’s role is limited, and it is expected that the market will provide for people’s needs. This type is decommodifying only in a limited way. Also, arrangements for combining work and care are largely left to

The Welfare State under Pressure

79

the market. Because this type of welfare regime does not offer the same income protection for (male) breadwinners, women are often forced to work outside the home for financial reasons. While families with high incomes can purchase good care services for their children on the market, those from the lower social classes depend on less expensive – sometimes public – services of lower quality. This type thus changes hardly anything in the existing stratification. The liberal welfare regime arose particularly in English-speaking countries with a two-party system. Just as with the social-democratic type, the church played a limited political role, but in countries with liberal welfare regimes, social-democratic parties and trade unions were never dominant. Liberalism and neo-liberalism predominated, and the middle class did not wholeheartedly support the idea of a comprehensive welfare state, so that social security remained limited. Esping-Andersen’s welfare regime typology has had considerable influence on thinking about welfare states, but over time it has also come in for a great deal of criticism. Above the lack of attention to gender relations was already mentioned. There has also been a lot of debate about just how many types of welfare state there are (Arts & Gelissen 2002). According to some, a Mediterranean or an Asian-Confucian type had to be added. It also proved difficult to fit the Eastern European countries that until 1989 belonged to the Soviet-dominated Communist bloc, into Esping-Andersen’s three-part typology. Finally, even for the countries that fit pretty easily into a particular type, it turned out that there were always provisions to which a different logic applied. For example, France, which in general is put in the conservative column, was among the first to develop extensive childcare services for working parents. In general, the organisation of education and healthcare cannot really be broken down easily by regime: for example, universal healthcare can be found in such places as the United Kingdom, Italy and Scandinavia. Because there will always be discrepancies between the typology and practice, Esping-Andersen’s types can best be understood as ideal types: theoretical constructions that cannot be found in real life. The existing welfare states resemble one or more ideal types to a greater or lesser degree. Moreover, changes can occur over time. It is particularly useful to think in this way when we try to get a full understanding of the Dutch welfare state. The way the Dutch welfare state came into being bore clear characteristics of the conservative type, with the large role that Catholic and Protestant parties played in the design of social-security schemes, the emphasis on social insurance, and role played by social partners (employers’ organisations

80 

Fr anca van Hooren

and trade unions) in the implementation of benefits. In addition, until well into the 1980s the Dutch welfare state remained strongly focused on facilitating the male-breadwinner model. This breadwinner had to be able to meet the needs of his family, even when he was unemployed or unable to work. Married women were expected to stay at home with the children. It was seen as a blessing that the Dutch welfare state made this possible (Bussemaker & Van Kersbergen 1994). Public childcare and other services that encouraged women’s participation in the workforce scarcely existed. At the same time, however, a number of social-democratic elements appeared in this conservative welfare state in the 1950s, with the introduction of the Old Age Pensions Act (a universal benefit for the elderly), and the Special Healthcare Costs Act, which provides universal services for long-term care for the elderly, for example.

4.5

New developments and path dependence

The 1970s saw an end to thirty years of almost continuous economic growth. Two oil crises (in 1973 and 1979) brought economic prosperity abruptly to a halt. Economic problems led to fewer jobs and greater pressure on existing social-security schemes. Especially in more conservative welfare states such as Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, the economic downturn led to a large increase not only in the number of those registered as unemployed, but especially in the number of the latent unemployed who ended up using occupational-disability programmes or early-retirement schemes. Between 1975 and 1990, the number of people who received social-security benefits in the Netherlands doubled, from more than one million to more than two million (Kuipers 2006). In the context of deteriorating economic conditions and the great use of existing social provisions, criticism of the welfare state grew, mainly in neo-liberal and neo-conservative quarters. Inspired by ideas from Hayek and Friedman, for instance, the argument went that the welfare state led to ‘moral hazards’: that people would become lazy as a result. Public services were now increasingly seen as part of the problem rather than as a solution to social problems (Castles et al. 2010). The solution was thus thought to be to cut back and privatise existing provisions and schemes. Alongside the economic stagnation of the 1980s and the ideological shift towards neo-liberalism, structural changes were also taking place in the social and economic realms, such as the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial economy. While employment was steadily waning in the

The Welfare State under Pressure

81

industrial sector in Western countries, it was growing in the services sector. This led to job losses for factory workers, in particular low-skilled men, while it created new opportunities in the services sector, ranging from consultancy to cleaning work. Starting in the 1970s, there was also a big change in the division of labour between men and women, with women increasingly working outside the home. The post-industrial economy facilitated greater participation in the workforce on the part of women, and also led to growth in part-time and temporary employment instead of full-time, permanent jobs. As a consequence of these structural changes, there was a shift in citizens’ needs. There arose new risks, as they were called (Bonoli 2005). Whereas unemployment, disability and old age had previously been seen as the main risks against which the state had to protect its citizens, other risks were now added, such as having skills, industrial or otherwise, that no longer fit the new labour market, or having to combine work with caring for small children or the elderly. Many welfare states – particularly the more conservative – were not equipped to meet these new needs. This led to a call for the modernisation of the welfare state through a social-investment policy with a greater role for services that would help citizens to be active and stay on the labour market, such as provisions for training or retraining, and for combining work and care (such as parental leave and childcare services). In practice, the extent to which neo-liberal cuts and privatisations or modernisation ideas took hold varied considerably. In the 1980s, President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher spared no effort to cut public provisions in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the Netherlands, the 1980s were also marked by cuts under the leadership of Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers and his first two centre-right cabinets. These cuts, however, remained limited to reducing the generosity of the benefits provided. Thus the amount of unemployment and disability benefits was cut from 80% to 70% of the salary most recently earned. There was, however, no radical reform of the social-security system. We can find an important explanation for the general lack of radical reforms in ‘historical institutionalism’ (Pierson 1996), which points at the strong path dependency of social policy. Once a social policy is in place, it is often difficult to abolish it or change it in any significant way. There are several reasons for this. First, a political majority is needed to pass a reform, while a minority is sometimes enough to block it. Second, politicians are wary of taking unpopular decisions to make cuts, so they avoid them. Third, citizens or businesses that take advantage of existing social policy organise themselves in interest groups that exert influence, also behind the scenes, on political decision-making. Thus Dutch pension funds or

82 

Fr anca van Hooren

health-insurance companies, for example, will strongly oppose reforms that have a direct impact on them. Path dependency and the resulting lack of radical reforms can mean that major cutbacks in social security is avoided, but they can also mean that modernisation does not take place either. Suppose, for instance, that unemployment insurance were to apply only to people with a full-time, permanent contract. In the 1950s and 1960s, that kind of insurance protection still covered the vast majority of employees. But with the increase in part-time and temporary contracts starting in the 1980s, fewer and fewer people became eligible for benefits. Without reforms, fewer and fewer are adequately protected. Historical institutionalism suggests a static welfare state in which reforms usually do not take place. Yet, in some cases large-scale reforms and/or cuts do in fact take place. Why and when reforms take place is a question that many political scientists have recently been focusing on. They point out, for example, that under certain circumstances politicians are willing to take risks (Vis & Van Kersbergen 2007) and that sometimes broad political coalitions can throw their support behind reforms on the basis of new ideas or new information. Thus in the 1990s, major changes took place in the Netherlands because of a widely shared will to increase labour market participation. For this reason, disability insurance was amended, early-retirement systems were first cut back and then scrapped altogether, and subsidies for childcare were rapidly expanded. Subsequently, while the Netherlands lagged behind in further social investment reforms in the 2000s, Germany pressed on with it in certain areas. Thus in 2007, in the context of a very low birth rate, a Christian Democratic government introduced paid parental leave in the hope that this would get parents to have more children. As a result, fathers and mothers could split between them a total 14 months’ paid leave after the birth of a child. By way of comparison: in 2017, new fathers in the Netherlands still get just two days’ paid leave. In the last section of this chapter, we will take another look at the role of new political coalitions in reforming the welfare state. But first, we will consider some of the challenges facing the welfare state in the twenty-first century.

4.6

Challenges for the welfare state in the twenty-first century

The current welfare state is facing various significant challenges, ranging from economic crisis and population aging to migration and the flexibilisation of the labour market. At the same time, globalisation and European

The Welfare State under Pressure

83

integration have reduced the room for manoeuvre that national welfare states have, while it appears that an overall European social policy is unfeasible for the most part. This section will look at a number of these challenges. In 2008, the world was hit by a severe economic crisis. What started as a crisis in the United States housing market developed into a global credit crisis that caused difficulties for many European Governments and sent the euro reeling. Initially, the European welfare states were a useful buffer between the global economic crisis and European citizens. When a worker who has lost a job can fall back on decent unemployment benefits, the mortgage can still be paid as usual. Some social-security provisions came in handy for businesses, too. Thus in countries such as Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, workers could receive part-time unemployment benefits, so that businesses could cut working hours (and thus the cost) of workers without dismissing them and thus losing their expertise. In some countries, such as Sweden, a premium was put for the most part on the stabilising function of the welfare state (Starke, Kaasch & Van Hooren 2013). In other countries, however, this enthusiasm for the buffer function soon turned into worry about the growing public expenditures. Southern European countries were forced to take drastic austerity measures by very high interest rates on government loans and by strict condition set for loans from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. Greece is the clearest example of a country that, due to the economic crisis, pretty much lost control of its own welfare state and was obliged to make radical cuts. But starting in 2010, even countries where the pressure was not so great, such as the Netherlands, went all out in making cuts in such areas as childcare, unemployment benefits, pensions, and care for the elderly. By about 2017, most of the direct effects of the global economic crisis seemed to be over. Still, the social effects will be noticeable for quite some time yet, particularly in southern European countries where the welfare state was cut back drastically. While the economic crisis seems to have been averted for now, aging is a problem that has yet to reach its peak. While people are living longer and longer, fewer and fewer children are being born. The average age of the population is going up. As a result, on the one hand the costs of pensions and care for the elderly are growing, while on the other, the proportion of the population that does paid work, and thereby finances the welfare state, is getting relatively smaller. The pressure on the younger generations is thus steadily increasing. In reaction to this, almost everywhere in Europe the retirement age has been raised in recent years. In many countries this has

84 

Fr anca van Hooren

led to fierce protests. One of the bones of contention is the disproportionate impact of a higher retirement age on the most vulnerable groups in society. The average life expectancy of low-skilled workers who have worked their entire life in arduous occupations is considerably lower than that of highly educated people with a desk job. The difference is even greater when we look at how long people remain in good health. Thus according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), men who have completed only their primary education live an average of 63 years without any physical impairments, whereas men with a university education live an average of 77 years without any such impairments. Still, the retirement age for both groups will be set at 67 starting in 2022. The aging of the population is also leading to a growing demand for elderly care. In the Netherlands, where publicly funded care for the elderly was historically quite extensive and well organised, the focus of attention in recent years has been on controlling costs. A combination of decentralisation, budget cuts and the shifting of responsibilities has been opted for. Several steps have been taken to transfer a large part of the responsibility for elderly care from the national Special Healthcare Costs Act to the Social Support Act – thus making local authorities responsible for providing healthcare. This decentralisation was accompanied by cuts, so that municipalities have to meet the same needs with fewer resources. Municipalities outsource a lot of care to private companies, which in turn compete among themselves. In order to be competitive, they make staff cutbacks, with the result that the growing demand for care for the elderly currently goes hand in hand with waves of layoffs, lower wages and poorer working conditions for workers in this branch of elderly care. Another aspect of these changes is that some of the responsibility for providing care has been shifted from the government to family members and volunteers. Through a professed shift towards a ‘participatiesamenleving’ or ‘participation society’, the idea is that the government provides care only when family and friends are unable to. The result is significant and growing pressure on caregivers who provide this informal care. Thus, according to the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP), 400,000 caregivers felt heavily burdened in 2014. This is particularly true of caregivers who also have a paid job. While the Dutch Government has been trying for decades to increase the employment rate (particularly among women), that seems difficult to reconcile with the demand for more informal care that stems from the idea of a participation society. Countries where publicly financed care for the elderly was historically less well developed are responding in a different way to the growing demand

The Welfare State under Pressure

85

for such care. In Italy, for instance, in the absence of good public services, many families hire a Romanian, Ukrainian or Filipino woman to take care of an elderly relative. Often this caregiver (called ‘badante’) lives in with the person they are caring for, with the result that, in practice, she is at work for a low salary almost 24 hours a day (Van Hooren 2012). We see a similar growth in the demand for migrants as cheap workers in elderly care in other European countries such as Spain, Austria and Germany. In the Netherlands, too, there seems to be a trend in this direction, although it is still limited for the moment (Da Roit & Van Bochove 2015). For politicians in countries such as Italy, Spain and Austria, this form of caregiving has been a lowcost solution to the growing demand for care. In some cases, they started granting residence permits to undocumented migrant workers who were working in these occupations. Yet this form of care is not without its problems. The migrant workers in question often find themselves in really vulnerable situations, where exploitation is a regular occurrence. At the same time, it is only wealthier elderly people and their families who can afford and have access to this form of care. Poorer elderly people must continue to rely on their own family members or on limited public services. This practice thus increases inequality. Following on the role of labour migration in care for the elderly, migration is the final challenge for the welfare state that will be discussed here. A welfare state is by definition based on a form of inclusion and exclusion. A determination has to be made: who are the legitimate users of the social provisions that the state offers? Normally it is the residents of a state who contribute to funding and who are at the same time entitled to socialsecurity benefits. There are academics who have argued that immigration is fundamentally incompatible with the welfare state, because it breaks the logic of inclusion and exclusion. However, there is a lot of evidence that negates this argument. On average, migrants contribute more to the welfare state than they benefit it (see, for instance, Dustmann & Frattini 2014) as the example of the caregiving migrants suggests. The ultimate test for the compatibility of immigration and the welfare state may well be migration within the European Union. European treaties guarantee the free movement of people, and thus allow every EU citizen in principle to work and settle in any EU country. According to EU regulations, citizens working in another EU country are entitled in principle to the same social-security benefits as citizens of the host country. Especially after the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, big differences emerged among Member States when it came to the level and extent of social-security benefits they offered. The fear thus arose that a kind of welfare tourism would

86 

Fr anca van Hooren

spring up. People from poorer Member States with a less-well-developed welfare state would, it was feared, move to other EU Member States to avail themselves of social-security benefits in the host country (Blauberger & Schmidt 2014). In practice, the extent to which EU citizens avail themselves of socialsecurity benefits in host countries is quite modest. In addition, EU citizens who are not working have the right to social security, such as assistance or student grants, only after a certain time or for a limited period of time. The opportunities for welfare tourism are thus limited. However, the topic has had considerable political impact. For example, in 2016 Eastern European migrants’ availing themselves of British social-security benefits was an important theme in the referendum in which the United Kingdom voted for Brexit. Also in countries such as Denmark, Germany and Austria, the possible abuse of the welfare state by Eastern European migrants was played up by populist politicians in particular. The next section will look further at these political developments.

4.7

The future of the welfare state

With the challenges facing the welfare state in the twenty-first century, the political lie of the land has also changed. Earlier in this chapter, we saw how, during the build-up phase of the welfare state – up until the 1970s – the political forces of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats had considerable influence on the design of the welfare state. In the last few decades, both forces have had a hard time of it electorally and have suffered losses in power in many countries. The broad consensus about the welfare state that existed in many countries has vanished. On the one hand, there is an important movement these days of people that are afraid that migration and European integration will lead to the erosion and degradation of the welfare state. These feelings have led to a new sentiment: welfare chauvinism. This is the idea that a welfare state belongs only to people who are born and raised within the borders of a given country, and that it should be protected against abuse from the outside. This welfare chauvinism has contributed to a broader electoral shift among lesseducated and older voters, and a weakening of social-democratic parties. These views are articulated in politics by populist and antimigration parties such as the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the UK Independence Party in the United Kingdom, and the National Front in France. For trade unions, traditionally key pillars of the welfare state, but also for left-wing

The Welfare State under Pressure

87

parties, such as the Socialist Party and the Labour Party in the Netherlands, these political shifts pose a dilemma. While their rank and file consist partly of the elderly and less educated who are attracted by populist ideas, on the basis of their ideology they are still in favour of solidarity with socially vulnerable groups within and outside the Netherlands. On the other hand, many young people and voters with a higher education have less affinity with the welfare state than they did in the past. Some of them see social protection schemes as obstacles to freedom and want to see greater individual responsibility. Many young people no longer have a job for life as their parents did. They have temporary contracts or are self-employed. They doubt the utility of strict rules designed to guard against dismissal, of long-lasting unemployment benefits, and of mandatory contributions to pension funds. These voters may support progressive liberal (the Dutch D66), green (the Dutch GroenLinks) or conservative (the Dutch VVD) parties, all of which are in favour of welfare state reform, while they are far from agreement on the direction of change. To find answers to the challenges of the twenty-first century, adjustments to the welfare state will be necessary. It is hard to predict whether the fragmentation that marks the political landscape in many countries will allow changes to be implemented, and what these changes will be if they are made. What is clear is that, in the coming decades, the welfare state will continue to have considerable influence on the wellbeing and opportunities for development of many citizens.

References Arts, W. & Gelissen, J. (2002). Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism or More? A State-of-the-Art Report, Journal of European Social Policy, 12 (2), 137-158. Blauberger, M. & Schmidt, S.K. (2014). Welfare Migration? Free Movement of EU Citizens and Access to Social Benefits. Research and Politics [online 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168014563879 Bonoli, G. (2005). The Politics of New Social Policies: Providing Coverage against New Social Risks in Mature Welfare States. Policy and Politics, 33(3), 431-449. Bussemaker, J. & Van Kersbergen, K. (1994). Gender and Welfare States: Some Theoretical Reflections. In: D. Sainsbury (ed.), Gendering Welfare States. London: Sage Publications. Castles, F., Leibfried, S., Lewis, J., Obinger, H. & Pierson, C. (2010). Introduction. In: Castles, F. Leibfried, S., Lewis, J., Obinger, H. & Pierson, C. (red.), The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (pp. 1-18). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Da Roit, B. & Bochove, M. van (2015). Migrant Care Work Going Dutch? The Emergence of a Live-in Migrant Care Market and the Restructuring of the Dutch Long-term Care System, Social Policy and Administration. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12174. Dustmann, C. & Frattini, T. (2014). The Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK. The Economic Journal, 124 (580), F593-F643. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12181

88 

Fr anca van Hooren

Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Flora, P. & Alber, J. (1981). Modernization, Democratization and the Development of Welfare States in Western Europe. In: Flora, P. & Heidenheimer A. (eds), The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America, 167-210. New Brunswick: Transaction Books. Freeman, G.P. (1986). Migration and the Political Economy of the Welfare State. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 485, 51-63. Hemerijck, A. (2013). Changing Welfare States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hennock, E. (2007). The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoogenboom, M. (2003). Standenstrijd en zekerheid. Een geschiedenis van oude orde en sociale zorg in Nederland (ca. 1880-1940) [Class Struggle and Security: a History of the Old Order and Social Care in the Netherlands from the 1880s to the 1940s]. Hooren, F. van (2012). Varieties of Migrant Care Work: Comparing Patterns of Migrant Labour in Social Care. Journal of European Social Policy, 22 (2), 133-147. https://doi. org/10.1177/0958928711433654. Kersbergen, K. van & Jensen, C. (2017). The Politics of Inequality. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Korpi, W. (1983). The Democratic Class Struggle. London: Routledge. Kuhnle, S. & Sander, A. (2010). The Emergence of the Western Welfare State. In: F. Castles, S. Leibfried, J. Lewis, H. Obinger & C. Pierson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State 2, 61-80. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kuipers, S. (2006). The Crisis Imperative. Crisis Rhetoric and Welfare State Reform in Belgium and the Netherlands in the Early 1990s. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Lewis, J. (1992). Gender and the Development of welfare regimes. Journal of European Social Policy, 2(3), 159-173. Manow, P. & Kersbergen, K. van (2009). Religion and the western welfare state – The theoretical context. In: Kersbergen, K. van and Manow, P. (red.), Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States (1-38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Orloff, A.S. (1993). Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: The Comparative Analysis of Gender Relations and Welfare States. American Sociological Review, 58(3), 303-328. Pierson, P. (1996). The New Politics of the Welfare State. World Politics, 48(2), 143-179. Polanyi, K. (1957). The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston (MA): Beacon Press. Starke, P., Kaasch, A. & Van Hooren, F. (2013). The Welfare State as Crisis Manager: Responses to Major Economic Crisis in Small Open Economies. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Veen, R. van der (1994). De ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse verzorgingsstaat [The Development of the Dutch Welfare State]. In: K. Schuyt & R. van der Veen (eds), De verdeelde samenleving; een inleiding in de ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse verzorgingsstaat [The Divided Society: an Introduction to the Development of the Dutch Welfare State], second ed., revised, pp. 3-22. Leiden: Stenfert Kroese. Vis, B. & Kersbergen, K. van (2007). Why and How Do Political Actors Pursue Risky Reforms? Journal of Theoretical Politics, 19(2), 153-172. Wilkinson, R.G. & Pickett, K. (2009). The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. London: Allen Lane.

5

Consensus Democracy in the Netherlands Background and Future Philip van Praag

5.1 Introduction The Dutch political system is often described as a consensus democracy. Problems and conflicts are resolved in such a system by intensive consultations and compromise. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, after the success of Pim Fortuyn and the rise of Geert Wilders’ PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid, Party for Freedom), a lot of people have their doubts about the future of consensus democracy and what is known as the ‘polder model’. It is not the first time that this has happened. The appreciation for consensus democracy – and for the related phenomenon of the consultation economy – varies from one period to the next. In the 1960s, the attack on the ‘authoritarian mindset’ of the authorities and on the ‘lack of political clarity’ was launched, but then, around 1980, criticism of the system died down. In the early 1990s, a lot of people got annoyed once again at the search for consensus – the idea being that it would lead to gridlock and a lack of decisiveness in politics. A few years later, at the time of what were known as the Purple Cabinets of social democrats and liberals, people at home and abroad spoke glowingly of the successes of the Dutch polder model. It remains to be seen whether the current criticism of the system will lead to major changes. Journalistic and scholarly thinking about Dutch politics has been strongly influenced by the work of political scientists such as Hans Daalder (1928-2016) and Arend Lijphart. They regard the search for consensus among the political elites as characteristic of the Dutch political culture of the twentieth century. Lijphart sees the search for consensus arise around the Pacification of 1917, a kind of package deal to resolve long-running conflicts about universal suffrage, the electoral system, and the state-financing of Protestant and Catholic schools. He sees this as a conscious effort by the political elites to resolve through consultations, from that point on, major conflicts that arise between the subcultures or pillars (zuilen). Daalder draws especially on the historical background. According to him the centuries-long peaceful coexistence of different groups under the leadership

90 

Philip van Pr a ag

of elites of various religions and with different economic interests goes back about three hundred years, to the Dutch Golden Age. These contribution centres on the concept of consensus. I will flesh it out further, and take a closer look at what political scientists mean when they speak about political consensus in Dutch politics. I will also consider the way in which Lijphart uses the concept of consensus to distinguish between two types of democracy. And I will discuss briefly the situation in the United Kingdom (UK), which is often seen as the opposite of the prototypical consensus democracy. I will analyse the various attempts that have been made to change Dutch consensus democracy after 1966, and focus on the issues that various political parties have used to break the consensus. The key question in this chapter is whether we can still speak of a consensus democracy in the Netherlands.

5.2 Consensus Consensus indicates shared values and significant uniformity of views. If one wants to use the concept to compare political systems and to distinguish them from one another, a further specification is needed. British political scientist Dennis Kavanagh offers a useful interpretation. He differentiates three politically relevant aspects of consensus: 1 A high level of agreement across the political parties and governing elites about the substance of public policy. In the post-war period, it is primarily a matter, for the UK, of broader unanimity about the economic policy and the foundations of the welfare state. 2 A high level of agreement between the elites regarding the main institutional features of the political system and the rules of the political game. 3 A high level of agreement between the elites on the way in which political differences should be resolved, namely through a process of negotiation and compromise (Kavanagh 1987: 6). These three aspects will, respectively, be referred as substantive or policy consensus, institutional consensus, and procedural consensus. Institutional consensus and procedural consensus play a central role in the work of Daalder and Lijphart especially. They focus strongly on parliamentary politics and the role of political parties, and pass over institutions and mechanisms for building consensus outside party politics. On the socio-economic front,

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

91

then, other actors besides the political parties play an important role, and hold consultations in their own deliberative institutions in accordance with other procedures. Dutch consensus democracy concerns both politics in the seat of government, The Hague, and the system of industrial relations.

5.3

The rules of the game

Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, Dutch society was deeply divided into three population groups who lived in isolation from each other: the Catholic pillar, the Protestant/Christian pillar, and a secular pillar, which was dominated by the socialist labour movement. Although the majority of the population was Christian and went to church every week, there were sharp contrasts between Protestants and Catholics. This meant that no single group had a majority. In his classic analysis Verzuiling, pacificatie en kentering in de Nederlandse politiek 1 Lijphart (1968) shows how, in such a highly divided society without cross connections among the different population groups, a stable political system was still possible. His study of pillarization (verzuiling) in the Netherlands places a strong emphasis on the cooperative behaviour of the political elite to explain this stability. Since the pacification of 1917, in which some long-running fundamental political and social conflicts were resolved, the leaders of the various blocs, Lijphart tells us, showed a great sense of responsibility towards the proper functioning of the system. The cooperative behaviour on the part of the Dutch political elites was expressed, during the period of pillarization, in seven rules of the game. These rules were not recorded or agreed among the elites, but grew over time as part of Dutch political culture. Lijphart derived these rules from the actual behaviour of politicians in periods of tension and crisis. They are as follows: – business of politics: politicians should be responsible in their behaviour, keeping a focus on goals; – pragmatic tolerance: ideological and religious differences must be respected, and the majority decides only after consultation with the minority; – summit diplomacy: important issues are addressed in top conferences in which the main groups take part; 1 English edition: Lijphart, A. (1975) The Politics of Accomodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands. Berkeley (CA), University of California Press; 2nd edn. (1st edn 1968).

92 

Philip van Pr a ag

– proportionality: benefits, appointments, and services should be distributed proportionally among the blocs; – depoliticisation: sensitive political problems are presented as nonpolitical issues that can be resolved according to generally accepted rules; – secrecy: to find a compromise on a sensitive political issue, one should be cautious when it comes to media coverage; – the government’s right to govern: the parties in Parliament must give the government sufficient flexibility to carry out policy (Lijphart 1968: 120-138). Taken together, these seven rules of the game can be regarded as a form of procedural consensus. They guided the behaviour of the political leaders of the blocs when it came to fundamental conflicts that deeply divided society. They helped stop differences from getting out of hand, so groups could co-exist peacefully while keeping their own religion, culture and organisations. After 1967, the changing political behaviour of political elites (which became more competitive) and of large groups of citizens put what was known as ‘pacification democracy’ under a lot of pressure. The disappearance of many components of this pillarization, and the emergence of a homogeneous mass culture led, according to Lijphart, to a rather troubled and difficult transition towards a democratic system that would more resemble the British and American systems.

5.4

Consensus democracy and majoritarian democracy

In his later work, which has a much stronger comparative character, ­Lijphart no longer emphasises the political culture of the elite but focuses on institutional criteria in characterising political systems. He contrasts two types of democratic systems: consensus democracy versus majoritarian democracy (Lijphart 1984). A consensus democracy has, on this view, the following eight characteristics: – a broad coalition government; – a formal and informal separation of powers; – a multiparty system; – a party system based on a number of dimensions; – an electoral system based on proportional representation; – territorial and non-territorial federalism and/or decentralisation of public powers;

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

93

– a balanced bicameral system with representation of minorities; – a written constitution, partly to protect minorities. Lijphart considers Switzerland and Belgium (until 1981) as good examples of consensus democracy, but also the Netherlands has, to a reasonable degree, the features of this type of democracy. The question of whether a society is deeply divided, and the behaviour of the political elite, do not play a role in this dichotomy. They still constitute an indirect factor, because the assumption is that consensus democracy developed in the past especially in religiously and/or linguistically divided countries. It turns out, somewhat paradoxically, that consensus democracy originated in countries where there was a lot of dissension. The use of the concept of consensus to characterise these democracies thus refers to both procedural and institutional consensus. It has to do with institutions, arrangements and agreements to make it possible to address dissension in a given country. Lijphart tacitly assumes that the fault lines (cleavages) in these countries are so wide and deeply rooted that substantive consensus is very limited. The second type of democracy, majoritarian democracy, also referred to as the Westminster model, has features directly opposed to this eight points: – a one-party government; – a strong position for executive power; – a two-party system; – parties who are primarily identified by their position on socio-economic issues; – a first-past-the-post electoral system; – a highly centralised government apparatus; – a unicameral legislative power; – an unwritten and flexible constitution. Writing in 1984, Lijphart mentions New Zealand as a perfect example of a majoritarian democracy. Following a number of major institutional changes, however, New Zealand now has more of the characteristics of a consensus democracy. The system in Great Britain is slightly different. It has a weak bicameral system, with an Upper House that has few powers, and it does not have a pure two-party system. Despite these divergences, the British system lends itself well to a short analysis. Lijphart’s two-part typology suggests that, in a country such as the UK, ‘consensus’ plays no role in politics. We will look at this briefly with the help of the three-part categorisation introduced above: substantive consensus, institutional consensus and procedural consensus.

94 

5.5

Philip van Pr a ag

Consensus in the UK

Politics in the UK, particularly such as those in the Parliament in Westminster, is focused on highlighting political differences. The often fierce and lively debates in the House of Commons give the impression of two political parties fighting each other tooth and nail, with diametrically opposed views. Thanks to the electoral system, they do not need to take into account the possibility that they might have to form a coalition with each other. The institutional features Lijphart describes do not, indeed, lead to open consensus-building – but this is only part of the story. For a long time, the UK had a highly developed institutional consensus. The foundations of the electoral system and the relationship between the House of Commons and the government have not changed for more than 150 years. Only the relationship between the House of Lords and the House of Commons has been amended in the course of the twentieth century, in favour of the House of Commons. Despite the lack of a constitution, when it comes to institutional continuity, there is some similarity to the United States, whereas there is a big difference between the UK and many countries in Western Europe, where the written constitution has fundamentally changed over the last hundred years – and in some cases more than once. The institutional consensus on the outlines of the British political system has, however, been under pressure for some time. The Liberal Democrats want to customise the first-past-the-post system, but a reform proposal was rejected in a referendum in 2011. Since then, the electoral system has not been called into question. The Scottish National Party (SNP) has been pushing for years for some form of independence for Scotland. In 1992, its election slogan was ‘Independence in Europe’. Since 1999, Scotland has had its own parliament with far-reaching powers, but in 2014 the SNP lost a referendum on the withdrawal of Scotland from the UK. It is to be expected that the independence of Scotland will be back on the political agenda once Brexit – the British withdrawal from the European Union – has taken place around 2020. At least as important is the question of whether the British system allows for any consensus-oriented decision-making. It turns out in practice that a change of government does not lead to diametrically opposed policy. There is a remarkable continuity of policy, based on consensus-building, that often takes place behind the scenes. The main actor responsible here is the Civil Service. It is precisely the highly centralised nature of the British state, where the executive dominates the legislature, that gives the civil servants at the departments considerable power. In such a system, lobbying takes place via the bureaucratic apparatus. It is the ministries

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

95

in London that maintain a culture of formal and informal consultations with employers, employees and other civic organisations. That leads to consensus on the main elements of the policy to be pursued. In the words of Jeremy Richardson: Compromise is therefore institutionalized and regularized in, literally, hundreds of advisory committees (some permanent, some ad hoc) surrounding government departments. Although this is not uniquely British, the British have developed the advisory system to a fine art. The incorporation of groups into the policy process had, by 1979 and the election of Mrs Thatcher, reached what may be a unique level in comparative perspective. (Richardson, 1993: 94-95)

Thatcherism: the end of consensus thinking? From the time she took office in 1979, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (nicknamed the Iron Lady) was determined to put an end to what she saw as pernicious consensus thinking: ‘For me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies’ (Kavanagh 1987: 7). For Thatcher, consensus was synonymous with compromise on fundamental principles, on which compromise was not possible. In 1991, Thatcher was forced to resign by her own party. In the 12 years of her rule, the foundations of the British welfare state, such as the National Health Service, were not affected. But it is also true that major policy changes she introduced, such as privatising stateowned industries and limiting the power of the trade unions by changing the right to strike, were not rolled back by the governments that came after her. In these important policy areas, a new consensus had developed. After the 1997 election victory of the Labour Party led by Tony Blair, only a few measures of the conservatives have been reversed. The 2016 referendum on Brexit, however, laid bare a deep substantive division in UK politics and society. It remains to be seen whether that will subside again over time, and whether a new consensus emerges on the relationship between the UK and Europe. The procedural consensus, reflected in the important role of pressure and interest groups in the preparation of decision-making, has not been permanently changed. Since Thatcher’s departure, the formal and informal consultation procedures have been working again just as they did before she came to power. From this brief consideration of British politics, it can be concluded that there is indeed a certain degree of policy consensus, institutional consensus

96 

Philip van Pr a ag

and procedural consensus. The various forms of consensus are less clearly manifest in certain areas than in the Netherlands, but that does not mean we can assume the absence of significant consensus. Lijphart’s two-part typology of democratic political systems, which is based primarily on institutional features, and in which the one generates systematic consensus and the other does without it, is too schematic. Regardless of the institutional structure of a system, the proper functioning of a democratic system requires a certain degree of consensus. It is difficult to establish what minimum of consensus is required, but without such a minimum, the health of any political system can run into doubt. Below we will look at the extent to which the consensual character of Dutch politics since mid-sixties has undergone major changes.

5.6

The background to Dutch consensus democracy

In his standard work Lijphart stresses the absence of policy consensus among the Dutch population during the period of pillarization. He finds little agreement among the population as a whole when it came to political and social values and objectives. Within the various pillars there was indeed a broad consensus, but not in the least between the pillars (Lijphart 1968: 86). He recognises, however, that even in the Netherlands, pillarized as it was, there was a minimum of consensus, which was reflected in a nationalism that was not all that strong and in a feeling of connectedness with the Royal Family. More important, however, was the wish of the elites to maintain the institutional consensus, the existing political system. Lijphart’s point of departure – that there was only a very narrow policy consensus – is often called into doubt. Foreign authors who look closely at the Netherlands (such as Windmuller 1970, and Katzenstein 1985) are much less preoccupied with the rules of the game in The Hague, the centre of Dutch politics. They show, indeed, that the search for compromise has led to a high degree of agreement, especially on socio-economic issues. The planned-wage policy that was pursued from 1946 to 1959, and under which the government determined from one year to the next how much room there was for wage increases in the public and private sectors, has always attracted a lot attention from outside the Netherlands. This policy, which was carried out with the support of organisations of employers and employees alike, made it possible to have a successful industrial policy. It gave the government the space to make infrastructure investments, and allowed a start on building the welfare state. A centrally planned wage policy is now out of

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

97

date, but the successful policy of wage moderation in the eighties and nineties, for which the basis was laid in the 1982 Wassenaar Agreement among unions, employers and the government, is another example of important substantive policy consensus. The more recent retrenchment of the welfare state has not led to major tensions between the parties or to major labour unrest. Popular support for these changes was limited, but it was reflected, not in mass protest, but in large electoral shifts. Katzenstein and Windmuller before him have shown that the basis for the Dutch system of industrial relations and the related socio-economic politics from 1945 on, was laid in the interwar period. In the sphere of national politics, this period saw a rapprochement between the Roman Catholic State Party (RKSP) and the Social Democratic Workers Party SDAP). Both parties grew markedly closer to each other in programmatic terms in the 1930s. In the field of industrial relations, tentative steps were taken in that decade towards tripartite talks among employers’ and workers’ organisations and the government. Around 1940, the various parties had already come to the conclusion that cooperation and consultation were to be preferred over labour disputes and were more fully in the national interest. Katzenstein speaks of an ideology of ‘social partnership’ and points to a similar development in six other small countries: Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. In none of these countries, however, has this led to a comparable institutionalisation of consultations between trade unions and employers’ organisations. After 1945, agreement emerged between the Dutch Labour Party PvdA (Partij van de Arbeid, successor of the SDAP) and the Catholic People’s Party KVP (successor of the RKSP) on key socio-economic issues, and both parties worked together in government to build a neo-corporatist consultative structure. This led in 1950 to the Public-law Organisation Act and, pursuant to that, to the creation of the Socio-Economic Council (Sociaal Economische Raad, SER). The Council, composed of employers’ representatives, employees and independent members appointed by the government, was both the umbrella organisation of the sectoral business associations and an official advisory body to the government. In practice, the business organisations were successful only in some sectors that had a lot of small businesses, such as agriculture and retail. The formation of the Agricultural Board, for which each farmer had to pay a mandatory tax, often led to a real entanglement between farmers’ organisations and the Ministry of Agriculture. The Boerenpartij (Farmers Party) of Hendrik Koekkoek, which had populist features, emerged in the 1960s from opposition to the power of the Agricultural Board and to politics of the dominant parties.

98 

Philip van Pr a ag

The SER managed to build up considerable authority in the 1950s and 1960s. The mostly unanimous advices it offered on a large number of socioeconomic issues were almost always taken up rapidly by the government. With the Council’s help, politicians could be assured of broad support for their policies. Consensus on the conduct of socio-economic policy and procedural consensus were closely linked during this period.

5.7

The dominance of the denominational parties

The substantive policy consensus described briefly here fits poorly into Lijphart’s pillarization model. In 1980, the Amsterdam political scientist Hans Daudt turned against another important part of this model: the statement that the political leaders of the various blocs regarded each other as equal partners in putting together the government. Daudt was responding to the failed attempt in 1977 to build a second coalition Cabinet leaded by the social democratic leader Den Uyl. In fact, he turns against an important part of the procedural consensus, and rightly points out that the pacification of 1917 started a long era of Christian Democratic dominance. The resolution of the conflicts about the financing of religious schools and universal suffrage removed a major point of disagreement between the liberals and the large confessional parties. It opened the way to permanent and mostly stable cooperation of the Christian parties with the various liberal parties. The introduction of universal suffrage and proportional representation in 1917 was not so much the starting point of overall cooperation between equal elites, but was above all the beginning of a period of more than 80 years in which large denominational parties were dominant. If we survey the period from 1917, it turns out that the Catholic KVP, later absorbed into Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), took part in every government up to 1994, and also showed a clear preference for non-left coalition partners such as the Liberals or, before 1939, the Liberal Democrats. It was only in 1939 that the Social Democrats were invited for the first time to take part in a ruling coalition. After World War II, the Labour Party PvdA participated in government for 12 years, from 1946 to 1958. After that, the party was a semi-permanent opposition party for more than 30 years. Its only substantial period in power up to 1989 came during the years of the Den Uyl Cabinet, from 1973 to 1977. Daudt is of the opinion that, in 1925, W. H. Nolens, the leader of the Roman Catholic State party RKSP, formulated the principle according to which potential left-wing government partners were approached: ‘in dire

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

99

necessity’ could they come up for consideration as partners in a coalition government. Daudt does understand this: Actually, it is quite obvious: why should groups who find the existing society in principle acceptable and who rely on a large majority of votes and seats, cooperate in government with groups who say they stand for drastic changes in society through government intervention? This is in fact done ‘only in dire necessity’, and whether it is to happen is determined, on behalf of the non-left-wing potential governing parties, mainly by successively the RKSP, KVP, and CDA. (Daudt 1980: 186)

He does add that it is not necessarily a matter of conscious, preconceived intentions, whereby the denominational negotiators would already have had a clear goal in mind from the beginning in forming the Cabinet. And he shows what role substantive political and numerical considerations of ‘dire necessity’ have played in the Labour Party’s participation in government after 1945. The Den Uyl Cabinet could be formed only because there was no alternative majority. Even if we don’t agree with Daudt on all points (Van den Berg 1986), we can see all the same that his views are an important addition to Lijphart’s. Dutch politics after 1945 cannot be understood without taking into account the dominant position of the denominational parties, and the efforts of the Labour Party, and later D’66 (Democraten ’66) as well, to erode that dominance. From 1966 on, these efforts were expressed both in proposals for constitutional renewal and in attacks on the political rules of the game.

5.8

The end of institutional consensus: proposals for constitutional renewal

In the second half of the 1960s, there was a change in the attitude on the part of large groups of the Dutch public to politics and the major political parties. The reason for this must be sought in major post-war social changes, such as the development of the welfare state, the rapid rise in prosperity, secularisation and depillarization. The political docility and passivity of the citizens declined, especially among the younger generations. The rise of D66 (written D’66 up to 1985) and of the Farmers Party were a symptom of this. Both the institutional consensus and the procedural consensus have been debated since the 1960s. The institutional conservatism of CDA and the conservative liberal VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie,

100 

Philip van Pr a ag

People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) in particular would, however, block many proposals for several decades. In the mid-1960s, three coalitions appeared, each time with a different political composition, on the basis of the 1963 election results. This was a stumbling block for many citizens. After a difficult formation period the Marijnen Cabinet was formed consisting of the three major Christian Democratic parties – the Catholic KVP, the orthodox Protestant ARP (Anti-Revolutionaire Partij), and the Protestant CHU (Christelijk Historische Unie) – as well as the liberal VVD. In 1965, this Cabinet fell and was replaced by the Cals Cabinet of KVP, ARP and the social democratic PvdA. After more than a year this Cabinet in turn was brought down in the Second Chamber of Parliament2 by the KVP (on what is known as the Schmelzers’ Night3) and succeeded by Zijlstra’s interim Cabinet, which had members from the KVP and the ARP. Various proposals for constitutional reform were circulated in response to these developments. That marked the beginning of a debate on the voters’ lack of influence on the composition of the coalition cabinet. And the debate is still going on. The founders of the progressive liberal D66 spoke in 1966 about their ‘sense of displeasure regarding a number of phenomena in our parliamentary democracy’. The new party called for an elected Prime Minister and a ‘modern form of the first-past-the-post system’. Breaking up the existing party system was an important objective for the democrats. After the successful elections of 1967, D66 leader Hans van Mierlo spoke about the desirability of having the existing parties ‘explode’. In the 1967 report Een stem die telt (A Vote That Counts), the Labour Party PvdA called for the formation of two political concentrations through ballot-box agreements before the elections (Van Thijn 1967). Each bloc would have to try to get a majority on the basis of a common programme, a common list of candidates for parliament, a candidate for Prime Minister and candidate ministers. A conservative ballot-box agreement was to form around the conservative liberal VVD, while the PvdA would be at the heart of a progressive ballot-box agreement. There was no longer any room in this vision for the denominational parties. The elected Prime Minister was rejected as contrary to the Dutch parliamentary system and as conducive to a further erosion of the position of Parliament. However, the PvdA called for a revision of the electoral system to give more influence to the voters over the formation of the government. 2 Second Chamber (Tweede Kamer) is the Lower House of the Dutch Parliament, the First Chamber or Senate is the Higher House of the Parliament. 3 Schmelzer was in 1966 the political leader of the KVP.

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

101

The proposals by D66 and the Labour Party had in common that they wanted to increase the influence of the voters and wanted to avoid a situation in which the main compromises in Dutch politics would be adopted after the elections, during the Cabinet formation. A not-insignificant side effect of the proposals would be that the power of the Christian centre parties to choose a coalition partner during the formation of the Cabinet would disappear. D66 was guided by the example of the presidential system in the United States, while the Labour Party was charmed more by practice in the UK. In the period after 1967, several concrete proposals for constitutional (institutional) reforms were discussed in the Second Chamber of Parliament. The proposals put forward by a majority of the State Advisory Committee on the Constitution and the Electoral Law, better known as the Cals-Donner State Commission, included the introduction of an elected Cabinet formateur – a person who was charged with forming a new government and who was a weak variant of the elected Prime Minister – and a moderate district system: there were to be 12 multi-member districts within which the system of proportional representation would apply. The De Jong Cabinet of Christian Democratic parties and the Liberal party, which the State Commission had installed, did not adopt the proposals. Just a single change proposed by the Commission was passed: the abolition of compulsory voting (1970). In 1985, a new commission, the State Advisory Commission on the Relation between Voters and Policy-Making (the Biesheuvel State Commission) recommended, among other things, that the role of the Second Chamber of Parliament in forming the Cabinet be bolstered. To this end, the Second Chamber had to appoint, within three weeks of the elections, a formateur, who, if the exercise was successful, would automatically become Prime Minister. If their formation did not succeed, the Second Chamber would once again have to appoint a formateur. The accountability of the formateur to the Second Chamber House was an important principle of the Biesheuvel Commission. The Commission also was hoping to increase openness and to shorten the formation period. The role of the King in the formation of the Cabinet, the last important political role of the Head of State, would disappear. The Commission in addition proposed to introduce a corrective legislative referendum. In such a referendum, a bill that is approved by the Second Chamber can be subject of a referendum. A corrective referendum would have to take place if 300,000 voters requested it. Such a referendum gives the voters the ability to veto a bill. The coalition of CDA and VVD did not adopt the state commission’s proposals.

102 

Philip van Pr a ag

Small institutional changes In 1994 CDA and VVD lost their majority in the Second Chamber of Parliament, it created some room for institutional changes. The parties of the purple Cabinet – the social democratic PvdA, the conservative liberal VVD and the progressive liberal D66 – agreed in 1994, on a proposal by D66, to introduce a binding referendum. The required amendment to the Constitution needed two readings in Parliament. At the second reading, where no changes can be made to the proposal, a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Parliament is required. The proposal to introduce a corrective referendum failed, it was voted down on a second reading in the First Chamber of Upper House in 1999. (This was known as the Night of Wiegel). An Advisory Referendum Act was finally passed in 2015. This private member’s bill, introduced by the Labour Party, D66 and GroenLinks (GreenLeft), makes it possible to request a non-binding referendum on a bill that has been adopted, provided the request is supported by at least 300,000 citizens. The outcome is valid if at least 30 percent of the electorate vote. The referendum on the association treaty with Ukraine in 2016 was the first to be held under this law. The first national referendum in the Netherlands, however, on the European Constitution, was already held in 2005. It was a so-called consultative referendum, which did not take place at the request of the voters but was initiated by the legislature. What happens formally in a consultative referendum is that the Upper and Lower Houses ask the electorate for advice before making a decision. In both an advisory and a consultative referendum, Parliament can ignore the results in whole or in part, but that will often lead to discontent. At the local level, a good number of municipalities already offer their citizens the possibility of requesting a referendum. Such a corrective referendum at the local level is similarly not binding, but in practice the municipal councils follow the results if the conditions have been met. Especially in Amsterdam (the IJburg construction project) but also in cities such as Rotterdam, Groningen, Zwolle and in some smaller towns, different referenda of this kind have been held (Van Praag 2000). Another institutional point that was debated for years concerns the appointment of the Mayor. The Crown still appoints the Mayor on the recommendation of the Minister for the Interior, but these days the opinion of the City Council in question is decisive. Many parties want to change the appointment by the Crown. For that to happen, the Constitution has to be changed. In 2005, the First Chamber rejected, in a second reading, a proposal by D66 Minister Thom de Graaf. The Labour Party group voted against,

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

103

among other things because the party wants to replace the appointment by the Crown with an appointment by the City Council and not with a mayor elected by the citizens. On another point, an important change was indeed passed, but no change in the law was needed for that. For the formation of the Cabinet in 2012, for the first time, in accordance with the earlier proposals of the Biesheuvel Commission, the formateur and the informateur – the politicians appointed to organize the formation of a coalition government – were appointed by the Second Chamber of Parliament. The Head of State no longer plays a role in the building of a governing coalition. In many countries, the political debate in recent years has been marked by an increasing criticism of the political system in its existing institutional form. The institutional consensus is declining not only in the Netherlands, but in a lot of other countries, too. Various forms of referenda are on the rise. What is striking is that, regardless of whether a country has an electoral system based on proportional representation or a first-past-the-post system or one or another kind, the criticism is often directed at the electoral system. The fact that in almost all countries there is dissatisfaction with the electoral system leads to modest expectations about the benefits of any change.

5.9

Attack on the rules of the game in politics

From the 1960s on, many politicians also saw another way to change Dutch consensus democracy. This approach took the form of an outright rejection of the compromise-oriented political culture and its rules of the game. The attack on procedural consensus came especially from D66 and the Labour Party, they wanted to increase clarity in politics by announcing before the elections with which parties they might want to form a coalition, and with which ones not. Programmatic clarity to the voters was provided by indicating in advance which points of their programmes they wanted to see included in the coalition agreement and which ones the party would not compromise on. This led to the presentation, during the election campaign, of a non-negotiable minimum programme, which would have to be accepted without changes by any coalition partners. In practice, the Labour Party PvdA heightened considerably the differences with the confessional parties in particular, in what would come to be known as the polarisation strategy. The hope was that the pursuit of clarity before the elections would prevent the traditional way of building a coalition through negotiations after them, and undermine also the dominant position of the denominational parties.

104 

Philip van Pr a ag

In 1972, the three cooperating progressive parties (PvdA, D66 and a small new party) went one step further and published, before the election, a detailed common coalition agreement, Keerpunt 1972 (Turning Point 1972), which could not be negotiated after the elections that year. In addition the progressive three also presented a shadow Cabinet led by Den Uyl, just as they had in 1971. During the process of forming the Cabinet in late 1972/ early 1973, it seemed as though the objectives of the progressive parties would be realised. After a difficult and tumultuous formation process, the Den Uyl Cabinet, strikingly left-wing by Dutch standards, came into being. It was made up of 10 ministers from the progressive three and 6 from the Christian Democratic parties KVP and ARP. The rules of the game from the pillarization played only a limited role in the formation of the Den Uyl Cabinet and, more generally, in the period from 1967 to 1977. Business of politics was replaced in the case of the progressive parties by an aversion to compromises with the confessional parties. The tolerance and the respect for each other’s principles had given way to a strong tendency in the Labour Party to overdo conflicts with the Catholic KVP and denigrate this party. In addition, the progressives consciously dropped the principle of proportionality in building the Den Uyl Cabinet. Depoliticisation was replaced by a commitment to politicisation. In 1974, in the terminology of those days, Daalder offered the overview shown in table 1. Table 1 Changing Rules of the Game in Dutch Politics Rules of the game, 1917-1968, Dominant rules of the game in 1974 according to Lijphart according to Daalder 1

Business of politics

2 3

Tolerance Summit diplomacy

4

Proportionality

5 6

Depoliticisation Secrecy

7

The government right to govern

Source: Daalder 1974: 38

Unmasking of the ideology of the Establishment: the need for a critical social vision Contestation and conflict model Self-determination at the base Polarisation as a means of forming an exclusive majority based on a one’s own fixed program Politicisation Openness ‘Rule of the Council of Ministers’, ‘The Fourth Estate’, ‘Powerless Parliament’,

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

105

For quite some time, the Labour Party maintained the illusion that it had finally conquered the dominant position in Dutch politics. The disintegration of the confessional parties was expected to steadily continue. In 1977, the polarisation strategy came back like a boomerang against the Labour Party (Van Praag 1991). In the elections, the Labour Party, led by Den Uyl, won 10 seats with the slogan ‘Choose the Prime Minister, choose Den Uyl’, and became the largest party, with 53 seats of the 150 seats in the Second Chamber of Parliament. The three Christian parties, participating for the first time under the name Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), however, recaptured their powerful position in the centre of Dutch politics. The party could form a majority coalition both with the social democratic PvdA and with the liberal VVD. To the dismay of many PvdA politicians, the Christian Democrats decided, after five months of difficult negotiations with the Labour Party, to govern with the VVD, the conservative liberals. The polarisation strategy of PvdA had failed. Up to 1982, CDA was still somewhat ill at ease in its use of the dominance it had regained, but with the arrival of Ruud Lubbers as political leader and prime minister, it displayed increasing self-confidence. In 1986, CDA even made the continuation of the coalition with VVD an issue in the elections (‘Let Lubbers Finish His Job’). It was a great success: the party won 9 seats, thus increasing its total haul to 54. In 1989, Lubbers managed to keep this number of seats, but five years later there was an end to the success of the Christian Democrats. After a dramatic election defeat, with a loss of 20 seats, the dominant position of CDA finally seemed to have come to an end. As the largest party that year, the Labour Party formed a coalition with conservative liberal VVD and progressive liberal D66. This became known as the first purple Cabinet. For the first time in 75 years, no denominational party participated in the Cabinet. In 1998, CDA was still only the third party in the Netherlands, but in 2002, the tumultuous year in which Fortuyn was murdered, it won 43 seats under Balkenende’s leadership and recaptured its position as the largest party. Up until 2010 it remained the largest party, and could once again decide whether it wanted to form a centre-right or a centre-left coalition. In 2010 it had to yield the leading position as the largest party to the VVD, led by Mark Rutte.

106 

Philip van Pr a ag

Temporarily restoring the rules of the game? Parallel to Christian Democratic Appeal’s regaining its dominant position, the rules of the political game from the time of pillarization made a comeback in the eighties. The explanation for this development must be sought in the slow de-ideologising and depolarising that took place after 1977. In the early 1980s, the issue of locating cruise missiles was for the moment the last highly polarising conflict in Dutch politics. In the last decade of the twentieth century, it was rather the case that the political elites emphasised so strongly the need for constructive cooperation that a purple governing coalition between PvdA and VVD – who had turned their backs on each other for decades – became possible. The rules of the game were brought back into practice bit by bit. Thus, the openness around the formation of Cabinets was considerably reduced, there were multiple summit meetings within and between the governing parties, and the political elites once again attached great importance to proportionality. For the period after 1977, it is not only that the rules of the game were brought back in. Two important new rules were also added. The first concerns the call for new elections after a Cabinet crisis in which things can no longer be patched up. Before 1967, a rupture in the Cabinet still led at times to a Cabinet with a different make-up, such as in 1965, when the Marijnen Cabinet was followed by the Cals Cabinet. After 1967, the political parties no longer saw this as an acceptable option. An unresolvable conflict in the Cabinet or between a party in the government and the Cabinet now leads to fresh elections. What is important is that this new rule of the game puts the brakes on an interim change in partners on the part of a major ruling party. It forces parties to be accountable to voters after a Cabinet crisis. A second new rule of the game is the practice whereby the Prime Minister belongs to the largest party in the government. Up to 1972, the Prime Minister regularly came from another party (Colijn in 1933 and 1937, Drees in 1948, Biesheuvel in 1971), partly because the largest party in the government, the Catholic KVP, was in the habit of not having its political leader join the government. The increased power of the Prime Minister within the Cabinet, and the electoral appeal of a successful Prime Minister at elections, make the Presidency of the Council of Ministers today a much-sought-after position. As a result, election campaigns over the last few decades have been strongly dominated by the question of which party will be the largest. However, it is not a foregone conclusion that the largest party will take part in the government. If it is unable to form a majority coalition, it sometimes ends up in opposition.

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

107

Table 2 Recent developments in the rules of the game Rules of the game, 1917– 1968, according to Lijphart

Rules of the game in 2017

1

Business of politics

Businesslike and emotional politics

2

Tolerance

Limited tolerance

3

Summit diplomacy

Selective Summit diplomacy

4

Proportionality

Proportionality

5

Depoliticisation

Symbolic politicisation

6

Secrecy

Restricted openness

7

The government rules

Big role for the governing parties

8

–

No change in a coalition without elections

9

–

The Prime Minister comes from the largest governing party

5.10

The end of businesslike politics?

Two thousand and two was a turbulent year, especially with Pim Fortuyn’s success and dead, and it marked the start of a renewed attack on a few important rules of the game in consensus democracy. It also marked the end of the substantive consensus on a number of key social issues. Fortuyn introduced a new style in politics whereby the norm was no longer a certain restraint and detachment, but the emotional concerns of the politician concerned: I say what I think (De Beus 2002; Wansink 2004). The businesslike approach to social problems and tensions has been under pressure ever since (table 2). It is reflected in topics with which Wilders, following the footsteps of Fortuyn, has created a name for himself. It’s about topics that worries large groups of the population: security, the influx of refugees, the role of Islam in society, and European integration. Some voters feel insecure and threatened by the rapid social and cultural changes, and believe that many established parties are ignoring their concerns. Since 2002, politicians from various parties consciously play up the strong living feelings of voters, made harsh and little nuanced statements, and come up with radical proposals whose effectiveness and feasibility are sometimes dubious. Thus in 2016, Prime Minister Rutte commented on images of young people of Turkish descent who were harassing a cameraman from NOS news,

108 

Philip van Pr a ag

public television, by telling them to ‘piss off’. The current media landscape guarantees maximum attention to this kind of statement (see Chapter 10, on the media). The brutal and sometimes emotional confrontations between politicians are an expression of the sharply increased divisions in society. The tolerance of cultural, religious and sometimes ideological differences is on the wane. In the past, the rules of the game functioned to make sure that deep divisions in society would not be further polarised by the political elite. The rules of the game made it possible for Catholics, Protestants and secular groups to co-exist peacefully while keeping their own beliefs, culture and organisations. But the fact is, the way some politicians are conducting themselves these days is not helping things. However, it is still too early to declare that these typically Dutch rules of the political game are a part of the past. The criticism around 1970 of consensus democracy and the accompanying rules of the game rules also died down over the years. It is not impossible that this will happen again. In the Dutch multi-party system, parties who want to come to power still have to be ready to work together and engage in compromises.

5.11

New dissension and a changing political balance of power

The turbulent 1960s and 1970s have had little impact on the institutional features of Dutch democracy. In 1989 Lijphart observed that the eight characteristics of a consensus democracy that he had previously posited, still applied to the Netherlands. Almost 30 years later, it can be determined that while minor institutional changes have been made – such as the introduction of the consultative referendum and the appointment of the Cabinet formateur by Parliament – the structural features of the political system have not changed. Lijphart’s conclusion about the institutional conservatism applies not only to the political institutions but also to the Dutch consultation economy. The SER (Socio-Economic Council), the tripartite consultative body of employers, employees and independent experts, has shown a remarkable ability to survive. In the debate on the desirability of institutional reforms, it has stayed well out of harm’s way. It was only in the 1990s that its formal position within the Dutch collective-bargaining economy was called into question and that the Second Chamber decided that the Government was no longer obliged to seek its advice on numerous policy issues. But this change has had no major consequences for its position. Although it no longer has the authority it had in the first 20 years of its existence, and while it sometimes has to put in more work to come to a unanimous opinion, its role is certainly

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

109

not finished. When it comes to important socio-economic issues such as the position of self-employed professionals without staff, the change of the law governing dismissal, and the statutory minimum wage for youth, its recommendations still have considerable influence on decision-making. Lijphart noted in 1989 that in Dutch consensus democracy the composition of the coalition Cabinets had changed markedly. Up to 1967, the multi-party Cabinets were usually oversized – that is, more parties took part in the government than was strictly necessary for the majority in the Second Chamber. After 1967, the minimal winning majority Cabinet of two or sometimes three parties became much more common. This trend has continued ever since, and has gone hand in hand in the last decades with radical changes in the balance of power between parties. The electoral position of the two largest traditional parties, Christian Democratic CDA and the social democratic PvdA was weakened considerably, and the third traditional party, the liberal VVD, although it has been the largest since 2010, is less dominant than CDA in earlier decades. The Christian Democrats determined in most cases whether a centre-right or a centre-left governing coalition would be formed, but the liberals are less capable of doing that. That is not only because the liberals have enjoyed less electoral success than the Christian Democrats did in the past, the best result of the liberals is 41 seats in 2012, but also because the parties on the far left and the right have more power and position themselves outside the traditional political centre (Pellikaan et al. 2016). This primarily involves Geert Wilders’s right-wing populist PVV (Party for Freedom), but also the left wing SP (Socialist Party). These two parties are opposing core elements of the more moderate centrist parties’ policies, and are unwilling, or at least disinclined, to compromise on policy areas that are important to them. The electoral success of these parties hampers the formation of a majority Cabinet. For the first time in 2010, a minority Cabinet was formed – the first Rutte Cabinet, made up of members of VVD and CDA. This Cabinet had the parliamentary support of Wilders’ PVV, which unexpectedly withdraw that support after two years, however. The willingness of these two parties to govern with the PVV has since been absent entirely or close to it. Other parties had already had longstanding principled objections to governing with Wilders’ PVV. If it is possible to form a majority Cabinet made up of centrist parties, it cannot be taken for granted, given the increase in electoral volatility, that the Cabinet has a majority in the Upper House. The second Rutte Cabinet of VVD and PvdA (2012-2017) had a narrow majority in the Second Chamber of Parliament, but operated in the First Chamber as a minority Cabinet.

110 

Philip van Pr a ag

The fragmentation of the political landscape is a problem, and forces the ruling coalition in the daily practice to seek broad support. Whereas in the past the coalition agreement automatically guaranteed the Cabinet a majority in both Houses, it often happens now that there have to be negotiations with the opposition parties on each important decision. This stimulates public debate on important policy measures, and gives parties outside the government influence on policy. The political support for many drastic measures in the Second Chamber is often considerable. On this score, the institutions and procedures of consensus democracy work as they should. Despite the broad parliamentary support for many policies, it is clear that substantive consensus among the population has seen a steep decline in recent decades. A large minority of the population, and sometimes even a majority, disagree fundamentally with the policy on important topics. This concerns not only the influx of immigrants and refugees, but also European integration, the increase in retirement age, and care for the elderly. A lot of dissension and new divisions mark the current political landscape (see Chapter 7). Many voters feel they are not being taken seriously, and this could in time erode the legitimacy of the system (Thomassen et al. 2014). It is a challenge for the current political system, but it is precisely a consensus democracy, developed to keep contradictions manageable, that could meet this challenge.

5.12

Concluding remarks

Consensus democracies evolved in small societies with strong religious and linguistic divisions such as Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The political institutions and political procedures in these countries aim to promote compromises, generate consensus and stop groups from dominating one other. Compromises are usually made after the elections, and this prompts increasing resistance. Since the 1960s in the Netherlands, there has been a debate about institutional changes that would give more influence to the voter, but that has led only to the introduction of the non-binding consultative referendum. Nothing has changed in the electoral system based on proportional representation, which is essential for consensus democracy. Despite the criticism of the system, significant institutional changes cannot be expected. For that to happen, a broad new consensus on the changes deemed to be desirable would have to evolve, and there is still no evidence of that. The political culture of the elite, as it appears from the informal rules of the game, seemed for a long time to be a lot easier to change. The citizens’ political behaviour, both inside and outside the polling station, has changed

Consensus Democr ac y in the Ne therl ands

111

markedly since the 1960s. That forces the political elite to reflect on her style of conducting politics. The attempts that have been made in that direction since the 1960s have had no lasting impact. Discontent with the political culture has subsided, the rules of the game have been adjusted on a few points, but have proved difficult to change on others. The success of Pim Fortuyn led to a renewed attack on important aspects of political culture, such as the businesslike way of engaging politics, respect for your opponents, and openness to compromise. Geert Wilders’ PVV, but also politicians of other parties, consciously respond to emotions that live among the population. It remains to be seen whether this will keep eating away at the rules of the game. The current electoral system continues however to force the parties to cooperate. Compromises are still necessary but are made considerably harder by the new divisions in politics. There is no broad consensus among the population, not just on important areas in which the welfare state is undergoing retrenchment, such as the retirement age and the pension system, but also on topics such as the influx of immigrants and refugees and European integration. In the past, a reasonable consensus developed over time on hotly contested topics. The question is whether Dutch consensus democracy will be capable of bringing this about again.

References Berg, J.Th.J. van den (1986). ‘Hervormingen, machtsverhoudingen en coalitievorming in Ne­ derland’ [‘Reforms, Power Relations and the Formation of Coalitions in the Netherlands’]. Acta Politica, (XXI): 265-290. Beus, J. de (2002). Na de beeldenstorm, een beschouwing over de werking van de toeschouwersdemocratie [After the Iconoclasm, a Reflection on the Functioning of Audience Democracy] (Etty Hillesum Lecture). Heerde: Langhout & De Vries. Daalder, H. (1974). Politisering en lijdelijkheid in de Nederlandse politiek [Politicisation and Passivity in Dutch Politics]. Assen, Van Gorcum. Daudt, H. (1980). ‘Ontwikkelingen van de politieke machtsverhoudingen in Nederland sinds 1945’ [‘Developments in the Political Balance of Power in the Netherlands since 1945’]. In: H.B.G. Casimir et al., Nederland na 1945. Beschouwingen over ontwikkeling en beleid [The Netherlands after 1945. Reflections on Development and Policy], 178-197. Deventer: van Loghum en Slaterus. Katzenstein, Peter, J. (1985). Small States in World Markets. Industrial Policy in Europe. Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press. Kavanagh, D. (1987). Thatcherism and British Politics. The End of Consensus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lijphart, A. (1968). Verzuiling, pacificatie en de kentering in de Nederlandse politiek [Pillarization, pacification and change in Dutch politics]. Haarlem: Becht.

112 

Philip van Pr a ag

Lijphart, A. 1984. Democracies, Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in TwentyOne Countries. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Lijphart, A. (1989). ‘From Accommodation to Adversarial Politics in the Netherlands: a Reassessment.’ In: H. Daalder & G.A. Irwin (eds), Politics in the Netherlands: How Much Change? 139-154. London: Frank Cass. Pellikaan, H., de Lange, S.L., & Van der Meer, T.W.G. (2016). ‘The Centre Does Not Hold: Coalition Politics and Party System Change in the Netherlands, 2002-12’. Government and Opposition (internet publication). Praag, Ph. van (1991). Strategie en illusie. Elf jaar intern debat in de PvdA (1966-1977) [Strategy and Illusion: Eleven years of Internal Debate in the Labour Party (1966-1977)]. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Praag, Ph. van (2000). ‘Hoe serieus nemen we de burger; de stagnerende opmars van het lokale referendum’ [‘How Seriously We Take the Citizen: the Stagnant Growth of the Local Referendum’]. In: F. Hendriks & P. Tops (eds), Stad in spagaat; institutionele innovatie in het stadsbestuur [City in a Dilemma: Institutional Innovation in the City Government], 113-128. Assen: Van Gorcum. Richardson, J.J. (1993). ‘Interest Group Behaviour in Britain: Continuity and Change’. In: Richardson, Jeremy J. (ed.), Pressure Groups, 86-99. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thijn, E. van (1967). ‘Van partijen naar stembusakkoorden’ [‘From Parties to Ballot-Box Agreements’]. In: E.C.M. Jurgens et al., Partijvernieuwing? [Party Renewal?], 54-73. Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers. Thomassen, J., Ham, C. van & Andeweg, R. (2014). De wankele democratie; heeft de democratie haar beste tijd gehad? [Shaky Democracy: Is Democracy Past its Time?]. Amsterdam: Prometheus Bert Bakker. Wansink, H. (2004). De erfenis van Fortuyn. De Nederlandse democratie na de opstand van de kie­ zers [Fortuyn’s Legacy: Dutch democracy after the Rebellion of the Electorate]. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff. Windmuller, John, P. (1970). Arbeidsverhoudingen in Nederland [Industrial relations in the Netherlands] (later editions in collaboration with C. de Galan [1977] and with C. de Galan & A.F. van Zweden [1983]). Utrecht: Het Spectrum.

Part 2 Political Actors

6

Citizens and Politics Political Participation and Political Trust Tom van der Meer

6.1 Introduction Democracy is unthinkable without involved, active citizens. At the same time, there is considerable ambivalence about the role that citizens play in a modern democracy. French political philosopher Pierre Rosanvallon (2012) outlines the history of modern representative democracy as a structural ‘fear of the irrationality of the masses and the unpredictability of the electorate’. That tension in normative thinking about democracy is reflected in the contrast between Joseph Schumpeter and Robert Dahl. Whereas Schumpeter’s procedural approach, out of mistrust, reduced the role of the citizen to taking part in elections, Dahl pleaded for a citizenship, complete with civil rights, that could be expressed through political participation at various levels of decision-making. Even today, the debate about the state of democracy keeps coming back to the role that citizens play. There are regular references to citizens as the cause of a democratic crisis. Some think that such a crisis is reflected in a deepening chasm of mistrust between citizens and politicians. Others believe that citizens find it difficult to work up enough interest to become politically active. Still others are opposed to this idea, and call instead for a more central role for citizens. They believe that direct democracy would, through referenda and directly elected rulers, give citizens a more decisive voice in decision making. Through town halls or lotteries, participatory democracy would, they believe, get citizens more involved in political discussions. DIY democracy would give citizens the means to manage their own environment without direct state influence. For a long time, research on citizens played a relatively marginal role in research on politics. Most attention was paid to formal institutions or to the political elites within them. This began to change after World War II. The role citizens played got more and more scholarly attention. A first strand of research focused on citizens as voters, and on explaining voting behaviour during elections, which determines the composition of parliament (see Chapter 7). A second emphasises other roles that citizens play in politics:

116 

Tom van der Meer

their behaviours, their values and their views on politics. This chapter focuses on the second strand.

6.2

Citizenship and political culture

Political culture Research on civic values and behaviours is often placed under the rubric of political culture, which can be understood as the set of standards and values regarding democracy and politics that give meaning to the political process, and that outline the assumptions and rules that shape a political system (Pye 1968). A political culture thus gives meaning to formal political institutions such as the electoral system. The same institutions can be shaped by that culture in radically different ways. We need to clearly distinguish between the political culture of citizens and those of the elite. The two are related, but they are not the same. In this chapter, we will focus on the citizens. Chapter 5, which is about consensus democracy, looks at the political culture of the Dutch elite. A political culture implies some degree of homogeneity of norms and values within a political community. After all, a culture transcends the specific views of an individual. When we talk about a political culture, we must therefore beware of two logical fallacies. First, not everyone in a country will embrace the dominant political culture. There is the risk of an ecological error when we ascribe the features of a group to the individuals within that group. Second, a political culture is not necessarily the same as the sum of the values of the individuals in the country. Citizens can be fairly progressive while the political culture is conservative, and vice versa. Attributing individuals’ features to the group is known as the individualistic fallacy. In practice, we see that a lot of research on citizens – and on their values, beliefs and behaviours – is done according to a wide range of theoretical approaches. In political science we distinguish, among other approaches, behaviourism, political psychology, political sociology, the rational-choice approach and neo-institutionalism – all of which are approaches that also partly overlap. Each of these approaches looks holistically not only at political culture at the macro level, but also, to a greater or lesser extent, at the diversity of values, beliefs and behaviours at the micro level.

Citizens and Politics

117

Influential lines of research Research on political culture already has a long history. A well-known precursor is the empirical and philosophical work of the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and in particular his book, Democracy in America, in which he went looking for the essence of democracy. Tocqueville came to believe that equality, both political and legal, was at the core of a democratic society. But that meant, he thought, that democracy also faced a challenge: How could community spirit exist without a natural, hierarchical organisation among citizens? According to Tocqueville, the solution lay in free associations. Arranging democracy in a decentralised way, he wrote, would force citizens to join in on community tasks such as building roads, churches and schools. Such associations, he believed, would be able to maintain a sense of community in a democracy, and thus act as a crucial enabler for the survival of a democracy. The impact of Tocqueville’s work on different lines of post-war research is difficult to overestimate. After World War II, research on political citizenship and political culture increased rapidly, thanks in part to the development of the discipline and the increasing availability of surveys. 1963 saw the publication of The Civic Culture by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba. These two political scientists focused on the question of democratic stability. In the interwar period, some democracies had lapsed into authoritarianism and totalitarianism, while others had not. Almond and Verba explained this on the basis of political culture. In their comparative analysis of five countries – the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, Italy and Mexico – they distinguished three ideal types. Parochial culture is characterised by citizens who are hardly aware of the central government and/or take little account of it or its laws. Mexico in the 1950s and 1960s, they wrote, would be close to the ideal type of parochial culture. A subject culture has citizens who are strongly aware of the central government, but who are for the most part loyal to the administration (government and civil service) and obey the law. Germany would, they wrote, approach the ideal subject-culture type. Finally, participant culture has a more interactive relationship between citizens and politics, in which citizens help shape the political process as much as they accept the results of that process. Based on their survey-based research, Almond and Verba conclude that a stable democracy should be a mix of the three ideal types. According to their analyses, the US and the UK fit the bill.

118 

Tom van der Meer

Less than 10 years later, a second influential study of political culture appeared. In the second half of the 1960s, the Western world saw the emergence of a new youth culture, with its student protests, hippie movement, and so on. In his 1977 book, The Silent Revolution, which elaborated on an earlier article from 1971, Ronald Inglehart argued that core values were changing. The post-war generation had, he noted, grown up in a time of relative prosperity and peace, and had thus developed political values other than those the generation before it had held. Inglehart coined the term ‘postmaterialism’. Whereas materialistic values are all about well-being, security and order, post-materialistic values have to do with self-expression, political involvement, voice and the quality of life. Because their material needs had been met, the post-war generation, according to Inglehart’s theory, focused on post-materialistic values. With this interpretation, Inglehart’s theory was linked to Maslow’s pyramid, as it was called, in which core values are organised hierarchically (see figure 1). Figure 1 Maslow’s Pyramid

Self realization Esteem: Appreciation and recognition Belonging Safety and security (physical, financial, and in terms of welfare) Physiological (bodily) needs

Political socialisation plays an important role in Inglehart’s theory. It posits that people’s values, including their political values, are formed at a relatively young age, and that they remain fairly stable during the rest of their lives. For Inglehart, the direction of socialisation is contingent on generational turnover: it emphasises differences between, and homogeneity within, birth cohorts. Long-lasting experiences from an early age with prosperity and security are, on this view, critical to the development of

Citizens and Politics

119

post-materialistic values. Older generations, who grew up in times of greater economic and physical insecurity, put materialistic values first, even if they have become well off later in life. Research on citizenship and civic culture was given new impetus with the appearance of Robert Putnam’s 1993 book, Making Democracy Work. Putnam was not so much interested in the stability of democracy (as Almond and Verba were, for instance) or in value change (as Inglehart was). Rather, he wanted to explain why the same democratic institutions performed so much better in some contexts than in others. Specifically, he focused on Italy. Northern and Southern Italian regions had exactly the same formal institutions, but were growing farther and farther apart in terms of their performance. In order to understand these differences, he developed the concept of social capital. Social capital is the entire set of networks, civic norms and relationships of trust within a given community. As citizens grow more accustomed to working together in associations and organisations, their mutual trust grows. Within associations, members develop social and political skills, become increasingly tolerant and find a growing sense of community. Ultimately, Putnam believed, this social capital would lead to greater participation on the part of citizens, and to better democracy. This theory, too, emphasises political socialisation, but a socialisation that mainly takes place in associations. Civil society makes an important contribution to the democratic system. In the years that followed, Putnam elaborated further on his ideas. He made a distinction between a bridging social capital (networks of, and trust among, citizens from different social groups) and a bonding social capital (networks of, and trust among, citizens within their own groups). Particularly the former, he said, was important for democracy. In 2000, Putnam published Bowling Alone, in which he warned of a decline of social capital in the United States. A few years later, in 2007, he wrote a much-discussed article in which he suggested that an ethnically mixed environment could be detrimental to the social capital in that community. Each of these claims received considerable scholarly and social attention, and each has been disputed. More generally, we can say that research on political culture, civic values and political participation focuses on four issues. In keeping with Almond and Verba’s classical work, the first of these is concerned with the stability of democracy. The second is the quality and the performance of democracy, such as in the work of Putnam. Third, a lot of research is taking place, under the rubric of political socialisation, on how values, attitudes and behaviours are developed and/or transferred within social contexts such

120 

Tom van der Meer

as those of the family, friends, school classes, generations, religious groups, and associations. Finally, a lot of attention is being paid to the diversity of views and to unequal participation between and among groups of citizens. In what follows, I will highlight a number of these issues.

6.3

Political participation

One role that citizens play in a representative democracy is that of active participants in the political process. Citizens engage in a diverse set of activities in order to influence policy. In formal terms, we can describe this political participation as ‘the set of citizens’ activities that are focused on preparing, realising, and/or implementing public policy’. This does not only encompass turnout at elections or participation in demonstrations, but also, for instance, the collection of signatures for a petition, attendance at a town hall, or participation in a boycott. A striking example of a boycott is the decision of some American restaurants in 2003 to pull French products such as wine, cheese, and ‘French fries’ from the menu in protest at the French condemnation of the invasion of Iraq. Political participation can take any number of forms. The definition that political scientists use describes it not only as a set of activities, but as activities based on the underlying objectives that activists have in engaging in them. Activities count as political participation when they aim to influence the process of policy-making. That can lead to remarkable examples. Thus, political scientist Jan van Deth (2012) describes the visit of 44 people to a restaurant in the region of Veneto, Italy, in the autumn of 2004. After whooping it up like mad, the visitors left without paying the bill. They did leave behind a message saying that the tab would be picked up by the Veneto region or by NATO. Because they probably did this as a protest against NATO, officials from which had been to the same restaurant several weeks earlier, this action can, according to the definition, be regarded as political participation. Traditionally, political scientists distinguish between conventional and unconventional political participation. Conventional political participation would include the range of activities that take place within formal representative channels, such as active or passive participation in elections, conducting and supporting campaigns, party membership, and contacts with officials, politicians and the media. Unconventional political participation involves trying to influence policy outcomes through activities outside representative channels, and includes various forms of protest activity

Citizens and Politics

121

such as organising or signing petitions, taking part in demonstrations, and boycotts, ‘buycotts’ and other forms of action. Unconventional political participation does not need to be illegal, although it also includes illegal activities such as unlawful demonstrations and even political violence. The distinction between conventional and non-conventional political participation is less important nowadays. On the one hand, it seems – especially in the Netherlands – that the various forms of participation attract not so very different people in the end. In fact, conventional and unconventional forms of participation are both part of a general repertoire of activities that citizens engage in, depending on the context in which they think these will be most effective. On the other hand, we see more and more new activities that are not easy to categorise according to the traditional distinction. Consider, for instance, ‘lifestyle politics’, creative forms of participation in such activities as art or street festivals, and various forms of e-participation on the internet, in which discussions and petitions meld into each other, and in which political parties and social movements sometimes seem to merge. Conditions for political participation The classical Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote that humans were a zoön politikon, a political (or better yet: social) animal. This is often taken to mean that citizens are by nature politically active. However, that is not the case. Not everyone can become active, not everyone wants to, and not everyone is asked to. Political participation requires political resources, political incentives and a political network. Political resources are the competences that enable citizens to become politically active. This includes such issues as how much time there is to be spent on political activities, the financial resources that enable citizens to campaign or to travel to a demonstration, and social and political skills that enable citizens to make contact with those in power. In addition, citizens also need incentives to become active. In general, citizens become politically active faster if they have a clear goal in mind. An important incentive is dissatisfaction with policy: citizens who are unhappy with policies that have been implemented are more inclined to take action either at the next elections or through demonstrations. Whether they actually become active also depends on their assessment of the extent to which participation will make a difference. Citizens are certainly willing to become active when they have a reason to, but only a small group of citizens feels the incentive to participate on a permanent basis.

122 

Tom van der Meer

Thirdly, citizens must be asked to become active. Certainly when it comes to the articulation of group interests, a political network is essential. Anyone who has a direct network of politically active family members, friends or colleagues has a greater chance of being asked themselves to become active and to internalise the norm that participation is important. That network can also be online, for example on social media. Because not everyone has the same level of access to such a political network, authorities such regularly organise turnout campaigns. Levels of political participation Whether citizens become politically active also depends on the possibilities the system offers. The political system offers more channels for participation by citizens in some countries than in others. The United States, for instance, has all kinds of directly elected public functions. Switzerland has a comprehensive system of regular referenda, in which the population makes its views known directly on all manner of policy proposals. Dutch democracy, by contrast, does not score particularly high in international comparative research as a participatory democracy, among other things because of the lack of such institutions as directly elected mayors and (until recently) referenda. The system can also legally require citizens to become politically active, or forbid them from doing so. In democracies, we see such practices especially at election time. Various countries, including Belgium, Luxembourg, Australia and Argentina, still have compulsory voting: citizens must go to the polls on election day. Other countries make it difficult for citizens to vote. In Switzerland, women did not get the vote until 1971, while in the United States there is a debate raging on what requirements states may or may not impose on citizens who want to vote. The Netherlands had compulsory voting until 1970. Since it was scrapped, the turnout in elections has dropped, especially in second-order elections such as those for city council (54% in 2014), provincial office (48% in 2015) and the European Parliament (37% in 2014) (see Chapter 7 for more on this). The drop seems, however, to have stopped in large measure since the 1990s. In elections for the Lower House of Parliament, turnout is considerably higher. For decades now, it has fluctuated between 74% and 82%. In only a few countries is the turnout in parliamentary elections higher. We can put these countries into three groups: (1) those such as Australia, Belgium and Luxembourg that have compulsory voting, (2) micro states such as Malta, Grenada and the Bahamas, and (3) Nordic countries such as

Citizens and Politics

123

Denmark, Sweden and Iceland. In most democracies, the turnout is lower in parliamentary elections. The numbers for engagement in other forms of political participation are considerably lower than those for turnout in elections. According to both the European Social Survey (2012/2013) and the National Voter Survey (2002-2012) about 40% of the Dutch populace engage in at least one political activity. With this percentage, the Netherlands does not stand out, positively or negatively, in Europe. The number of people who are active has not dropped, but the forms of participation that citizens opt for are changing. The popularity of demonstrations and party-political involvement has decreased significantly, while that of participation via internet or boycotts of products (as a protest against countries or companies), has, by contrast, gone up (SCP 2013; 2015). The fact that many Dutch people are not so politically active is inseparable from the importance they attach to the politics. Politics does not occupy a particularly important place in the lives of many citizens. They would rather spend their time with family and friends, or on working and hobbies. This is in line with the idea of night-watchman citizens (Dekker & Hooghe 2003). This idea states that citizens are not particularly motivated to become active in the long term, except if they see the need – for example, if they disagree with some government policy or because they think there are important choices to be made. They can be mobilised on an ad hoc basis, especially because participation by citizens, or the threat of it, keeps unreliable politicians in line. In the United States, this phenomenon is sometimes also referred to as the monitoring citizen or as part of stealth democracy (see below). Unequal levels of political participation A well-functioning democracy requires not only a high but also an equal level of political participation. And this latter is always a cause for concern. In his speech as President of the American Political Science Association, the political scientist Arend Lijphart (1997) said: ‘As political scientists have known for a long time, participation is highly unequal. And unequal participation spells unequal influence.’ Unequal participation leads to a distortion in the voice that reaches politicians, and therefore to inequality in terms of political influence. The above three conditions for political participation are also the three sources of inequality in political participation. For different reasons, not all groups of citizens are equally capable of becoming active (a lack of

124 

Tom van der Meer

resources), are equally inclined (few incentives) or are asked equally as much (no networks). From a normative stance, the inequality that results from a lack of incentives seems, at this point, the least problematic. That suggests that inactive citizens can still be politically active once they do get such incentives – for instance, because they are growing dissatisfied with some government policy. Inequality in political participation becomes a more serious problem when it comes about because some citizens cannot become active – for example, because they have too little free time or not enough money, or think they lack the right skills. Soon enough this may give way to the idea that politics just is not meant for ‘people like us’. In the field of research on inequality in political participation scholarly attention has been paid especially to the descriptive (socio-demographic) make-up of the group of participants (see a.o. Verba et al. 1978). In the standard image, it is particularly well-educated white middle-aged men – known as the participation elite – who are politically active. That image holds true, to an important extent, for traditional and newer forms of political participation (Vaughn 2016). The problem whereby participants make up some exclusive club even turns up at citizens’ summits that are trying to counter just that kind of distortion (Binnema & Michels 2016). Education is a major source of inequality (Verba et al. 1978). That those with a higher education are more often politically active is not surprising from a theoretical perspective. After all, they generally have more resources at their disposal, such as knowledge and political skills, but also the resulting political confidence; more incentives to become active (if only because they attach more importance to politics); and a politically more engaged social network comprised of others who also have a higher education. As a result, people with a higher education are over-represented at all levels of political participation and decision-making, while the less well educated are under-represented. This phenomenon is also known as ‘diploma democracy’ (Bovens & Wille 2017). A major concern about the distortion of the group of participants in terms of age, gender, level of education, income or ethnicity, is that this may also translate into a bias in their ideology or policy preferences. From a substantive point of view, too, the group of participants is not a good reflection of the rest of the population. In general, there are, at the national level, two structural biases in terms of policy preferences (Van der Meer et al. 2009). First, citizens who lean to the left politically are more likely to be politically active than those on the right; it is only in elections that right-wing citizens are overrepresented, and then just slightly. Second, citizens with more-extreme positions take part more readily in politics than do moderate citizens.

125

Citizens and Politics

Elections are still by far the most egalitarian form of political participation. Significantly more citizens take part in elections than in all other common forms of participation taken together. Only some referenda come close to elections as egalitarian tools of democracy. It is precisely because so many citizens take part in them that they give a more representative cross-section of the population than more-selective alternative forms of participation such as campaigns, town halls, and demonstrations. This means that there is an inherent tension, from a democratic point of view, within political participation. Expanding the opportunities for direct political participation increases the level of public participation, but in practice it does not do that for all groups of citizens in equal measure. This is a tension that always has to be reckoned with.

6.4

Political support

Another important factor that political scientists pay attention to when considering the role of citizens in a democracy, has to do with their political support. By political support we mean the set of attitudes to democracy and politics. The American political scientists Russell J. Dalton (2004) and Pippa Norris (2011) distinguish between different levels of abstraction when it comes to political support in a democracy. This support can be quite Table 1 Political support

Most diffuse

Object

Example

National identity

Patriotism, national pride

Support for the government’s Support for elections and representation principles and core values Rejection of authoritarianism

Most specific

Evaluation of the performance of the regime

Satisfaction with the way elections are conducted Satisfaction with the decision-making process

Confidence in political institutions

Confidence in the government Confidence in parliament

Support for leaders, including those in power, and for their policies

Positive evaluation of specific politicians (such prime minister or party leader) Positive evaluation of a specific policy outcome

Source: Dalton (2004), Norris (2011)

126 

Tom van der Meer

abstract and diffuse – for instance, when citizens feel part of the country in which they live or when they support the core values of democracy. But that support can also be very focused and specific, such as when citizens express their support for a specific politician or policy proposal. Both Dalton and Norris distinguish five levels of political support (see table 1). Diffuse support The most abstract form of support is national identity, the attachment of citizens to the demos. This can express itself in patriotism, national pride or nationalism. This theme is discussed in greater depth in Chapter 3. A slightly less diffuse form has to do with support for the principles and core values of the regime. In a democracy, it is a matter of the importance that citizens attach to living in a democracy, of support for core values such as free elections and the rule of law, and of the rejection of non-democratic forms of government. In most of the established democracies, this support is particularly high. Thus about 95% of the Dutch population believe it is important to live in a democracy, and a similar percentage see democracy as the best form of government (Hendriks et al. 2016). We can break democratic core values down even further. In 2012, the inhabitants of many European countries were asked about the importance they attach to a set of democratic values. Throughout Europe, we see that Figure 2 The importance of democratic norms Free and fair elections 10

Equal treatment before the law

9 8 7

Discussion among voters before they decide how to vote

6 5 4 3 2

Protection of the rights of minorities

1

Reliable information on the government in the media

A range of clear alternatives offered by political parties

Freedom for opposition parties to criticise the government

Freedom for the media to criticise the government The Netherlands established democracies in West and Northern Europe

Spain, Portugal, Cyprus former communist states

Citizens and Politics

127

the importance of those values is disputed hardly at all (see figure 2). Most citizens attach a lot of importance to the rule of law so that everyone is treated equally (averaging a 9.3 on a scale of 0 to 10) and to elections being free and fair (an average of 9.1) – these being key elements of the liberal, representative strain of democracy. But other values, such as the freedom that opposition parties and the media have to criticise the government, are also firmly embraced. Differences among groups of countries in the weight they attach to these democratic values are generally small. Support for democratic values is generally even stronger in Central and Eastern European countries that until a few decades ago still had communist governments, and in various southern European countries that were under authoritarian rule until the 1970s. Support for the principle of democracy should also be expressed in an aversion to non-democratic forms of governance, such as totalitarianism, authoritarianism, aristocracy and technocracy. However, that rejection shows up less clearly in public-opinion polls. Thus more than 30% of Dutch people think it would be a good idea to turn power over to one or more powerful leaders (Hendriks et al. 2015). That said, for many citizens this view is not antidemocratic. The same citizens who call for a strong leader also want more referenda, for instance. These attitudes are not contradictory. The political scientists Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) characterise this combination of views as what they call stealth democracy. In this way of seeing democracy, most citizens prefer not to meddle in politics. They want a strong but democratically elected leader who does what ‘the people’ want. At the same time, they want a lot of democratic resources – elections, referenda – to intervene when it is necessary to correct or dismiss leaders. Satisfaction with democracy Political science pays considerable attention to political support for moreconcrete objects: satisfaction with the performance of democracy, and confidence in political institutions. Satisfaction with the actual performance of democracy actually works at a less abstract level than the diffuse support for democratic principles. This satisfaction has also turned out to be less evident over time. Thus, at the beginning of the 1980s, only 50% to 55% of citizens in the Netherlands answered yes when asked whether they were satisfied with how well democracy was functioning. That has gone up significantly to about 75% in the last 15 years. A level of satisfaction that is higher than that in Germany, Belgium, France and the UK, for example – but it is still lower than in Denmark.

128 

Tom van der Meer

Figure 3  The implementation of democratic norms Free and Fair elections 10

Equal treatment before the law

9 8 7

Discussion among voters before they decide how to vote

6 5 4 3 2

Protection of the rights of minorities

1

Reliable information on the government in the media

A range of clear alternatives offered by political parties

Freedom for opposition parties to criticise the government Freedom for the media to criticise the government

The Netherlands established democracies in West and Northern Europe

Spain, Portugal, Cyprus former communist states

We can also zoom in more specifically on satisfaction, by looking at citizens’ assessments of how the democratic core values discussed above are being applied in their own country (figure 3). Citizens are the most positive about free and fair elections (7.5 out of 10) in Europe as a whole, and 8.2 in the Netherlands). But when it comes to the fulfilment of the other democratic values, the verdict is significantly less positive. Levels of democratic satisfaction are consistently higher in the established democracies of Western Europe than in the younger democracies of Southern and Eastern Europe. Confidence in political institutions Confidence in political institutions is the link between specific political officeholders and government in the abstract. It is a matter, then, of trust that citizens have in government, parliament, political parties and the rule of law. When critics talk about a political crisis of confidence, they are getting at the idea that confidence in these institutions is coming under ever greater pressure. But is that correct? At its core, trust is the evaluation of a relationship between a subject (the one who trusts) and an object (who or what is trusted). A relationship of trust is, by definition, characterised by a certain degree of vulnerability on the part of the subject to the actions of the object, and by a degree of uncertainty

Citizens and Politics

129

about their behaviour. That is also how relationships work among people. For example, you can have confidence that the other will keep secret what you have shared with them. By sharing it, you have become more vulnerable, and will never know for sure that the other will not share it. The greater the risk, the more difficult it is to trust the other. And that is how it works with confidence in politics, too. It is precisely because the government and parliament are so powerful that it is hard to trust them. Confidence in political institutions is also almost always lower, then, than confidence in social institutions such as the educational system or the media. A distinction is made among four aspects of the trust relationship, the aspects that we trust or mistrust. Trust suggests: (i) that the object of the trust has the competence to defend the interests of the subject; (ii) that they inherently care to defend those interests; (iii) that they can be held to account if necessary, so that they think twice before they betray the trust put in them, and (iv) that their behaviour is predictable. We can apply these four aspects to the relationship between citizens and politics. Citizens have views on the competence of politicians (often on the basis of policy outcomes), on the sincerity of politicians’ commitment to the interests of ordinary citizens, on the extent to which they can be called to account if needs be, and about the predictability of policy outcomes. Confidence in politics is the result of a positive verdict on at least some of these aspects. But we must not see the absence of political trust as synonymous with distrust. A crucial category between trust and distrust is often overlooked: scepticism. Scepticism is the attitude in which a judgement is suspended until more information, or new information, becomes available. The most negative attitude is political cynicism: the attitude that the object of political trust (whether that is the actor or the institutions) is inherently no good because it is incompetent or selfish. Publicists, but also academics, warn with great regularity of a crisis of confidence on the part of citizens in the core democratic institutions. The fear of such a crisis of confidence has been there since as long ago as the early 1970s. In public debate in the Netherlands, the crisis of confidence is even regularly presented as an established fact. There is little evidence for the actual existence of such a crisis, either in the Netherlands or in many other parts of the world. There are exceptions: countries and regions where political trust indeed has fallen sharply. In the United States, trust plummeted precipitously between 1960 and 1980, after several political assassinations, the Viet Nam War, and the Watergate scandal. More recently, too, in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the level of confidence in politics has dropped significantly.

130 

Tom van der Meer

Other democracies are not exhibiting this trend. In the Netherlands, confidence fluctuates considerably. In the Eurobarometer, which monitors confidence in governments and parliaments about every six months, confidence alternates from lower than 40% (autumn 2004; autumn 2013) to higher than 70% (autumn 2001; spring 2007; spring 2009) (Hendriks et al. 2016). Also when we compare the level of confidence in the Netherlands with that in other Western democracies, there is no reason to speak of a crisis of confidence. The Netherlands scores really well, coming in just behind the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. The level of trust there is generally higher than in nearby countries such as Germany, Belgium, France and the UK. In any case, confidence in government and parliament is not particularly high in any one democratic country. Only in a small few countries outside Scandinavia is confidence above 50% as a general matter. Such a high degree of confidence in government and parliament is in public-opinion polls such as the World Values Survey reserved for non-democratic countries such as Uzbekistan (98% confidence), China (94%), Qatar (94%), Azerbaijan (81%) and Kazakhstan (80%). What political support do we want in a democracy? A democracy requires that citizens embrace the principles of the government and that they have confidence in the actual democratic process. In the Netherlands, that type of support is not only high from a historical perspective, but also higher than in other countries. Without such a reservoir of deep-seated, diffuse support, it is hard to imagine that democracy is going to last all that long. That said, a democracy does not need blind trust in political institutions or in the specific politicians who work in them. From the point of view of public administration, a high level of confidence is desirable: citizens who trust politics and politicians are more inclined to accept policies to go against their interests. But from the point of view of democracy, a high level of confidence is less self-evident desirable. Rather than blind faith, we want sceptical citizens. It is precisely scepticism that drives citizens to monitor politics and to hold it responsible for policy. Dissatisfaction with policies that are being implemented is a major reason why citizens become politically active. Mishler and Rose summarise this tension as follows: ‘Democracy requires trust but also presupposes an active and vigilant citizenry with a healthy scepticism of government and a willingness, should the need arise, to suspend trust and assert control over government – at a minimum by replacing the government of the day’ (1997: 419).

Citizens and Politics

131

It is good for a democracy when citizens link confidence in the functioning of the regime with scepticism about those in power. That ambivalent attitude, which the Netherlands Institute for Social Research summarises as ‘more democracy, less politics’, is not worrying but healthy to a mature democracy. Democracy institutionalises its own distrust through elections. Because democracy thrives on scepticism, unconditional trust in government, parliament and officeholders is low almost by definition. New political parties play an important part in channelling this distrust. They refresh politics by mobilising disgruntled citizens. That tactic has been used by many parties in the Netherlands. Examples include the Democrats (D66), which in 1967 set the goal of ‘helping blow up the current political system’; the Socialist Party, which in 1994 entered the Lower House with the slogan ‘Vote against, vote SP’, and the radical right wing party List Pim Fortuyn, which in 2002 wanted to clean up the ‘wreckage’ caused by the coalition government in power. By offering a democratic alternative, these parties keep dissatisfied citizens involved in democracy and channel mistrust within the political system. New parties play that role better than in a system of proportional representation than in majoritarian systems. Thus in the 2015 elections in the UK, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) got 12.6% of the vote but, only 0.2% of the seats in the House of Commons, while no members of Alternative für Deutschland were elected to the German Bundestag, even though it won 4.7% of the vote. Moreover, in the Netherlands, a lot of new parties, even got relatively quick access to government power: D66 in 1973, the Pim Fortuyn List in 2002, and Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party in 2010. In a democracy, then, we want citizens to combine a high degree of support for democratic principles and of satisfaction with its performance, with scepticism about the institutions and actors in that democracy. It would be equally harmful for citizens to be happy about how well democracy performs as it would for that democracy to be corrupted to the core. Trust and satisfaction should therefore respond to the actual performance of politics itself. Institutional sources of satisfaction with democracy and of trust in politics The differences among countries in terms of political support, and the changes in political support over time, have demonstrable causes (see, for instance, Zmerli & Van der Meer 2017 for an overview). The features and performance of (national) politics itself are important sources of satisfaction

132 

Tom van der Meer

with democracy and of confidence in politics. We can distinguish between structural explanations (the cork on which democratic satisfaction and political trust float), cyclical statements (the tide that alternately raises and lowers them) and short-term explanations (the waves on which they bob up and down). The main cork on which democratic satisfaction and political confidence in democratic countries float, is the impartiality and professionalism of government bureaucracy. This is expressed in, for example, the absence of deep-seated and large-scale corruption. It is primarily for this reason that political support is relatively high in Northern Europe and relatively low in southern and Eastern Europe. The electoral system is a much weaker but likewise structural source of democratic satisfaction and political trust: in countries with a system of proportional representation, political support is, all other things being equal, higher than in countries with a majoritarian system. The system of proportional representation can give political minorities a voice and distrustful citizens a way to vent their feelings, with the result that they will not be so quick to turn away from democracy. The tide is constituted mainly by economic performance. The better an economy performs, the higher the level of democratic satisfaction, and especially of political confidence. The major economic recession that plagued many European countries starting in 2008 led to a drop in political support − a decline that made itself felt most strongly in countries that were hardest by the recession. In addition, elections also regularly give a short-term boost to confidence in politics, because citizens notice that in the end they control the reins. The waves which trust bob along are the mostly temporary fluctuations. These can be the result of external events (‘Events, dear boy, events’) such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which led to a rise in confidence in politics throughout the West. They can also be associated with images, such as the image of responsiveness that stuck to the fourth Cabinet of Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende after it went on a 100-day-long round of visits to civic organisations in the Spring of 2007. Finally, political scandals can also cause damage political confidence in the short term. However, most scandals cause no more than a ripple. Scandals have a lasting effect on democratic content and political trust only if they get to the core of politics and taint both the government and the opposition. There are several examples in various countries of such endemic scandals. In Belgium in the second half of the 1990s, confidence in politics all but disappeared as a result of a series of scandals such as the Agusta and Dutroux affairs. In Hungary, the confidence kept dropping

Citizens and Politics

133

for years after the leak in 2006 of audio recordings by the prime minister, in which he set out in broad terms: ‘No country has screwed up as royally as we have… It’s patently obvious that we have been lying these past 18 to 24 months. It was perfectly clear that what we were saying was not true.’ In the United Kingdom, confidence in parliament remained low for a long time after a parliamentary-expenses scandal came to light in 2008 and 2009: it turned out that members of parliament had been using public money to cover personal expenses, including even mortgages, second homes and a floating house for ducks. All of this confirms that political support does indeed have an evaluative aspect. Citizens respond to how politics is organised and how it performs. In addition, their response is pretty proportional to what they are responding to: profound corruption leads to long-term dissatisfaction and mistrust, endemic scandals lead to temporary changes, and isolated scandals lead to small ripples. Conclusion The role that citizens play in modern democracies is still surrounded by dilemmas. It would be incorrect to describe the average citizen as a political animal that attaches great importance to politics and political participation. But it is equally unfair to peg those citizens as leery, uninterested and passive. Many citizens have little interest to get into the political arena for the long haul. Most political activities are undertaken by a relatively small group of citizens. But at the same time, citizens want to be able to step in if they feel the need to. An extension of the possibilities of political participation through referenda, deliberation or neighbourhood projects is appealing in that respect, but not without its risks. After all, not all citizens are equally able or inclined to be politically active: rather, we talk of a participation elite of well-educated white men of middle age. There will thus always be a dilemma between high participation and egalitarian participation in politics. There is no broad democratic crisis of conf idence in most Western countries. Support for democratic principles in the Netherlands is relatively high. Levels of satisfaction with the performance of democratic government have increased considerably over the last few decades. Trust in the political institutions within that government – the administration, parliament, and political parties – is significantly lower. But that trust is by nature relatively low in a democracy. What is more important is that citizens’ democratic satisfaction and political trust are shaped by that the organisation and

134 

Tom van der Meer

performance of that very same democracy. Citizens thus couple high support for democracy with scepticism about the actors in government. Citizens have changed in recent years. They have become both more vocal and more sceptical. They are less willing to make long-term commitments through political parties, for instance, but they can still be mobilised for concrete initiatives. Political participation is becoming more informal and less routine, but support for democracy is holding steady. Citizens are thus increasingly fitting the image of the night-watchman citizen. References Almond, G. & S. Verba (1963). The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. London: Sage. Binnema, H. & A. Michels (2016). ‘Loting en diversiteit. Te hoge verwachtingen’ [Drawing Lots and Diversity: Expectations Set Too High]. In: Geerten Boogaard & Ank Michels (eds), G1000: Experiences with Citizen Summits. The Hague: Boom. Bovens, M. & A. Wille (2017). Diploma Democracy: The Rise of Political Meritocracy. Oxford University Press. Dalton, R.J. (2004). Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dekker, P. & M. Hooghe (2003). ‘De burger-nachtwaker: naar een informalisering van de politieke participatie van de Nederlandse en Vlaamse bevolking’. [The Citizen-Night Watchman: towards an Informalisation of the Political Participation of the Dutch and Flemish Populace] Sociologische Gids 50: 156-181. Deth, J.W. van (2012). ‘Is Creative Participation Good for Democracy?’ In: Mr. Micheletti & A.S. McFarland (eds), Creative Participation: Responsibility-Taking in the Political World, 148-172. Oxon: Routledge. Deth, J.W. van (2016). ‘What is Political Participation?’ In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.68. Hendriks, F., K. van der Krieken, S. van Zuydam & M. Roelands (2015). Bewegende beelden van de democratie: Legitimiteitsmonitor Democratisch Bestuur 2015 [Moving Images of Democracy: Monitoring the Legitimacy of Democratic Government 2015]. Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Relations of State. Hibbing, J.R. & E. Theiss-Morse (2002). Stealth Democracy: Americans’ Beliefs about How Government Should Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inglehart, R. (1977). The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lijphart, A. (1997). ‘Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma’. American Political Science Review 19: 1-14. Mishler, W. & R. Rose (1997). ‘Trust, Distrust and Skepticism: Popular Evaluations of Civil and Political Institutions in Post-Communist Societies’. Journal of Politics 59(2): 418-451. Norris, P. (2011). Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Putnam, R.D. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.

Citizens and Politics

135

Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, R.D. (2007). ‘E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century’. The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies 30(2): 137-174. Pye, L. (1968). ‘Political Culture’. In: D.L. Sills (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 12, 218-224. New York: Macmillan. Rosanvallon, P. (2012). Democratie en tegendemocratie [Democracy and Counterdemocracy]. Amsterdam: Boom. Social and Cultural Planning Office (2015). De sociale staat van Nederland 2015 [The Social State of the Netherlands 2015.] The Hague: SCP. Tocqueville, A. de (2000 [1835-1840]). De la démocratie en Amérique. Book 2. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Verba, S., N.H. Nie & J.-O. Kim (1978). Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison. New York: University of Chicago Press. Zmerli, S. & T.W.G. van der Meer (eds) (2017). Handbook on Political Trust. Edward Elgar Publishing.

7

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour From Stability to Volatility Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Praag and Cees van der Eijk

7.1 Introduction In the pillarized Dutch society, election results were once very predictable. In the 1950s, a gain of two or three seats was celebrated as a resounding victory. Many people voted their entire lives for the party that represented the pillar they belonged to (see also Chapter 5). The shares of seats in parliament were therefore highly stable. The three major Christian parties, the Catholic People’s Party, the Christian Historical Union and the Anti-Revolutionary Party, which later merged into Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the labour Party (PvdA) and the liberal VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) received between them more than 80 percent of the votes. From the middle of the 1960s, this began to change. Electoral swings were increasing, and over the last two decades we have seen more and more fragmentation of in the Dutch party-political landscape. After the 2017 elections, at least four parties were needed to form a coalition that had a majority in the Lower House of Parliament. The results of those elections highlighted major changes, in particular because of the losses sustained by the two ruling parties, the VVD (8 seats lost) and the PvdA (that lost 29 seats). This was not the first election in which there were important electoral shifts. In 1994, the CDA lost 20 seats and D66 won 12. In 2002, the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), the new party of the assassinated politician Pim Fortuyn, entered the Lower House with 26 seats. The PvdA lost 22 seats; the VVD, 14. It is no longer that surprising if a large gain for a party is followed at the next election by a big loss. While the fluctuations in electoral results in the Netherlands are quite considerable, this rise in instability is an international phenomenon. To an important degree, the higher fluctuations go hand in hand with the emergence of new parties, especially environmental and anti-immigration parties, and the declining support for Christian Democratic and social-democratic parties. Major electoral changes are taking place not only in many Western European countries, but elsewhere as well, like in Australia and Canada.

138 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

In this chapter, we will look first of all at the function of elections in a democratic system. We will then discuss turnout, that is, why voters turn out to vote or abstain. Section 7.4 discusses three theories that explain the voting behaviour of citizens. Each theory paints a different picture of the voter’s motives, and of the relationship between voters and parties. One theory is much better at explaining the stable relations of the 1950s, while the other two are better at offering insights into the recent unstable election results. The last part of this chapter discusses electoral and political-party developments in the Netherlands.

7.2

The importance of elections

Recurring free and fair elections are procedures which enable a peaceful transition of power. In authoritarian and dictatorial regimes, there are no formal procedures for replacing a ruling government, even in cases where the population is utterly dissatisfied. Transitions of power are then often accompanied by violence, repression and instability. In established democratic systems, that is usually not the case. A party or a candidate who loses the elections normally accepts the outcome, even if this means that it or they must cede power or will not be a member of the next coalition government. When casting their ballots, voters may look prospectively at the plans and promises of the parties as well as retrospectively at how they have performed in the recent past. Both motives are important. Elections therefore fulfil two main functions. First, free and fair elections provide the winners with a mandate to implement their policies in whole or in part, and accords legitimacy to the exercise of power. Second, at elections politicians are held accountable for what they have done in recent years. Under democratic systems, elections are held for different types of positions. In all democratic countries, representatives in the parliament, or the legislative body, are chosen through elections. In most democratic countries, the composition of the government, or the executive branch, is affected only indirectly by electoral outcomes. After elections in countries with a multi-party system such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Austria, sometimes long and difficult negotiations take place in order to form a Cabinet. In other countries, as a result of the electoral system, it is often immediately clear who will take control over the executive. The United Kingdom (UK) is one of these countries. Because of its first-pastthe-post electoral system, one party usually wins an absolute majority in

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

139

the House of Commons, and there is no need for negotiations in order for a new government to be formed. In many parliamentary democracies, such as Germany, Italy and Israel, the role of the head of state or president is largely ceremonial and the president is appointed by parliament. Such a president fulfils a role that is similar to that of a constitutional monarch in countries such as Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain. They are formally the head of state, but in fact they have hardly any political power. There are also countries with a presidential system, such as the United States, Argentina and Mexico, where the president is directly elected as head of the executive branch. Still other countries, such as France, Russia and Suriname, have a semipresidential system, in which executive power is shared between a directly elected president and a prime minister. The prime minister can be removed by parliament, but the president cannot. Countries with a presidential or a semi-presidential system have two elections at the national level: one for president and one for parliament.

7.3 Turnout The question is: Why would voters take part in elections. After all, it takes time and effort from voters. They must delve into the platforms of various parties to make an informed choice, and then head to the polling station. The reward is very low, because there is zero chance that a party will win an extra seat with a margin of one single vote. From the standpoint of an economic cost-benefit calculation, individuals could conclude that the costs in terms of time and energy exceed any benefits in terms of influencing the election result. If one reasons purely from individual self-interest, voting is therefore not rational. This is called the rationality paradox. Why is it, then, that most people still vote? A f irst reason is that people understand quite well that democratic elections can function only if people are willing to actually go to the polls. Therefore they see it as a democratic duty, which weighs more heavily with most people than their self-interest does. But even within the theoretical framework of economic cost-benefit calculations, we must consider that many people do not have to make much of an effort to vote. The costs are low, and for some people there may also be ‘costs’ associated with abstaining. If people around you react negatively to not voting, or if not taking part in elections makes you feel bad, then these are also costs that you incur. Taking part in elections can make you feel good, especially if your party

140 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

wins and you may see that as a benefit. For these reasons, it is not valid to conclude that voting is irrational. Many Western European countries, including the Netherlands, used to have compulsory voting for quite some time. The arguments in favour were both normative as well as practical. Some people felt, as a matter of principle, that alongside rights there were obligations, and that taking part in elections was part of one’s civic duty, just like the duty to pay taxes and do military service. Another normative argument was that the democratic principle of equality could be violated if some groups failed with disproportionate frequency to turnout. A more pragmatic argument came from the socialist side. Workers would sometimes not get their bosses’ permission to go to the polling station during working hours and, given the long working day, it was sometimes impossible for them to cast their vote. Compulsory voting made it impossible for employers to stop their employees from turning out to vote. As soon as compulsory voting was introduced, though, there were also voices against it. The argument from principle against compulsory voting was that it would conflict with another democratic value, namely freedom. This argument grew louder and louder after World War II. On top of that, the working day had become shorter, so that pretty much everyone had the chance to vote outside working hours. Keeping the compulsory vote thus became less and less relevant, and it has been abolished by now in many countries. The Netherlands did away with it in 1970. In Europe, only Belgium and Luxembourg now have compulsory voting. In the Netherlands, the abolishment of compulsory voting led to lower numbers at the polls, an effect that was felt most strongly among the younger generations. The older generations, who had acquired a habit of voting in the 1950s and 1960s, kept turning out in higher numbers after the requirement was scrapped. In established democracies in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, there has been a steady decline in turnout since the 1980s, to roughly 70 percent (Blais & Rubenson 2013). This is in part because of the abolition of compulsory voting, but in countries where there was no such requirement, the number of voters who go to the polls has also dropped. In the 1950s, when the Netherlands still had compulsory voting, more than 95% of voters went to the polls. Its abolition led in 1971 to a considerably lower turnout in the Dutch general election: only 79% of voters went to the polls. In 1977 that number rose to 88%, but turnout has not been that high since then. The lowest turnout was in 1998, when only 73 percent of voters went to the polls. With the entry onto the scene of the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) and later the Party for Freedom (PVV), turnout rose again significantly. On the one hand, this came about because these parties

141

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

managed to attract groups of voters who did not turn out often in the past. On the other hand, polarisation rose, and more people got the feeling that there really was something at stake and that there was a choice to be made. In the end, that is an important incentive for people to go and vote. In comparative perspective, we can say that turnout in the Netherlands is still high. Some countries do better on average, but a country such as the United Kingdom, where turnout is often lower than 70%, does significantly worse, while in presidential elections in the United States, turnout has hovered at 50% to 55%. In Germany, turnout in elections for the Bundestag is similar to that for the Netherlands (see figure 1). The characteristics of political systems can partially explain why the turnout differs widely from one country to another. Holding elections on a Sunday helps bring the numbers up. And there are such important factors as the distance to the polling station and its opening hours. Finally, it appears that electoral systems based on proportional representation help turnout considerably, especially because the risk that someone’s vote will be ‘lost’, as with a first-past-the-post system, is small.

Figure 1 Turnout in parliamentary elections in three countries

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

Germany

Netherlands

11

-2

01

7

0 20

01

-2

01

0 20

19

91

-2

00

99 -1 81 19

19

71

-1

98

0

0

70

19 6

1-

19

0 96 -1 51

19

19

45

-1

95

0

50%

United Kingdom

142 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

There are considerable differences in turnout, not only between countries, but also depending on the type of election. Remarkably fewer people vote in regional and local than in national elections. Also, turnout for European Parliamentary Elections, which have been direct since 1979, has typically been very low. In recent decades, turnout in the Netherlands in these elections has varied from 30% to 39%. This kind of election, which voters clearly consider less important, are referred to as second-order elections, by contrast to first-order elections: those to the national parliament. Virtually all voters agree that in municipal elections there is less at stake than in parliamentary elections, and for most voters it is not at all clear what is at stake at European elections. As a result, more citizens abstain. Non-voters The background of non-voters is somewhat different from that of people who do vote. Non-voters are on average less well educated, younger, and less interested in and more cynical about politics. In addition, members of ethnic-minority and lower-income groups are over-represented among non-voters. Most characteristics of non-voters do not help explaining the slight drop in turnout. Education levels are on average increasing rather than decreasing, and there are relatively fewer young people and more older people than there used to be. On the basis of such characteristics, we would expect turnout to increase rather than go down. When it comes to age as a factor, we should distinguish between socialisation effects, as they are called, and what are known as lifecycle effects. The latter involve changes that take place in people as they grow older. To the extent that differences between older and younger people result from lifecycle effects, these effects will not lead to a structural decline in turnout. If people become more and more politically interested over the course of their lives, and if they thus become more inclined to vote, voter turnout will not change much among the population as a whole. Socialisation effects pertain to attitudes and behavioural patterns that people adopt at a relatively young age and that do not change as they grow older. These are thus structural and stable differences between generations. If the younger generations are structurally less inclined to vote than older generations, and if this remains the case decades later, turnout will gradually decrease as a result of generational replacement. Research in political science shows that there are indeed such differences between generations, with younger generations regarding participation in elections more as a right than as a duty. They also have less confidence than older generations

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

143

do that politicians will fulfill their promises. This kind of attitude is fairly stable and changes hardly at all with age. Our picture of non-voters is rather diffuse. People who do not take part in elections are on average less well educated than people who do, but the majority of the least-well-educated Dutch people do vote in elections to the Lower House of Parliament. That actually applies to most background characteristics. Non-voters are, on average, more cynical about ‘politics’ than those who do vote, although the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) has shown that there is also a smaller group of non-voters who are in fact satisfied and who therefore do not feel the need to get engaged in politics. Most people think positively about the right to vote and believe that people should use it. Many non-voters are occasional non-voters. They are on vacation and forget to designate a substitute, or they are planning to vote on the way home but stay too long in the pub. There is also a group of notorious non-voters, who make a conscious decision to abstain. The size of this group is difficult to establish, because it is precisely these people who often do not participate in surveys. On the basis of TNS NIPO survey data on the election campaigns of 1998 and 2002, we concluded that in the Netherlands about half of the abstainers are notorious non-voters, that is, people who already at the beginning of a campaign decide that they are not going to vote (Van der Brug & Van der Eijk 2000; Van der Brug 2004).

7.4

Voting behaviour

Now that we have looked at the question of which people do or do not participate in elections and why, we will discuss three theories about party choice. Who votes for which parties and why? Socio-structural theories of party choice An important set of theories has to do with the social structure of society as the determinant of both the party system (and its development) and the voting behaviour of individual citizens. These theories assume that the political orientation of citizens, and their voting behaviour, are determined to a large extent by their position in society. Also, according to this socio-structural approach, social cleavages within a society can be readily identified within the party system. The term ‘cleavage’ is central to this approach. A cleavage comes about when a social division (for example between social classes, or between believers and non-believers) takes on a political dimension. For that

144 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

to happen: 1) citizens must identify with the social group they belong to; 2) an organisation (such as a political party) presents itself as the advocate for that group; and 3) this advocacy is accompanied by a vision of society in the form of an ideology and/or a number of foundational values and principles. An influential contribution within this tradition comes from the political sociologists Lipset & Rokkan (1967). They observed that, with a few exceptions, in the middle of the 1960s the Western European party systems were still based on the profound social conflicts and cleavages that had originated at the beginning of the twentieth century: the contemporary party systems reflected, with few but signif icant exceptions, the cleavage structures of the 1920s. … the party alternatives, and in remarkably many cases the party organisations, are older than the majorities of the national electorates (Lipset & Rokkan 1967/1985: 169).

They used the term ‘frozen party systems’ to characterise this state of affairs. Germany, Italy and Spain, which for a long time had been fascist and national-socialist dictatorships, were ‘the few but significant exceptions’. The social cleavages that the authors had in mind originated in two ‘revolutionary’ developments in the nineteenth century. On the one hand there were the national revolutions, the slowly developing national state that eclipsed local and regional communities. On the other, there was industrialisation with its growing conflicts between classes and between interests. The national revolutions created two cleavages: – the religious cleavage, that is, the modern state versus the traditional power of the churches; – the cultural-ethnic cleavage, that is, the national centre of government versus the interests of the periphery, which are often shaped considerably by regional and cultural factors. The industrial revolution created two other cleavages: – class conflict: the working class versus the owning class; – the division between city and countryside: the interests of agriculture, with large landowners, leaseholders and poor farmers often being mutually aligned, versus the interests of industry and trade. Political parties arose at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century along these socio-structural cleavages. One of the countries with a party system that up to the mid-1960s fit Lipset and Rokkan’s typology really well was the Netherlands. The five parties that dominated

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

145

Dutch politics up until that period (the three denominational parties, the Catholic People’s Party, the Anti-Revolutionary Party, the Christian Historical Union, the social democratic Labour Party, and the liberal VVD) all had their origins in the religious and socio-economic cleavages from the end of the nineteenth century. Starting from 1918 the first election in which suffrage was extended to all adult men, the three major Christian parties dominated. In that year, they jointly obtained half of all votes, and after the introduction of universal suffrage for women in 1922, that share rose to as much as 54.5%,a figure that has never been equalled since. In 1963, 49% of Dutch people still voted for the Catholic People’s Party, the AntiRevolutionary Party or the Christian Historical Union. The explanation for the high stability of the Dutch party system until the mid-1960s can be found in the pillarized nature of Dutch society (Daalder 1966; Lijphart 1968/82). The parties formed the political branch of the highly pillarized segments of society of Catholics, Protestants, social democrats, and the far less pillarized liberals. For political parties it was important to be able to count at election time on the unconditional support of the newspapers and broadcasters allied to each group. Religion and, to a lesser extent, class were the main structural determinants of voting behaviour in the Netherlands. This was not always the case in Western European countries. Which social cleavages did lead to successful party formations, and which did not, depended on the concrete historical circumstances in each country. The class cleavage was present in the party system of almost all European countries, but the religious cleavage was not. Other important political cleavages are based on differences in language (such as in Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, Spain, and Canada) and on divisions between city and countryside (such as in Norway, Sweden, and Portugal). Lipset and Rokkan explained the remarkable stability of the party systems by the fact that, once labour parties were fully developed and universal suffrage had been introduced, all potential social groups were integrated into the political system. After 1920, new parties had to attract their voters from the support base of existing parties, and that rarely led, up until the mid-1960s, to enduring electoral successes. By building up a well-functioning national and local party apparatus and through effective political socialisation via their own social organisations and media, political parties succeeded in building up strong feelings of party loyalty among their constituents. New economic, technical and social problems were successfully explained as changes that did not affect the political need to continue to support the old parties. The relevance of the original cleavages was still maintained in the voters’ eyes.

146 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

Until the mid-1960s, the situation for many voters in these countries can be regarded as a kind of voluntary straitjacket: identification with and loyalty to the groups delimited by these cleavages allowed voters little individual choice. In many countries, this straitjacket has now either gone or been severely weakened as a result of the emancipation and individualisation of voters. Since the mid-sixties, the ‘frozen’ party systems in many countries have started to melt. The reduced electoral relevance of traditional cleavages reduces the strength of the link between voters and particular political parties. Voters are increasingly deciding anew each time which party is going to get their vote, even though not every party is equally attractive. Especially in multi-party systems, voters generally create more or less fixed choice sets of the parties that they will consider voting for and those they will not. This increased independence of voters is referred to as particularisation (Tuckel & Tejera 1983). This particularisation of voting behaviour has not come about simulta­ neously in all countries. In the United States and Canada, it started as early as the 1950s; in Belgium, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, in the 1960s; and in Germany and Italy, a few decades after that. It is worth asking whether, in the first quarter of the 21st century, there are no new cleavages, for example around education, which can explain the behaviour of voters on the basis of their social position. We will return to this question in the last part of this chapter. First, we will look at two approaches that can give us more insights into the particularisation of voting behaviour. Socio-psychological theories In socio-psychological theories, people’s voting behaviour is explained by their attitudes and orientations. This theory was developed in the 1950s in the United States by the political scientists Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes in their now-classic study, The American Voter. Their model, which has become known as the Michigan Model, is seen as the most comprehensive and coherent presentation of this approach. It distinguishes between long- and short-term factors, known as the funnel or causality, that influence party choice (see figure 2). It is true that socio-structural factors can play a role, but they do so mostly indirectly, through ideology and values. The model assumes that voters determine how they will vote based above all on a number of attitudes or psychological orientations. The most important aspect is a stable orientation towards political parties, an orientation that is referred to as party identification, a feeling of belonging to, and

147

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

Figure 2 Party choice: the Michigan Model

Long- term factors

Sociostructural factors

Short-term factors

Ideology, party identification and values

Issues Policy Campaigns Party leaders Media

Party choice

identifying with, one specific party. The model assumes that people develop this feeling at a young age because parents pass values on to children. For this reason, identification with the Democratic or the Republican Party is part of the self-image of many voters. It is thus deeply rooted, and stable over a relatively long period. In addition to party identification, other attitudes and orientations are important for voting behaviour. Thus it is assumed that voters develop positive or negative orientations towards the candidates running for office, and that these also determine their choices. Finally, attitudes towards issues play an important role. This includes an assessment of the parties in terms of the most important political issues that play a role in a given campaign. Party identif ication thus determines the choice made at the ballot box, along with preferences for candidates and positions on issues. It is important to remember that these three attitudes need not necessarily point in the same direction. Even if someone in the United States feels they are a Democrat or a Republican, in a particular election they might find a candidate from the other party particularly appealing, or believe that the other party is doing better on the issues of the day. These orientations regarding candidates and issues are also specific to a particular election, while party identification is stable over a series of elections. Because party identification as a long-term factor affects the development of shorter-term orientations, among other things through selective perception, many voters will still vote for the party they identify with. Occasionally they may ‘defect’ to the other party, when they develop strong orientations regarding candidates and issues, which go against their party identification. One of the advantages of the Michigan Model is that it is less static than a sociostructural perspective. Differences in election results are quite

148 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

compatible with the assumed stability of the basic political orientation: party identification. In the 1960s, this model was the most fully developed approach to voting behaviour. It not only dominated electoral research in the United States, but also had a lot of influence on research in European countries. In the 1970s, however, Jacques Thomassen discovered that the concept of party identification was not applicable in multi-party systems such as that in the Netherlands. Few voters identified for any great length of time with just the one party. Van der Eijk and Niemöller (1983) showed a few years later that many citizens did identify with a certain kind of ideology, an identification that could be summarised in an ideological position in terms of left and right. Voters see themselves, as part of the image they have of themselves, as decidedly, or moderately, left or right, or as belonging to the political centre. At the same time, most voters have an adequate general image of where the various parties stand in terms of left and right, so that a kind of psychological map is created in their minds, a map on which they can position not only parties (and possibly politicians and social organisations), but also themselves. In this model of ideological voting behaviour, the final choice is determined by the ‘distance’ between the voter and the various parties. The voter votes for the party that is closest to their position on the spectrum from left to right. Factors such as issues, candidates and other politically relevant orientations can lead to people sometimes voting for a party that is a little farther away on the spectrum than the closest one. Thus it can happen that someone who positions themselves slightly right of centre and who always votes for the VVD opts on one occasion for D66. Just as with the Michigan Model, the focus of the ideological left-right orientation leaves open the possibility that a voter will not always vote the same way, while at the same time the Model is capable of making judgements about party swings in a multi-party system. The logic of the Model means that switches in voting behaviour from one party to another will occur more often, the closer the parties are to each other ideologically, and vice versa. Empirically, this model seems reasonably capable of explaining the voting behaviour of Dutch voters, and also of coming up with an explanation for patterns of changing behaviour. By contrast with the socio-structural perspective, in which the party system is seen as the expression of the cleavage structure in society, the Michigan Model does not have a lot to say about the creation or development of party systems. Indeed it offers, as such, a more powerful but also a more limited perspective that actually applies only to voters and that says little about the other actors involved in elections: the parties. Adjusting

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

149

the Michigan Model by putting the left-right ideological dimension at its heart makes it possible to make judgements about the party system and the behaviour of the parties. This ideologicalproximity model can be seen as representative of an entirely different strand of theories about parties, voters and elections, which is referred to as the political-economic approach. From this approach it is possible to make a number of judgements about parties, voters and the interactions between them at election time. We will briefly outline this approach in the next section. The political-economic approach In the political-economic approach to parties and voters, the electoral process is analysed with the same concepts that are used in economics. Voters and political parties are seen as the demand and supply side of a market. Just as with the economy, the basic assumption is that the various actors are pursuing their own interests in a rational way. Of course this assumption need not always be correct, but it allows researchers to derive a number of testable hypotheses about the behaviour of actors. Parties strive for power, and voters seek a government policy that offers them the most in terms of their material and immaterial interests as they themselves experience these. If parties want to gain power, they must offer a ‘product’ that is ‘bought’, that is, that delivers votes. If voters want to maximise the chance that public policy will be focused on their interests, they must vote ‘rationally’, that is, for the party that can be expected to contribute most to these interests. How do voters and parties find out from each other what they are offering or looking for, and in what terms should this supply and demand be described? The diversity of voters’ wishes and parties’ offerings is overwhelming if we look only at separate points of view, problems and plans. It takes a lot of trouble, time and effort to be adequately informed, more than many voters and parties can afford. There is therefore a need for a tool in the communication between voters and parties. Ideologies can play an important role here. Ideologies, global visions of what one considers a ‘good’ society and that guide all kinds of more detailed positions on social problems, give voters the opportunity to get a global image of the supply side of the electoral market. That way, political parties can be positioned relative to one another in ideological terms. Conversely, it gives the parties the opportunity to get a reasonable impression of the voters’ market by considering their general ideological positions. Finally, political communication, which to a large extent is done via the mass media, can take place in these more general

150 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

terms. The result is that, if the ideological conceptual framework is shared by enough voters, very large segments of the voters’ market can be reached with little effort. In pursuing their own interests (that is, maximising their power), parties take voters’ wishes into account. If they do not, they get fewer votes and less power. The question is whether power as a motive is enough to understand party behaviour. Some parties, especially small ones, are referred to as ‘testimonial parties’, a term that already indicates that for them it is not a matter primarily of maximising power. For larger parties, it is also useful to consider that it is a matter not only of acquiring power, but also of realising certain objectives. The political-economic approach does not take these substantive objectives into account, and assumes that, for both parties and politicians, it is all about power for its own sake. For their part, the voters will also vote in their own interest for the party that is ideologically closest to them. These are, very briefly, the principles of the political-economic theory that has become most widely known in the formulation proposed by Anthony Downs in his book, An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957). The political-economic approach outlined above, and as expressed, for instance, in Downs’ theory, does not come from a tradition of empirical research on voting behaviour. Based on theoretical considerations, it attempts to develop an interpretive framework in which the behaviours of different types of actors, voters and parties, are connected with each other. If one wants to determine how much sense such an interpretative framework makes in a concrete political system, one has to examine empirically the extent to which voters’ and parties’ behaviour matches what the theory says about it. The most obvious way to do this is to use the ideologicalidentification model described in the section on socio-psychological theories above. That model is not only an adaptation of the Michigan Model to a multi-party system. It also agrees with Downs’s theoretical model in the way it treats voting behaviour. Hence the ideological-identification model can be placed within both traditions. As we have indicated, the political-economic approach is about more than just explaining the behaviour of voters. It can also be used to explain that of political parties, by analogy with the economy. Politicians are seen as entrepreneurs, and a party system develops as a result of entrepreneurial initiatives. In order to maintain or increase their market share, the first thing they can do is enter into mergers. In this way, the creation of both Christian Democratic Appeal and GroenLinks (GreenLeft) is a response to changing market conditions. Both new parties came into existence under

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

151

pressure from crumbling electoral support and declining membership in the individual parties from which they were formed. Entrepreneurs/politicians can also respond to changes on the demand side of the market. In the 1990s, all parties started attaching greater importance to fighting crime and to safety on the streets. After more and more people became convinced that climate change was the result of human activities, some parties began to make that a priority. A third form of entrepreneurial behaviour is product innovation, which aims to win market segments for which there is no supply yet. This is reflected in new parties that aim to supply policies for a supposed or actual ‘gap in the market’. A party such as 50Plus shows that, for some voters, there is a need for a party that stands up for the interests of older people. Pim Fortuyn’s LPF and Geert Wilders’s PVV can be characterised as parties that present themselves as having a new substantive product: solutions to the problems of multicultural society and the arrival of immigrants of non-European descent. The success of new parties has inevitably affected existing parties and how they position their programmes. Although analogies of this sort do of course lose their meaning if they are taken too literally, the great advantage they offer is that they open our eyes to the fact that political parties are not immutable entities, but actors who change, whether consciously or not. Whereas the benefit of the Michigan Model over the socio-structural approach is that it is less static when it comes to how voters relate to parties, that same model cannot explain why and how a political party can change. The political-economic approach makes it clear that such changes should be considered as a normal phenomenon, and that they should be the object of scholarly research.

7.5

The Netherlands in the twenty-first century

The end of electoral stability The stability that was normal until the mid-1960s has disappeared. The almost immutable electoral balance of power between the parties no longer exists, neither in the Netherlands nor in most Western countries. The level of support that some of the established parties get from the voters fluctuates greatly. New parties are founded not based on the old political cleavages, which sometimes enjoy remarkable electoral successes.

152 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

In the Netherlands, the electoral changes started in 1967. The new party, D’66, later written D66, had great success with seven seats under the leadership of Hans van Mierlo. Democratic Socialists '70 did well in 1971, as did the Political Party of Radicals, an offshoot of the Catholic People’s Party, in 1972. The success of the new parties was in parallel to the decline of the Christian Democratic parties, whose share of the vote dropped from about 50% to about 30% in the late 1970s. After 1977, electoral stability seemed to return somewhat to the Nether­ lands. The CDA (created by a merger of the Catholic People’s Party, the calvinist Anti-Revolutionary Party and the protestant Christian Historical Union), and the PvdA were by far the most important parties in the 1980s, each with about 50 seats (in a parliament of 150). The CDA, led by Lubbers, was usually the largest party. In 1994, however, a new period of major electoral shifts and changes began. Electoral support for the established parties fluctuated considerably from one election to another, so that it appeared that parties such as CDA and PvdA would alternate between major losses and major gains. Starting in 2002, it became clear that their position was crumbling. The electoral peaks have been getting less high, while the lows have been getting lower and lower. The support of the voters for D66 and GreenLeft has varied considerably, while the party-political landscape has been fragmenting further with the emergence of parties such as the PVV, the Party for the Animals, and the party for older people, 50Plus. After 2010, CDA and PvdA lost their dominant position. In 2017, the CDA got 13% of the vote, while the PvdA dropped dramatically to 6%. Since 2010, the VVD has been the largest party. It is thus the traditional party that has benefited the most over the long term from depillarization and changes in Dutch society. The liberals grew steadily from just over than 10% in 1971 to just under 27% in 2012. The large electoral shifts in the Netherlands since the mid-1960s are reflected in increased volatility, the net changes in the number of seats that each participating party has had in the Lower House of Parliament. This was usually around 5% before 1967, only to rise strongly to 30 % in 2002 (figure 3). How are these electoral changes to be understood, and what perspectives seem meaningful as one reflects further on parties, voters and elections? The losses by CDA and PvdA and the gains for the liberal parties, VVD and D66 can perhaps be explained by the secularization of Dutch Society (CDA), the reduction in size of the working class (PvdA) and the growth of the middle class (the VVD and D66). Social changes of these kinds would of course lead to shifts in parties’ support, certainly if those demographic characteristics were to remain just as important in voting behaviour. This

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

153

Figure 3 Volatility in Dutch General Elections, 1948-2017 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1948 1952 1956 1959 1963 1967 1971 1972 1977 1981 1982 1986 1989 1994 1998 2002 2003 2006 2010 2012 2017

is not the case. Socio-structural characteristics such as social class and religion are become less and less decisive in the voting behaviour of citizens. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, a transition occurred from a pillarized system in which the proportions of votes each party won in the elections were structured by social characteristics to one in which these proportions became much more strongly anchored in the ideological preferences of voters. An important consequence of this has been that , compared to elections held more than 40 years ago, contemporary elections are determined more by political factors and less by a relatively non-political need to express one’s loyalty to a particular group. This change was referred to above as the particularisation of voting behaviour, that is, the political emancipation of the individual voter. After the CDA was founded in the mid-1970s, it presented itself less and less as a Christian Party and more as a stable, somewhat conservative, reliable governmental party to the right of the political centre. Many voters identified with such an ideological position, even those who were not Christian or for whom religion played no important role in their lives. The social democratic PvdA positioned itself clearly on the left. That did not only appeal to an important part of the working class: a significant part of the middle class also voted for the Labour Party. Under Wiegel, the liberal VVD positioned itself clearly on the right of the political spectrum, and it continued to do so under his successors. During this period. one could predict the party choice of citizens with quite some accuracy, based on the position that voters occupied on the spectrum from left to right. The consequence of the emancipation of citizens is that it can less easily be taken for granted that they have a definite preference for just one party. The vast majority of Dutch voters now have a preference for two or three parties. The term ‘floating voters’, for those voters who change what party

154 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

they vote for, is in any case misleading, because it wrongly suggests that these voters are behaving arbitrarily. In a multi-party system such as that in the Netherlands, there are several parties that are close, substantively and ideologically. Citizens who decide whom to vote for on the basis of substantive considerations, sometimes dither between two or more parties that are close to each other in terms of their positions. For example, there is a large group of voters on the right side of the political spectrum to whom CDA and VVD are the nearest parties. For many of them, both of these options are attractive alternatives, and this means that this group consists of many voters who shift back and forth between CDA and VVD. For these voters, other considerations also play a part at the voting booth, and can make it easier to choose between two almost equally attractive alternatives. Thus views on euthanasia, or comparisons between the perceived qualities of the respective political leaders, prove to be the factors that tip the scales. Similar phenomena occur for the voters just to the left of the centre, for whom both PvdA and D66 are appealing, or for more decidedly left-wing voters, who often hesitate between the Labour Party, the Socialist Party, and GreenLeft. The formation of the ‘purple’ coalition in 1994, between the left-wing PvdA and the right-wing VVD, with D66 in between, raised the question of whether left versus right was still meaningful to describe political divisions. However, several political scientists argued that it still offered an excellent conceptual framework for analysing electoral changes. The PvdA had shifted towards the centre since the mid-1980s. This made it easier for the party to govern, even with the VVD, but it did lead to the growth of more radical-left alternatives, the Socialist Party and GreenLeft, because many left-wing voters no longer recognised themselves in the direction the Labour Party was taking. The VVD also sailed a more centrist course after 1998, and that opened up space on the right, which the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) made use of. The LPF and later the PVV owed their electoral success especially to the politicisation of issues around immigration and integration. Later, Geert Wilders (of the PVV) also campaigned strongly against further European integration. On the left of the spectrum, the Socialist Party (SP) often adopts a Eurosceptic stance, albeit on different grounds than the PVV. The question is whether we can understand all developments of this kind with the help of the distinction between left and right. In the literature on this subject, there are two different insights, known as dealignment and realignment. ‘Dealignment’ means that long-term factors determine the voting behaviour of citizens either not at all or only marginally. Voters scarcely have any ties

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

155

to parties, and at every election they determine once again, on the basis of the issues that are relevant at the time and their preferences for candidates, which party to vote for. The party system is thus becoming very unstable. Realignment means that old cleavages that revolve around religion and social class, and that are structured by left versus right and/or progressive versus conservative, are no longer relevant, but are replaced by other longterm factors that structure election results in a new way. Most authors agree that we can explain voting behaviour less and less well based on social class and religion. It could be that other background characteristics, such as education, age and ethnicity, have become politically relevant. After all, we have seen the emergence of a party for older people, which claims specifically that it stands up for the interests of seniors. And although the new partij Denk (Think) does not portray itself as a party of ethnic minorities, it is still considered by many to be just that, especially by people of Moroccan or Turkish descent. When it comes to education as a factor, the situation is once again somewhat different. Various political scientists and sociologists have argued that in Western European countries there is a growing gap between better-educated and less-well-educated citizens (Bovens & Wille 2011, about the Netherlands; see also Chapter 2). Whereas before, people would often run into each other at church or in a sports club, there is nowadays less interaction between better-educated and less-well-educated people. More and more often, too, people are marrying someone with a similar level of education. The larger gap between less-well-educated and better-educated people manifests itself in many areas, including politics. The political sociologist Hans Peter Kriesi argues that the growing gap relates to processes of globalisation and Europeanisation. Market integration and opening borders has led to higher levels of migration and to industries’ moving to low-wage countries. The less well educated are being impacted in two ways. First, there is less and less need for manual workers. Second, there is competition from migrants from both inside and outside the EU who are willing to do the same work for lower pay. Better-educated people have less to fear from this competition, and benefit from the advantages that open borders offer. They can have their home renovated relatively cheaply and check for new opportunities on the labour market, and their children can study abroad for six months with an Erasmus grant. Less-well-educated and better-educated people are thus the losers and winners, respectively, when it comes to globalisation, according to Kriesi (2008). As a result, they have different political attitudes on issues, such as immigration and European integration. This is reflected in the

156 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

differences in their voting behaviour: among the supporters of right-wing populist parties, better-educated people are significantly underrepresented, whereas they are over-represented in pro-EU parties as D66 and GreenLeft. Thus more than half of D66-voters and about 60% of GreenLeft voters in 2017 had a higher education. On the other hand, voters with a higher education made up only 10% of supporters of Wilders’s PVV. Kriesi tells us that this had led to a realignment of the Western European party systems. Until the end of the last century, the party systems in these countries were structured by two dimensions: socio-economic left-right, and authoritarian-libertarian. According to Kriesi, the character of the latter has changed. It is now a matter above all of the opposition between those who want to protect the nation state against international competition and keep migrants out, and those who are in favour of open borders and trans-national cooperation. He refers to this as demarcation versus integration. The main conflicts are structured socio-economically by the left-right dimension and socio-culturally by the integration-demarcation dimension. This applies to the positions of both voters and parties. That may sound convincing theoretically. Empirically, however, a few comments are in order. Figure 4 shows the development of the relationship between some of the aforementioned long-term factors and party choice. We can see here that at the time of the first Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek (National Voter Survey) in 1971, religion was the strongest predictor of party choice. It determined especially a choice for the three Christian parties. Conversely, anyone who was not religious would most likely not vote for any of these parties. Since 1977, when these three parties merged into Christian Democratic Appeal, the predictive value of religion for party choice declined significantly. Already in 1971, social class was not a very good predictor of voting behaviour. This was because the Christian parties had supporters in all social classes. Since the 1970s, that has also been increasingly true of the labour party. It is also important that one’s level of education is not a good predictor of party choice. It never has been, and its predictive value is hardly rising at all. This shows that we have to be careful about making generalisations regarding the major gap between high and low educated people. For all these sorts of factors, the differences within groups are much larger than those between groups. On average, the less well educated vote more often for the PVV than do those with a higher education, but most of the less well educated vote for other parties. There are, however, notable differences between generations. The Party for Freedom is very popular among loweducated young people, and GreenLeft and D66 are very popular among well-educated young people. It seems, then, that level of education affects

157

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

the voting behaviour of young people more than it does that of the older generations. Therefore, it is certainly possible that in time, as the younger generations come to make up a larger part of the electorate, the link between level of education and voting behaviour could become stronger. It is also striking in figure 4 that, since 1981, the left-right distance between voters and parties has always been the strongest predictor of party choice. In the period from 1994 to 2002 the left-right positions were less important, but its influence subsequently rose again. How is that possible? The most likely explanation is that the substantive meaning of left and right Figure 4 Influence of long-term factors on party choice1

0,35 0,3 0,25 0,2 0,15 0,1 0,05

Religion Education

2012

2010

2006

2003

2002

1998

1994

1989

1986

1982

1981

1977

1972

1971

0

Social class Left-right distance

Source: Dutch National Elections Studies 1971-2017

1 The values presented for religion, social class and educational attainment are pseudo-R squares of a multinomial regression, in which party choice is the dependent variable. For the effect of left-right distance a ‘conditional logit’ model has been estimated. The values indicate how well the party choices that individual respondents make can be predicted on the basis of the relevant attribute.

158 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

varies over time, and from one country to another. New political issues, such as those around environmental protection and immigration, have become an important element in the distinction between left and right. A strict immigration policy is seen as a right-wing theme; environmental protection, as a left-wing theme. Although voters have beliefs that are much more complex than what can be captured by the terms left and right, parties still position themselves largely along those lines. And if the parties’ supply are made in those terms, it is not so surprising that voters will let themselves be guided accordingly. By way of illustration, figure 5 shows where Dutch political parties are on two political issues that are closely related to the two dimensions that Kriesi distinguishes. The horizontal axis shows positions on differences in income (a theme closely related to the socio-economic dimension); the vertical, positions on immigration policy. This information is based on a ‘survey of experts’, in which a number of Dutch political scientists and parliamentary reporters were asked to indicate the position of parties on a number of political issues. The positions shown are averages of where parties are placed by these ‘experts’. The left-wing parties are at the bottom left; the right-wing ones, at the top right. The ChristianUnion and 50Plus put themselves pretty much in Figure 5 Party positions along two important lines of conflict

PVV

10,00

SGP 8,00

VVD

Multiculturalism

CDA 6,00 50PLUS SP

4,00

PvdA PvdD

2,00

CU D66

GL

,00 ,00

2,00

4,00 6,00 economic Left-Right

8,00

10,00

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

159

the middle, but fall just within the upper-left quadrant. The only party that does not fit in here is D66, which is socio-economically on the right and promotes a liberal migration policy (Van der Brug & Van Spanje 2009). This pattern appears in virtually all Western European countries. Although it is often said that the PVV is on the left when it comes to socio-economic themes, in practice it ends up voting in parliament with the VVD on most socio-economic policy proposals. And although the Labour Party and the Socialist Party have become more critical with regard to multiculturalism, they usually occupy the moderate position on these issues. The consequence of this is that (as in the rest of Western Europe) there are virtually no parties in the upper-left quadrant. At the same time, there is a large group of voters in each country with this combination of preferences. This group feels poorly represented by the traditional parties. And that adds to the instability. Things are somewhat different when it comes to determining the positions of the parties regarding the EU. The most Eurosceptic positions can be found among parties on the radical left and radical right. On closer inspection, however, their Euro-scepticism turns out to be very different in nature. Radical-left parties are often in favour of European cooperation, but criticise what they see as the excessively neo-liberal nature of the EU. The radical right often rejects the EU altogether for nationalistic reasons, because they believe that further European integration would be a threat to national sovereignty. Although these parties sometimes end up in the same camp, especially when a referendum forces everyone to choose for or against, a fundamental realignment seems not to be on the cards for the time being. Although issues surrounding immigration and the integration of newcomers are strongly politicised, the party system and the electoral behaviour of citizens are still largely structured by an opposition between left and right. These terms now mean something different than they used to. We see that the effect of left-right distance on party choice has declined. Socio-structural variables also have less and less influence on voting behaviour, and we see no increase in the importance of other long-term factors. These are clear indications of a greater dealignment.

7.6

Concluding remarks

It is clear from the foregoing that several theoretical perspectives on elections and voting behaviour are possible. The extent to which those perspectives explain what is happening empirically is not the same for all periods. As

160 

Wouter van der Brug, Philip van Pr a ag and Cees van der Eijk

society changes, some theoretical perspectives on voting behaviour lose, and others gain, explanatory power. In the Netherlands in the second half of the 1960s, the party system, which had been ‘frozen’, started to melt, and there was dealignment. The influence of religion and social class on voting behaviour declined, and the socio-structural perspective lost its explanatory power. In the decades that followed, voting behaviour in the Netherlands and in many other European countries could best be explained based on the opposition between left and right, an explanation that arises from the political-economic theory of voting behaviour. The strength of the left-right dimension is that it partially adapts itself to new issues. Even so, since 2003, left-right has become less important. However, so far there are no other factors that are better at explaining voting behaviour. The contrasts between those with a higher education and those who are less well educated are most often mentioned as a new cleavage, but up to now education explains only a small part of voters’ behaviour. It must also be borne in mind here that in all the periods we can analyse, some part of voting behaviour remains unexplained no matter which theoretical approach we take and regardless of which one seems to be the most applicable. The reality is more varied and more complex than most theories would give us to believe. Elections are only one mechanism by which power is distributed in a political system. The importance of elections should therefore not be regarded in absolute terms. What is clear is that a certain balance of parliamentary power is important for the policies that are to be pursued. In the Dutch multi-party system, election results have only a limited impact on the make-up of the government. The election results determine the mutual balance of power in a coalition and sometimes make certain coalitions impossible. For this reason alone, it is important to examine elections and voting behaviour systematically. References Blais, A. & D. Rubenson (2013). ‘The sources of turnout decline: new values or new contexts?’, Comparative Political Studies 46(1): 95-117. Bovens, M. & A. Wille (2011). Diplomademocratie; over de spanning tussen meritocratie en democratie [Diploma Democracy: on the Tension between Meritocracy and Democracy] Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Brug, W. van der (2004). ‘Zwevende of geëmancipeerde kiezers?’ [Floating Voters or Emancipated Voters?], Jaarboek Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen 2002, 230-251. Groningen: DNPP.

Elections, Cleavages and Voting Behaviour

161

Brug, W. van der & J. van Spanje (2009). ‘Immigration, Europe and the “ New” Cultural Cleavage’, European Journal of Political Research 48: 309-334. Brug, W. van der & C. van der Eijk (2000). ‘De campagne deed er toe, het mediagebruik niet’. In: Ph. van Praag & K. Brants (red.), Tussen Beeld en Inhoud. Politiek en media in de verkiezingen van 1998. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Campbell, A., P.E. Converse, W.E. Miller & D.E. Stokes (1960). The American Voter. New York, Wiley. Daalder, H. (1966). ‘The Netherlands: Opposition in a Segmented Society’. In: R.A. Dahl (red.), Political Opposition in Western Democracies, 188-236. New Haven: Yale University Press. Downs, A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row. Eijk C. van der & B. Niemöller (1983). Electoral Change in the Netherlands: Empirical Results and Methods of Measurement. Amsterdam: CT-Press. Kriesi, H., E. Grande, R. Lachat, M. Dolezal, S. Bornschier & T. Frey (2008). West European Politics in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lijphart, A. (1968/1982). Verzuiling, pacificatie en de kentering in de Nederlandse politiek. [Pillarization, Pacification and Change in Dutch politics.] Amsterdam: De Bussy. Lipset, S.M. & S. Rokkan (1967). ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments’. In: S.M. Lipset & S. Rokkan (eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments, 1-64. New York: Free Press. (Also included in S. M. Lipset 1985: Consensus and Conflict: Essays In Political Sociology, 113-185. New Brunswick: Transaction Books). Tuckel, P. & F. Tejera (1983). ‘Changing Patterns in American Voting Behavior, 1914-1980’, Public Opinion Quarterly 47: 143-202.

8

The Transformation of Political Parties Gijs Schumacher

8.1 Introduction For more than 120 years, political parties have dominated politics in democratic countries. In public debate, however, they have often come in for criticism in recent decades. They are old-fashioned and non-representative, and have a whiff of nepotism about them. It is not for nothing that citizens say they believe political parties are among the most discredited institutions in modern democracy. This observation is certainly not new. Political thinkers such as the Florentine Machiavelli (1469-1527), the French aristocrat Montesquieu (1689-1755) and the American James Madison (1751-1836) warned of the dangers posed by the emergence of factions. These factions were later referred to as political parties. The Irish-English politician Edmund Burke (1729-1797), defined a political party as a group of men who stand for election to promote the public interest based on a shared principle. Later, the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) formulated an alternative definition: political parties are groups of men who stand for office in order to acquire political power. We will return later to this distinction between engaging in politics for the sake of principles (policy-seeking) and engaging in it for the sake of power (office-seeking). These definitions of political parties assume a motive to engage in politics. We can also give a minimum definition of political parties: ‘a political group, identified by a label, which competes in elections and puts candidates forward for public office’. (Sartori 1976: 63) Political parties have been so fully anchored in modern democracy that we also refer to the current system as party democracy. Political parties are the linchpin of this system, and they are supposed to perform a number of functions. This chapter considers the various criticisms of political parties in relation to the functions they are supposed to fulfil in a democratic system. The broader question is: Do parties still succeed in carrying out their functions? Finally, we will look at whether the various experiments with party organisations can fix existing problems.

164 Gijs Schumacher

8.2

The functions of political parties

The functions of political parties in democratic systems can be grouped into three broad categories (see table 1): 1 They recruit, train and select people to be politically active. Parties scout for political talent and offer opportunities to become politically active (recruitment). They organise training and mentoring programmes for aspiring politicians (training). And parties have selection mechanisms to nominate people to internal functions or to representative functions on water boards, city councils, provinces, and the upper or lower houses of parliament (selection). 2 They promote the interests of various groups (articulation), bring together different and sometimes opposing positions (aggregation) and formulate this in a coherent programme (formulation). In this chapter, I argue that these features in particular are under pressure. 3 They encourage specific groups to vote and become members (mobilisation). By involving people in their work, parties try to ensure that people identify with it (integration). Because people with a certain background identify themselves with a party, parties are also points of reference that help voters to understand the political system. Table 1 Overview of the main functions of parties Functions of traditional mass parties Personnel function – Recruitment of members, including active members, and representatives –  Training and education of active members – Selection of members for representative bodies Programmatic function – Articulation of the requirements and wishes of groups in society –  Balancing of interests in daily political practice – Bringing together (aggregation) of both broad and particular interests and requirements in a consistent programme Function with regard to voters – Socialisation and integration of voters – Mobilisation of voters – Direct communication with voters

Much of the current criticism of political parties focuses precisely on the assumption that they do not succeed in fulfilling one or more of the

The Tr ansformation of Political Parties

165

aforementioned functions, and criticism of their programmatic function is particularly widespread. This chapter focuses on three points of criticism: (a) parties are not open or democratic enough, so they do not know what people’s concerns are; (b) for strategic reasons, parties have become too similar, so that citizens no longer have meaningful choices to make between them; and (c) parties have too few members, so they are unrepresentative and draw on too narrow a pool of talent to be able to turn out good politicians.

8.3

The evolution of political parties

How have the aforementioned critiques arisen? To answer this question, we will first look briefly at the evolution of parties over the last 150 years. Some parties have a long history: the British Conservative Party was founded in 1834 and may even trace its roots back to the eighteenth century. Most parties in the nineteenth century were just loose associations without any formal party organisation. This was also the case in the Netherlands. Members of parliament identified themselves as conservative, Catholic or liberal, but they were not united in a political party as we now understand that term. They were associated in a kind of gentleman’s club of notables, each of which represented a region in parliament. This type of party is also called a cadre party. Also in other countries most members of parliament in the middle and at the end of the nineteenth century were organized in the loose, non-binding associations of the cadre party. With the gradual extensions of voting rights at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, workers’ parties cropped up all over Europe. The German Social Democratic Party was founded as early as 1863. In the Netherlands, the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, the predecessor of the Labour Party (PvdA), was set up in 1894. Some of these workers’ parties were moderately social democratic, while others developed along more communist or socialist lines. These parties were able to mobilise, and eventually represent, large groups of citizens who up to then had not participated in the political process. These workers’ parties had a lot of success and quickly developed into mass parties. This was a new phenomenon. The mass party had many members, who had a say on many different levels. These parties also had strong principles, an extensive organisation rooted in society, and a socialisation and civilising mission. Mass parties were good at mobilizing voters, and the party organs ensured, in theory at least, a good flow of ideas from the bottom to the top. Some

166 Gijs Schumacher

parties were strongly linked to trade unions, interest groups or religious organisations. They also put out their own newspapers and were allied to certain radio stations. In the Netherlands, for instance, VARA (now BNN-VARA) was originally a socialist public broadcasting station, and for a long time, the Labour Party had a large newspaper of its own, Het Vrije Volk. These mass parties were thus strongly rooted in society. There was a strong contrast between these parties and the cadre parties, which were gentlemen’s clubs that did little in the way of mobilisation or the aggregation of opinion. The mostly left-wing mass parties became successful quickly, and soon the older cadre parties were borrowing elements from them. Thus Christian, liberal and conservative parties were also ‘tainted by the left’ (Duverger 1964), and this was reflected in particular in the way they were organised. The first mass party in the Netherlands was not on the left, but was connected with the orthodox Protestant churches. This was the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP), which was founded by the preacher Abraham Kuyper in 1879. It stood for the so-called ‘kleine luyden’ (‘the little people’), Protestants from the petty bourgeoisie. The party opposed the liberal ideals of the French Revolution, hence the name Anti-Revolutionary. Kuyper tried to drive a wedge into the dominant coalition between Catholics and liberals. One of the most important issues for the party was the state funding of religious schools (de schoolstrijd). Over time, the party developed an extensive network (zuil or pillar) with its own newspaper, De Standaard; its own orthodox Protestant Church, and its own university, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The mass party was better than the cadre party at articulating opinions, mobilising groups, and recruiting future politicians. But the mass parties came in for criticism soon enough. The German sociologist Robert Michels (1876-1936) maintained that every party, including mass parties, is doomed to be led in the end by a small clique of power-hungry politicians (Michels 1915). In his 1911 book, originally published in German, he argued that the so-called iron law of oligarchy is applicable to all parties, regardless of how idealistic their members are. An oligarchy is a structure in which the power lies with a small group of people. Michels showed in his influential book Political Parties that at the beginning of the twentieth century in socialist parties, ideals were increasingly squeezed out by considerations of power on the part of a small elite in the party. Politics based on principles (policy-seeking behaviour) makes way for politics aimed at increasing power, prestige and income (office-seeking behaviour). This change plays an important role in the evolution of political parties. The result of the iron law is that parties: (1) are less interested in

The Tr ansformation of Political Parties

167

propagating a political ideal, and more in winning an election or forming a ruling coalition; (2) are less interested in articulation and mobilisation as long as that is not going to pay off in electoral terms; (3) attract and promote, in their recruiting, more aspiring politicians who are motivated by power rather than by principles (Panebianco 1988). In the 1950s and 1960s, these developments meant that the mass parties of the past slowly changed into what became known as the catch-all parties (Kirchheimer 1966). Catch-all parties try to address as many different groups as possible rather than a specific group of voters. For example, workers’ parties were trying to extend their following by also putting forward policies that were popular among civil servants and small business owners. Christian Democratic parties tried, for their part, to appease workers with a left-leaning socio-economic policy. And this is how the sharp ideological differences between parties disappeared. For instance, old ideological rivals such as the German Christian Democrats and the Socialists formed a coalition for the first time in 1966. Much later, in 1994 in the Netherlands, the liberal VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and the socialdemocratic Labour Party (PvdA) formed for the first time what was known as a purple coalition, together with D66 (social liberals). The disappearance of sharp oppositions also facilitated cooperation between parties, and even mergers, as illustrated, for instance, by the creation of the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), a merger of the Catholic People’s Party (KVP), the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) and the Christian Historical Union (CHU). To sum up: in the 1960s and 1970s, political parties moved away from political programmes that were focused on a specific group (for example, workers) towards more-diffuse programmes that were aimed at a broader stratum of the population. Party members often did not agree with the party leadership if it adopted a more moderate political programme. Therefore party elites sought to reduce the role of members in the party (Katz & Mair 1995). They did this among other things by having the state subsidise parties. Up to then, party activities such as election campaigns, training programmes, surveys and conferences had been funded by member contributions. Members were important, because parties could organise themselves with their financial contributions. Partly replacing members’ contributions by subsidies allowed parties to be less concerned about their members, who thus lost influence. About 40% of the financing of Dutch parties comes from membership fees, and 30% to 35% from state subsidies. Other revenue comes from donations, among other things. This development meant that members lost a good part

168 Gijs Schumacher

of their function as intermediaries between the people and the party elite. And this spelled the end for the mass-party model. The trend towards catch-all parties increased in the 1970s and 1980s. The internal organisation of parties, and the ways in which they competed with each other, changed in such a way that a new type of party was identified, the cartel party (Katz & Mair 1995). Competition between cartel parties is no longer about ideology, but about competence. Professional politicians rely on their qualities to guarantee economic growth, for instance. Ideological principles just get in the way, and are best sloughed off. For instance, in 1995, Wim Kok, who was Dutch Prime Minister from 1994 to 2002, and leader of the Labour Party (PvdA) from 1986 to 2002, argued that it was time for the party to shed its ‘ideological feathers’. Mark Rutte, who was elected leader of the liberal VVD in 2006 and who has been Prime Minister since 2010, argued something similar in 2015. Political campaigns are more professional, with modern commercials and propaganda material. Greater use is made of advertising professionals and electoral researchers instead of well-meaning amateurs from among the membership. The party organisation is losing its importance relative to the parliamentary party. That is to say: the face of the party is increasingly determined by its members of parliament and cabinet ministers, and less and less by the members, the party organisation and party officials. ‘Cartel party’ indicates something else: the parties that are regularly in the government form a cartel and make it harder for other parties to get into parliament or the government. The change in the electoral system in France after the unexpected gains by the National Front in 1986, is an example. By keeping new parties outside the system, the cartel parties prevent new competition from arising. This way they hope to ensure that the election campaign takes place only among already-existing parties. In short, throughout history parties have always adapted to changing institutional conditions such as the introduction of universal suffrage, and to changing strategic circumstances such as the emergence of new parties. To summarise, the four types of parties and their main features that were dominant in certain periods over the last 150 years are as follows (Katz 2011). – Cadre party: was dominant before the introduction of universal suffrage; little organisation, a collection of individuals, minimal organisation, did little in the way of aggregation and mobilisation. – Mass party: dominant after the introduction of universal suffrage, initially among left-wing parties; intensive organising, paid for by members, strong links with civil society, party fulfils all functions.

The Tr ansformation of Political Parties

169

– Catch-all party: less important role for members (‘cheerleaders’), programme more fluid and more open to multiple interpretations, less articulation and aggregation of interests; arose after 1950. – Cartel party: members insignificant, financing by the state, ‘party in public office’ important, professional politicians and spin doctors, etc. Arose after 1970.

8.4

Recent developments and the functions of political parties

Political parties are often criticised these days for not being democratic enough, for looking too much like each other, and for having almost no members any more. Critics still often have the classic mass party as an ideal image in their minds. This ideal still plays an important role in the ideation on political parties. When Hans Spekman became party chairman of the Dutch Labour Party in 2012, a post he held until 2017, he promised greater party democracy and a doubling of the number of party members, from about 50,000 to 100,000. With more members, a party receives more dues, it may deploy more manpower on campaigns and, above all, it gains more legitimacy and social relevance. The miserable failure of Spekman’s project to double the number of members, shows that the mass party really is a thing of the past. People cannot be so easily prodded any more to join a party. Also, it is not always in the interest of the party elite to have more members and greater internal partydemocracy. Less power for the party organisation means that political parties can focus more on the political center (Schumacher, De Vries & Vis 2013), from where they can win more votes and find it easier to form coalitions. More members or more party democracy just means more interference from the bottom up. Are parties becoming less democratic? Michels’s aforementioned iron law of oligarchy predicts that every party, regardless of its idealism, will eventually fall into the clutches of a small group of people, who will aim to protect or build up their own power and prestige. These criticisms of parties are also being made again nowadays. There is a complaint that parties do seem open and democratic, but that in practice a small elite controls what happens. Members of political parties may cheer the elite as cheerleaders, but are not supposed to have opinions. That makes the aggregation of interests difficult.

170 Gijs Schumacher

But does this law actually hold true? Are all parties doomed to be ruled by a small, power-hungry elite? In a comparative survey of the changing relationships between party members and party leaders in 72 parties from different European countries, Schumacher and Giger showed that there is a trend towards more oligarchy in parties. That is, the party leadership is getting more and more power at the expense of the members. But it is not an iron law: not all parties fulfil the prediction. And in some parties, revolutions are taking place. At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, the Dutch labour party PvdA, under the influence of the internal opposition movement Nieuw Links (New Left), was swamped with young baby boomers who were trying to take over the party from the bottom up. This was successful in the sense that the party moved to the left ideologically, and was drastically rejuvenated in terms of politicians and party cadres. Still, this kind of breach of the existing order is often only temporary; over time the party leadership regains its hold on the party (Lipset, Trow & Coleman 1956). If members have no influence, the information flow from bottom (the members) to top (the party elite) is stymied. But are parties necessarily failing to articulate and aggregate opinions? Of course that does not have to be the case. What is more: if party members harbour very different views than the general population does, a lot of influence from members leads to the articulation of views that are, for example, far too radical. In practice, by the way, it turns out that party members are not at all more radical or more moderate than voters (Van Holsteyn, Den Ridder & Koole 2017). Given the daily flow of information via surveys, opinion polls and social media, does a party leader still need party members to know what the people want? Research shows that parties in which members have a lot of power change positions if the members also do so (Schumacher, De Vries & Vis 2013; Schumacher & Giger 2017). In any case, members have less and less power within parties. Parties with dominant leaders and no democratic structures change positions if public opinion also does so. The articulation and aggregation of interests are thus not weaker if parties are less democratic, but they do change. Parties in which members have a lot of influence have a clear ideological image and listen to their members, while those in which members have no influence listen, by contrast, to the public as a whole. Are parties offering fewer and fewer policy alternatives? There are frequent complaints that ideological differences between political parties have disappeared. If this complaint is true, then political parties

The Tr ansformation of Political Parties

171

are failing to articulate the diverse perspectives and interests of the public. But is this criticism correct? The evolution of political parties, from mass parties to catch-all and later cartel parties, in fact suggests that parties perform less well in carrying out their functions of articulation, aggregation and mobilisation. But things are not as bad as they seem. First, in the last 10 years especially, mostly new parties have broken the existing cartel. Many new parties have been elected to parliaments in Europe and sometimes also to government. In the Netherlands, Christian Union and the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) debuted in the government in 2006 and 2002, respectively. Other examples of new governing parties are the Greens (Germany, from 1998 to 2005), the Socialist People’s Party (Denmark, from 2011 to 2014) and the Progress Party (Norway, starting in 2013). In Italy, the entire old party system has blown up, with the result that the dominant Christian Democratic Party has disappeared. Secondly, empirical research has shown clearly time and time again that political parties respond to shifts in the preferences of the electorate (Adams 2012). Parties are responsive, but not always on all issues and not always to all people. In particular on the issue of immigration, political parties have listened hardly at all to the political preferences of less-well-educated and low-income people (Giger, Rosset & Bernauer 2012). New political parties play up the issue of immigration in particular, and parties such as Wilders’ PVV (Party for Freedom) in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party in Austria, Alternative for Germany, and the Danish People’s Party are having a lot of success with it. We also see that the established parties are responding to this by being more critical with respect to immigrants (Wagner & Meyer 2016). In that sense, the system does have a corrective mechanism. The loss of votes and government power works in such a way that parties adapt to the changing environment. Finally, it is true that the ideological differences between the established parties have diminished. Starting in the 1970s in the Netherlands, the ideological distances between Christian Democratic CDA , the liberal VVD and the social democratic PvdA have been greatly reduced (Pennings & Keman 2008). Ideological differences are also growing, however, because new parties on the left and right are occupying the vacant spaces, and because new parties create new divisions in parliament on issues such as Europe and immigration.

172 Gijs Schumacher

Is the membership party dead? In 1960, about 730,000 Dutch people, 6.3% of the population, were members of a political party. In 2016, that number was just 295,275, or 1.7% of the population. In particular, the established parties have to deal with a huge drop in the number of members: for the Labour Party (PvdA), the number fell from about 140,000 in 1960 to approximately 100,000 in the 1980s and 46,000 in 2016; membership in the liberal VVD fell from about 100,000 at the beginning of the 1980s to 28,000 in 2016; and for Christian Democratic CDA, the drop has been from about 150,000 in the early 1980s to 50,000 in 2016. This trend is certainly not unique: throughout Europe, fewer and fewer people are members of any political party (Van Biezen & Poguntke 2014). One can rightly say that, when it comes to the membership numbers, the mass party is a something of the past. The trend of a drop in membership does not apply to every party. D66 has never had so many members, about 25,000 in 2016. The same goes for the small orthodox Protestant SGP (Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij). And despite a recent drop in the number of members, in 2016 GroenLinks (GreenLeft) still had nearly 1.5 times as many members as it had in the 1990s. New parties also motivate people to join a political party. The Party for the Animals had about 12,000 members in 2016. The Party for Freedom, on the other hand, is an exception, with only one member: Geert Wilders himself. It must be said that parties with increasing numbers of members are also not classical mass parties. They are mostly relatively new. It is perhaps no coincidence that ‘older’ parties such as the Labour Party (PvdA), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the liberal VVD are shrinking. Ann-Kristin Kölln (2016) suggests that the growth and subsequent drop in the number of members are part of the natural attrition of political parties. The number of party members also varies with their success: as parties win seats in parliament, they also get more members. A recent major exception to the developments outlined here is the British Labour Party. This old mass party has managed to double its membership in a year’s time, from about 200,000 to 400,000. Many of those new members are supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, who in 2015 was elected party leader, and who is trying to give the party a strong left-wing identity. This also goes against the trend of the blurring of ideological differences, as we saw in the previous section. Is the decline in membership numbers among most of the established parties a problem? Are parties with fewer members less effective at carrying out their functions? With fewer members, it is more difficult to mobilise people, and recruitment is also at risk. When it comes to mobilisation,

The Tr ansformation of Political Parties

173

a party with more members is more firmly anchored in society and can therefore function better as a linchpin between society and government. Yet this popular argument seems to be wrong. Voters do not feel better represented by parties who have a lot of members. It is the other way round: if parties have few members, voters are more likely to identify themselves with the positions of that party (Schumacher & Giger 2017). When it comes to recruitment, fewer members simply means fewer people to choose from for the elected roles. It is difficult to determine whether party committees actually do have less talent to choose from than before. What we can say is that the percentage of members who are interested in standing for elected office is many times higher than it was before (Scarrow 2002). And we should note that, since 2000, the total number of members has been falling a lot less quickly than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

8.5

Are experiments aimed at revitalising internal party democracy working?

Many parties are experimenting with new forms of organisation. A lot of these experiments are intended to give members more influence within the party. The aim is to make party membership more meaningful and more attractive. An important example is the election of the party leader by the members. With more members, a party can: (1) aggregate more opinions and ensure better representation; (2) select candidates for political office from a larger talent pool; (3) get more in the way of contributions and have more people available to help run campaigns. A leadership election can create a nice media event, a ‘celebration of democracy’ within the party. Up to 2000, party leaders were elected mainly by delegates at a congress. Other parties let even smaller groups, such as the parliamentary group or a party council, choose the party leader. Since 2000, it has become more and more popular for members to choose the leader. About one in four parties in Europe now does this (Cross & Pilet 2015). Some parties, such as the French Socialists, also give non-members the opportunity to take part in elections, following the example of open primaries in the United States. Other parties, such as Labour in the United Kingdom, offer a very low membership rate, about two euros, so that more people can take part. The selection methods political parties use are thus becoming more inclusive. That is, more people can vote in the selection of the party leader. A similar development is taking place in the Netherlands. Wouter Bos (PvdA 2002), Mark Rutte (VVD 2006), Diederik Samsom (PvdA 2012) and

174 Gijs Schumacher

Sybrand van Haersma Buma (CDA 2012) were elected leaders of their parties by party members. However, political parties do not always hold internal elections for the leadership. Between Bos and Samsom, Job Cohen was leader of the Labour Party. He was nominated by Bos as his successor and then appointed by the party congress. GreenLeft tried in 2012 to scuttle an election for party leader by claiming that there were no suitable opposing candidates, even though a member of the Lower House of Parliament, Tofik Dibi, had put himself forward as a candidate. Finally the incumbent party leader, Jolande Sap, won handily with 84% of the vote, but the negative publicity caused the party a lot of reputational damage. With more-inclusive selection methods for party leader, parties seem to be getting more democratic internally. In fact, there are more members involved in such elections, but the average party member is not as well informed as a delegate of a party chapter, or as a member of parliament. This gives an advantage to candidates who are already well known by the members (Kenig 2009). Critics of opening elections for party leader to party members point out that this method only leads to a stronger emphasis on people than on ideas and to a stronger mandate for the party leader. It does not, they say, make the party more democratic. On the contrary, it actually makes the party leader more powerful compared to the party (Katz & Mair 1995). An analysis of 37 parties at two different points in time does indeed show that, in parties that use a more inclusive method to elect party leaders, the leaders are more dominant (Schumacher & Giger 2017). A number of side remarks are thus in order on the rhetoric of party democratisation. It in fact strengthens the position of the leader relative to the members. But are elections that are open to members at least effective at mobilising people? There is indeed evidence for this. An analysis of 103 leadership elections shows that parties that allow their members to choose their leaders do get a statistically significant if temporary bump in the polls (Pedersen & Schumacher 2015). This effect was not found in parties that used other selection methods. The analysis also showed that parties actually rise in the polls if there is a competition for the party leadership. For example, in the months around the VVD leadership elections between Rutte and Verdonk in 2006, the party rose about 6% in the polls. This is, of course, only generally the case: a battle for the leadership can also turn out badly in some cases. The aforementioned battle between Jolande Sap and Tofik Dibi is an example. This turned out particularly badly because Greenleft wanted to avoid a contest. Pedersen and Schumacher(2015) suggest that competition for the leadership leads to temporary increases in the polls because of the

The Tr ansformation of Political Parties

175

positive media attention it generates. If parties do not manage to run the election campaign smoothly, the positive effect vanishes. Political parties are experimenting with more than just a change in who selects the party leader. Some political parties are experimenting with allowing more of a say on the policy of the party. They can do this by organising more membership meetings. They can also do this online. In particular, the Pirate parties in several European countries are experimenting with this. Through an online platform – Liquid Democracy – members can have their say in the election platform and possibly delegate their vote to another like-minded member. The German Liberals have used elements of this method in establishing their platform for the 2013 elections. In Italy, the Five Star Movement allows decisions on the selection of candidates and on votes in parliament to take place though online procedures. These experiments have also partly been adopted by more-established parties: the Dutch PvdA, for example, gives members the opportunity to log in and vote at home during its congress. There are thus experiments to make parties more open, but there are also experiments that are not going in this direction. The way the Dutch PVV is organised is unique. The party has no party structure and no members other than Geert Wilders, who controls it entirely from the top. Political parties are also making more and more use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook in order to make short-term and more-lasting connections with voters. Twitter and Facebook allow politicians to mobilise voters outside the existing parties. At the time of writing, Prime Minister Rutte has 700,000 followers, whom he can reach directly without interference from the media or party members. This means Rutte has more than 20 times as many followers as there are members in his party (about 30,000). Despite the ‘social’ in social media, politicians use it primarily to send information. Integrating people in politics or in a party is quite difficult, especially because the open nature of social media ensures that people can easily switch to other politicians or parties (Spierings & Jacobs 2014). There are also alternative movements that are experimenting with new ways of engaging politics. G1000, in Belgium, is an example: this citizens’ initiative is trying to bring more consultation, deliberation and participation into the political process, to revitalise the overall democratic process (D’Hondt & Goethals 2014). Since 2011, it has been attempting to organise citizens in fora that make specific policy proposals for reform.

176 Gijs Schumacher

8.6 Conclusion Is the era of political parties over? The impending death of many parties, such as the CDA, the PvdA and D66, has often been predicted. Yet parties rarely disappear. Political parties are fairly solid institutions. Are they still fulfilling their functions, then? When it comes to recruiting, training and selecting politicians, parties certainly have a problem in that they must cope with an ever-shrinking pool of talent as membership declines. This reduces the choice they have. As regards the aggregation of interests and the formulation of a programme, certain groups are poorly represented from time to time. That is, their issues do not make it onto the political agenda (see also Chapter 2). Yet this is often temporary, because new, and sometimes old, political parties take up the issues in question. Political competition thus keeps parties on their toes. Finally, since early this century, parties have been mobilising and integrating fewer people than in the mid-20th century. This is because, in general, people have weaker links with specific social groups. It is clear that parties are fulfilling some functions less effectively than they did in the past, but this does not mean that parties are not needed. In fact, they are more of a reference point in politics than they were before. They organize the political landscape. As long as no clear alternatives emerge, our democracy will still be chiefly a party democracy. Within that party democracy, there are different choices to be made. The introduction highlighted the difference between policy-seeking and office-seeking. A party organisation plays an important role in determining which drivers are dominant in a party. This has implications for political competition and for the quality of democracy within the party. The transformations that political parties have gone through over the last hundred years can be seen in this light. The classical mass parties can best be described as policy-seeking. This type of party worked on the basis of ideological principles, but at the same time its organization was rigid and it could not adapt easily. With the more modern ideal types such as cartel and catch-all parties, office-seeking considerations play a more important role. These parties also fulfil their role when it comes to mobilisation and articulation. It is just that they do this in a different way. This is not bad in and of itself, but much of the current criticism of parties takes aim at their office-seeking nature.

The Tr ansformation of Political Parties

177

References Adams, James (2012). ‘Causes and Electoral Consequences of Party Policy Shifts in Multiparty Elections: Theoretical Results and Empirical Evidence’, Annual Review of Political Science 15: 401-419. Biezen, I. van & T. Poguntke (2014). ‘The Decline of Membership-Based Politics’, Party Politics 20(2): 205-216. Cross, William & Jean Benoit Pilet (2015). The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. D’Hondt, L. & A. Goethals (2014). ‘Democratische innovatie: lessen uit de G1000.’ In: Sarah de Lange, Monique Leyenaar & Pieter de Jong (eds), Politieke partijen: overbodig of nodig?, 181-192. Den Haag: Raad voor het Openbaar Bestuur. Duverger, Maurice (1964). Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State. London: Methuen. Giger, Nathalie, Jan Rosset & Julian Bernauer (2012). ‘The Poor Political Representation of the Poor in a Comparative Perspective’, Representation 48(1). Hay, C. (2007). Why We Hate Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Van Holsteyn, J.J., Ridder, J.M. den, & Koole, R.A. (2017). ‘From May’s Laws to May’s legacy.’ Party Politics, 23(5), 471-486. Katz, Richard S. (2011). ‘Political Parties.’ In: Daniele Caramani (ed.) Comparative Politics, 219-236. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Katz, Richard S. & Peter Mair (1995). ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’, Party Politics 1(1): 5-28. Kenig, Ofer (2009). ‘Democratization of Party Leadership Selection: Do Wider Selectorates Produce More Competitive Contests?’ Electoral Studies 28(2): 240-247. Kirchheimer, Otto (1966). ‘The Transformation of Western European Party Systems.’ In: La­ Palombara, J. & M. Weiner (eds), Political Parties and Political Development, 177-200. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kölln, A.-K. (2016). ‘Party membership in Europe. Testing party-level explanations of decline’. Party Politics, 22(4), 465-477. Lipset, S.M., Martin Trow & J. Coleman (1956). Union Democracy: The Internal Politics of the International Typographical Union. New York: Free Press. Michels, Robert (1915). Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Hearst’s International Library Co. Panebianco, Angelo (1988). Political Parties: Organization and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paulis, E., V. Sierens & Emilie van Haute (2015). ‘Explaining Variations in Party Membership Levels.’ In: ECPR General Conference, Montreal. Pedersen, Helene Helboe & Gijs Schumacher (2015). ‘Do Leadership Changes Improve Electoral Performance?’ In: William Cross & Jean Benoit Pilet (red.) The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective, 149-164. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pennings, Paul & Hans Keman (2008). ‘The Changing Landscape of Dutch Politics since the 1970s: A Comparative Exploration.’ Acta Politica 43(2-3): 154-179. Sartori, Giovanni (1976). Parties and Party Systems, A Framework for Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge Universtity Press.

178 Gijs Schumacher Scarrow, Susan E. (2002. ‘Parties Without Members? Party Organization in a Changing Electoral Environment.’ In: Russell J. Dalton & M.P. Wattenberg (eds), Parties Without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 129-153. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schumacher, G., & Giger, N. (2017). ‘Who Leads the Party? On Membership Size, Selectorates and Party Oligarchy’. Political Studies, 65(1_suppl), 162-181. Schumacher, Gijs, Catherine E. de Vries & Barbara Vis (2013). ‘Why Do Parties Change Position? Party Organization and Environmental Incentives.’ Journal of Politics 75(2): 464-477. Spierings, Niels & Kristof Jacobs (2014). ‘Van Leden Naar “likes”? Wat Sociale Media Politieke Partijen Kunnen Bieden.’ In: Sarah de Lange, Monique Leyenaar & Pieter de Jong (eds), Politieke Partijen: Nodig of Overbodig?, 137-150. Den Haag: Raad voor het Openbaar Bestuur. Wagner, M. & T.M. Meyer (2016). ‘The Radical Right as Niche Parties? The Ideological Landscape of Party Systems in Western Europe, 1980-2014.’ Political Studies, 65 (1): 84-107.

9

Interest Groups and Social Movements Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegraaff

9.1 Introduction Interest groups and social movements form an indispensable part of the political system in democratic countries. Yet there is a social and scholarly debate going on about the power that these groups have or should have (Korteweg & Huisman 2016). For example, many people are concerned that politicians are more willing to listen to the interests of businesses or people with a higher education rather than focusing on interests that are widely shared in society. They believe this could mean that public policy is more favourable to producers than consumers, that more political attention is paid to the needs of people with a higher level of education than to those with less education, and that ‘established’ policy programmes are hardly adapted at all to new conditions. This, they say is unjust and inefficient. Others say that interest groups often help to improve the quality of public policies, that they articulate ideals that get little attention in other ways, such as a sustainable world or respect for human rights, that they draw attention to social or economic problems and contribute to the political emancipation of minority groups. To illustrate, for decades, trade unions have defended the interests of workers. In 2015, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a partnership of four Tunisian interest groups. According to the Nobel Prize Committee, the ‘Quartet National Dialogue’ contributed to the new democracy that arose in Tunisia during the Jasmine Revolution. And the intensive cooperation among environmental organisations and several large multinationals was considered crucial to the success of the most recent round of climate negotiations. In short, over the years interest groups have alternately been seen as heroes and as enemies of democracy. The question that this raises is which description is closer to the truth. Is the power of interest groups indeed so great that they sideline citizens? And if this is so, is it more often to the advantage of more-powerful organisations, such as those in the business world, or rather a weapon of marginalised groups in society, such as those we saw during the Arab Spring? To give a good answer to the question of the power and influence of interest groups, it is important to first point out that interest groups and social movements come in many sorts and these are politically active in various ways. Take social movements that are active in the media, experts

180 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

who have contact with members of parliament, trade unions that organise demonstrations, or companies that operate in the corridors of political power. Or take, for instance, the protests and squatting by rejected asylum seekers who united in Amsterdam in the ‘We Are Here’ movement. Another example is the active press briefings on the extension of mortgage regulations by Maxime Verhagen, former Minister from Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and current Chair of Bouwend Nederland, the Dutch association of construction and infrastructure companies. Or, we can point to the cooperation among more than 40 organisations, including the government, employers, trade unions, environmental organisations, social organisations and financial institutions, on the Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth, which was coordinated by the SER (Social and Economic Council) in 2013. This chapter is about these various forms of advocacy and the question of whether some groups are more successful in influencing public policy than others. To classify these diverse groups and activities, we will look first of all at the most common types of interest groups and then describe the activities of these various groups. We will do this by exploring various factors that determine whether groups can influence any of the following: (1) the mobilisation of citizens or businesses within organisations, (2) the network or the structure of organisations that want to influence public policy, and (3) the various types of political strategies that organisations pursue. At the end of the chapter, we consider whether interest groups do indeed have a lot of influence on the political system and, if so, how we can explain this.

9.2

Interest groups and social movements

To delimit the field of research carefully, we will first define a few important concepts. Organizations engage in advocacy when they try to influence public policy without contesting elected positions in representative bodies, as political parties do. All kinds of organisations can engage in such political activities. For instance, a think tank can send a journalist a research report, a restaurant owner may talk to a local civil servant about the enforcement of safety regulations, and a local government representative can lobby nationally for specific subsidies. Given the broad variety of interest groups and activities it is important to look at all the advocates involved to understand how policy issues are resolved. In this chapter, we use ‘interest group’ to mean all organisations engaging in advocacy, i.e. aiming to influence public policy outside of the electoral process. In practice, interest groups

Interest Groups and Social Movements

181

do not always call themselves that, and lobbying is often only one of an organisation’s various activities. In many cases, it is important, then, to look at what specific interest groups are active; for example, is it an interest group, an individual organisation such as corporations or lobby firms, or a social movement? An interest association is an organisation with members or donors (citizens, businesses, or other organisations) that for the most part engages in advocacy. This means that when think tanks, individual business or public bodies engage in a lobby campaign, they count as an interest group (advocating interests) but not as an interest association because they have no members. Given their membership, interest associations have a representative function of a particular interests, political goal or social group (Jordan, Halpin & Maloney 2004). Associations have a special legal status as voluntary associations without commercial goals. There are different types of interest associations. We can think of trade associations such as the Association of the Dutch Chemical Industry (VNCI), professional associations such as the Royal Dutch Society for Physical Therapy (KNGF), and citizen groups such as the development organisation Oxfam-Novib. In most cases members have formal voting rights at membership meetings and in this way provide consent to the key strategic choices for the interest group in question. In some cases, there is a multi-level structure for members’ participation. For example, Amnesty International in the Netherlands has an elected members’ council, which in turn elects the management team. In other cases, there is no formal membership, just the role of donor. In those cases, while people can donate money to the organisation in question, they get no say in return. In any case, interest associations are directly or indirectly dependent on their supporters and they are, at the same time politically active. As a result, they form a link between society and the state, and are therefore called intermediary organisations. We also see this linking function in a different way with political parties and the media, which in their own way are a bridge between the state and society (see Chapters 8 and 10). The Dutch government, to a stronger extent than most governments, provides interest associations with substantial specific powers and privileges (Visser 2007). To start, most Dutch sector-specific employers-associations and trade unions are allowed to make decisions on behalf of members on collectively binding labour agreements or on the management of pension funds in a given sector. Also, professional associations usually establish the criteria, including the quality criteria, that are required to practice a particular profession. The Dutch General Practitioners Association

182 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

(Landelijke Huisartsen Vereniging, LHV) for example, may carry out an office-location policy, and the Association of Garage Owners (BOVAG) determines which garages are authorised to carry out legally obligatory regular vehicle inspections, namely, anyone who is a member. Third, the government decides who can take a seat on formal advisory bodies such as the Socio-Economic Council (SER) or sections of the various ministries. Priority is usually given here to the organisations that bring together various sectors or occupational groups (umbrella organisations) such as the Dutch Trade Union Congress (FNV) or the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW). Such organisations have an exclusive right to be heard by policy-makers. If, for example, the regulation of banks comes up, in principle the Ministry of Finance will officially only hear the positions of the Dutch Banking Association (NVB) rather than the views of individual banks. Fourth, the government offers subsidies, for example, structural subsidies for umbrella organisations of sports clubs, project subsidies for development aid, or indirect subsidies. Indirect subsidies consist of schemes that make it cheaper to be a member of certain interest groups (Fraussen 2013). For instance, donations to recognised charities are deductible from income tax, and some collective labour agreements stipulate that union dues are to be reimbursed by the employer. The European Union also offers subsidies (Sanchez Salgado 2014). In the academic study of interest associations one finds various ways in which researchers make divisions between types of associations such as based on their membership (citizens, businesses, and other organisations), political objectives (‘protection’ of interests or ‘propagation’ of political beliefs) and interests (the environment, cooperative development cooperation, employees, and so on) (Baroni et al. 2013). Interest associations and a broad range of other voluntary associations and non-profit organisations with no direct political or commercial objectives may jointly be seen as the so-called ‘civil society’. Dutch civil society is relatively large compared to that in many other countries. This is because in a number of policy areas, such as healthcare and education, many tasks are carried out by civic organisations. Traditionally, hospitals and schools in the Netherlands are the responsibility of civic organisations, while in other countries such tasks are either resort under state bureaucracies such as the National Health Service in the United Kingdom or are offered by commercial firms (Dekker 2004). There is also a relatively strong network of voluntary organisations in Netherlands, and some of these also function as interest groups (i.e. when they start lobbying). Taken together, this ensures that the Netherlands has one of the most active civil societies in the world.

Interest Groups and Social Movements

183

In addition to interest associations and other organizations with a relevant political lobby, which often work through institutionalised formal or informal political channels, there are also social movements that try to change policies and practices in other ways (Tarrow 1998). A social movement consists of groups that are organised both formally and, in contrast to interest groups, unorganized groups as well. Those that are more formally organised are usually referred to as social-movement organisations, such as Greenpeace, which is part of the environmental movement. Less formally organised groups often consist of informal networks of sympathisers. Social movements are distinguished from interest associations by a lower degree of formal organisation, by objectives oriented towards change, and by a focus on citizen interests (as opposed to the interests of companies or other organisations). The activities of social movements have a certain degree of continuity, but they sometimes change over time. In a period of lower activity, the different components of a movement may move on in at least four directions: one part may remain active as a relatively institutionalised interest association, another may switch to more-radical forms of political action, another part may live on in the form of relatively commercial activities such as festivals, Gay Pride, for example, or some part continues to exist as a social club or association, such as ex-squatters who form a residents’ association. In the 1970s, there was a wave of social movements that focused on ‘postmaterial’ themes, such as the peace movement, the environmental movement and the women’s movement (Kriesi et al. 1995). The environmental movement has been largely institutionalised, and various interest groups, such as Greenpeace and the Dutch environmental group Milieudefensie, have arisen from this. The peace movement in the 1980s was able to mobilise large numbers of people, but only a few religiously inspired organisations such as the Interdenominational Peace Council (IKV) and Pax Christi still remind us of this extensive mobilisation. Over the last few years, a number of movements with a cross-border or transnational character have emerged (Della Porta & Tarrow 2005). Think of Occupy Wall Street, the anti-austerity and political-reform movements in southern Europe, such as Movimiento 15-M in Spain, and the movement of outraged citizens in Greece. There are also, radical right-wing populist groups with party-political ties or ambitions such as the Tea Party/Alt Right in the United States and Pegida / AfD in Germany. In some of these movements, such as Occupy, there is explicit international coordination and aspiration and in other cases it is a matter of mutual inspiration that leads these movements to be identified as being part of the same wave of movement activity.

184 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

9.3

Concerns about advocacy

Interest associations and social movements are an important link between citizens and politics. This relationship is often portrayed in a negative light by citizens nonetheless. Certainly in public debate, advocacy by means of lobbying is often labelled a threat to democracy. Lobbyists, on this view, represent the interests of wealthy citizens and businesses and pressure elected representatives to act in a way that is not in the interests of their own voters or the electorate in general. Others see more positive points. Elections are an imperfect way for citizens to signal their interests. It is highly unlikely that any of the parties from which one can choose corresponds fully to the interests and wishes of a given citizen. In many cases, someone will vote for a party based on a limited number of positions it takes. This still leaves many other points on which an individual citizen would like to express political views. In addition, the party a citizen has voted for might not get into the government, or the voter can be disgruntled with specific positions it takes while it is in power. In short, there are many reasons for citizens to indicate at other times, too, why they are dissatisfied with certain topics and why they hope for some alternative decision-making in politics. Interest associations may in some case excel at conveying to politicians matters that get either not enough attention or none at all. In this way, interest associations are a crucial connection between citizens and their representatives. The question remains: are interest groups especially a threat to democracy or are they an essential part of it? We will tap into these normative concerns throughout the remainder of this chapter.

9.4

Advocacy as a political process

Topics that are of concern to citizens or organisations in society can find their way to politics through advocacy. Some topics will never get attention of interest representatives, while in other areas interest associations have traditionally had a big impact. To explain why more lobbying is done on some topics than on others, and why a lobby sometimes succeeds and in other cases does not, it makes sense to identify the process that is situated between the political needs of people and the influence of interest groups in politics. When it comes to advocacy as a process, a distinction is often made between four different components (see figure 1). The first part concerns the mobilisation of interests and political preferences in a society. Political initiatives are needed for this. There may be a lot of

185

Interest Groups and Social Movements

resistance in society to the European Union, but if there are no organisations mobilizing on this issue, this resistance will not be concrete. The second aspect concerns the system of interest groups. This comprises all organisations in The Hague (or in any other political centre) that try to influence public policy, and has all sorts of demographic, social and political characteristics. For example, the system can include young or old organisations, fragmented or centralised, heavily focused on business or on citizens’ groups. For the third component, we look at the actual attempts to influence politics. Here it is about political strategy. What choices do interest groups and movements make when it comes to potential alliances, whether to carry out a public campaign, or to approach politicians? The fourth factor concerns the actual influence on government policy or on other relevant actors or public opinion. Can activists or lobbyists influence policy and are some groups more successful at this than others? Has one or another movement made people look in a new way at a particular issue? Below we discuss the various components and point up both an optimistic and a pessimistic perspective. Figure 1 The process of advocacy 1. Mobilisation 2. System of and organisation organisations Research question

Why do citizens become politically active?

Research topic

Collective action mechanisms

Why do more protests and lobbying activities go on in some policy areas than in others? Number and variety of organisations by policy area or country

3. Activities and strategies

4. Influence on public policy

Why do the political activities of interest groups differ?

Why do some but not all groups manage to get their preferences adopted in public policy? Policy, problem recognition

Strategic choices made by interest groups

Source: Lowery & Brasher 2003: 18

Between society and politics: mobilisation The first step to take to see what interests are better represented is to study the process of mobilising different political preferences and interests. Why do citizens become politically active together? Some researchers have an optimistic picture of the willingness of citizens to jointly make their political voices heard. This image comes from

186 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

American researchers from the 1950s, known as the pluralists, such as David Truman (1951). They assumed that people are naturally social beings who organise themselves politically when their interests or preferences are ‘disrupted’ as a result of social developments or policy changes. Farmers speak with a single voice when looking for government support because of a poor harvest, cleaners will work together when they want a higher salary, and students will start an action when they believe the quality of their education is sub-par. They form cooperative relationships with other stakeholders, set up organisations, and in the process find their way to politics. This process creates a balanced aggregate of interest groups in which urgent political interests are represented (Baumgartner & Leech 1998: 44-64). In this optimistic vision, there is no fundamental inequality in terms of the power the different social groups have. (For more on the pluralists, see Chapter 1). A pessimistic perspective can be found in the rational or economic vision of the political mobilisation of citizens. The influential book The Logic of Collective Action (1965) by Mancur Olson is the most prominent example. Olson assumes that people make decisions based on a rational consideration of material costs and benefits. One cannot assume that individuals contribute to a common good such as the promotion of a group interest or a certain objective. Persons will prefer to make use of the common good without contributing to it, in what Olson called free riding. An accessible and clean nature, safe roads and an educated workforce are examples of common or collective goods, which organisations such as the British Royal Safety for the Protection of Birds, Safe Traffic in the Netherlands (Veilig Verkeer Nederland), and the National Union of Students (LSVB) fight for. Everyone stands to benefit from this type of advocacy and the possible realisation of the common good, but people are unwilling to support these organisations voluntarily, according to Olson. These are instances of the public good from which everyone benefits, regardless of whether they have contributed to the action or have incurred any expense, such as dikes, defence or good roads. The state finances such initiatives by levying compulsory taxes, but this is certainly not the case for all forms of public good, such as working conditions, human rights or investments in a specific economic sector. In these cases, people who do not take part will still benefit from the actions of others. This presents a problem: if everyone thinks this way, nothing will happen. Organisations that still want people to pay for a facility can see whether a mandatory payment is possible, as in the case of taxes. These include various certifications necessary for the exercise of certain professions, but

Interest Groups and Social Movements

187

in many cases an organisation does not have the legal mandate to do this. Much more often, therefore, interest associations will offer certain benefits exclusively to members: selective incentives. In order to keep going, interest groups or social movements entice members with all kinds of exclusive membership services and/or use a membership requirement, as with some professional associations. You have access to the test results put out by the Dutch Consumer Association (Consumentenbond) only if you are a member, the roadside traffic assistance offered by the Royal Dutch Touring Club (ANWB) is for members only, and only the Dutch Bar Association (Nederlandse Orde van Advocaten) may certify the professional competence of lawyers. In Olson’s way of seeing things, the political activities of such organisations are a by-product of the service-provision to members. De facto compulsory membership or the offer of exclusive services for members, however, is much easier in a relatively small group with a special interest, such as manufacturers of chemicals. It is much more difficult for an organisation that defends more-diffuse interests such as those of consumers. In cases such as these it is much more difficult to convince people to financially support the organisation in question. After all, whether you are a member or not, everyone benefits from lobbying by the Consumers’ Association. In the pessimistic view of things, one would expect businesses, especially large ones, to mobilise. Slightly less pessimistic are the scholars who point out that, while people may weigh the costs against the benefits, people will also consider nonmaterial benefits. More particularly, people feel better when they have expressed their political preferences (expressive selective incentives) and enjoy working with others to undertake an activity or to do some networking (solidarity selective incentives) (Wilson 1974). During a demonstration, in an online declaration of support, or while reading an action group’s magazine, you get a sense of belonging to an objective or a political ideal, and may feel that you are surrounded by friends. Because organisations make strategic use, in recruiting members, of feelings such as these, it is quite possible to articulate a wide range of political positions through movements and interest groups. This more nuanced perspective is nowadays the most common and can be found in neo-pluralist research on interest groups and social movements. This perspective pays a lot of attention to the nature of the issue and to the attention that politicians and the media pay in turn to political issues. The mobilisation of citizens is strongly determined by the attention the media and others pay to conflicts over policy and the political opportunities that

188 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

are on offer in the political process (political opportunity structure). It is a matter, then, of whether political institutions are open to the issues on which interest groups are active. For example, a trade union will have easier access to left-wing parties, while employers’ organisations will have an easier time making their voices heard on the right of the political spectrum. Laboratory animals: the optimistic, the pessimistic and the more nuanced view of mobilisation Suppose the government wants to make it easier for the pharmaceutical industry to do testing on laboratory animals. According to the optimists, all stakeholders will be able to organise on the issue. Like-minded people will get together to express their objections or their support, by setting up an organisation or supporting an existing action group. This way, both the pharmaceutical industry and animal-rights groups will make their voices heard in their own way. A pessimistic perspective assumes that only the producers of medicines are organised well enough to engage in the political debate. On this view, animalrights groups will not be able to do a good job or see to their own survival. Animal lovers will want to free-ride on advocacy by others, and the importance of animal rights will not be highlighted by interest groups. A nuanced perspective pays attention to additional motives on the part of animal lovers and to the dynamics of the political process. The approximately 180,000 members of the Dutch Animal Protection Association (Dierenbescher­ ming Nederland) will do this mainly to get the satisfaction that they are contributing to an important social cause (‘expressive benefit’). The Dutch Animal Protection Association will certainly speak out, then, against animal testing. The political dynamics are also important: suppose, for instance, that the media breaks a major scandal on the use of laboratory animals. This ensures that attention will be paid to the issue, it could prompt more people to donate to Animal Protection and to take part in protest actions, and it could lead to the setting up of more animal-rights groups. There is, in other words, a dynamic politicalmobilisation process at work, in which it is not clear in advance that the business community has the upper hand.

Between society and politics: the system of interest groups Why do more protests and lobbying activities take place in some policy areas than in others? Pluralism takes the optimistic view that the differences in the nature and type of political organisations reflect the differences in the preferences and interests of citizens’ groups. In other words, there are many environmental organisations out there precisely because many

Interest Groups and Social Movements

189

people are concerned about environmental problems, and there are many patient organisations because a lot of people think high-quality healthcare is important. In addition, politics can influence how various interests are reflected. Politicians can support groups by making targeted grants or by giving certain organisations the exclusive right to talk about certain policy issues. The various groups and parties can be seen, along with the government, as a system whose components are mutually dependent and in which interest groups exchange the consent of their rank and file for political support for the government’s policy initiatives. A pessimistic answer, most articulated in the economic perspective, predicts that the aforementioned problems around mobilisation will get worse over time because new, mostly narrowly based social groups will continue to establish interest associations and maintain them in the long run. In The Rise and Decline of Nations (1982), Olson argued that ‘not in my back yard’ citizen groups and exclusive associations of firms increase in number and lead countries to decline economically because of cartels, and politics will be overburdened by these so-called veto players (policy deadlock). More specifically, for instance, in his earlier work, Olson suggested that, as a relatively small group with a concentrated interest, farmers could easily be mobilised (Olson 1965). As a result, we see more protests and lobbying around agricultural issues than around other issues such as international security. In addition, this pessimistic view holds that such differences in mobilisation lead to a narrowing of political conflict to certain topics, and to the exclusion of competing political players. The establishment and continuation of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture from 1935 to 2010 made sure that issues related to the interests of farmers were dealt with in favourable policy environment (i.e. the agenda of the ministry of Agriculture). Unlike other sectoral organisations, farmers’ representatives did not have to compete directly with the representatives of other sectors, such as was the case within the Ministry of Economic Affairs. This is an example of what Schattschneider, in The Semi-Sovereign People (1960), saw as favouring the interests of specific groups in society through specific institutional frameworks (mobilisation of bias). These institutional frameworks are present in different ways, such as in the party system or the structure of the media. What is very important in this case is the way the government is organised. The establishment of ministry or department to deal with a particular problem makes it easy for advocates to push certain issues on the agenda, to make sure to be invited for relevant consultations, and frame the way an issue can be approached. Because there was a specific Ministry of Agriculture, the association of farmers (LTO Nederland) was

190 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff Table 1 Organisations by economic sector (percentage of total economic advocacy)

Sample size Economic Sector Agriculture Industry Utilities Construction Trade Transport Hotel and catering ICT Financial services Administrative services Public administration Education Healthcare Recreational services Cross-sectoral representation of interests

Netherlands

France

United Kingdom

Germany

125

225

223

204

7 14 1 4 1 4 1 6 4 18 2 7 20 7

4 18 6 4 7 3 4 11 3 9 2 3 2 7

8 17 2 5 4 4 1 4 4 18 1 4 14 8

8 14 3 2 6 2 0 4 4 18 2 3 19 5

6

18

5

9

Source: Samples taken from parliamentary hearings (2011) and public lists of associations

often the only social actor involved in agricultural policy. There was thus bias in the representation of social interests when it came to concrete policy decisions. Over time, environmental organisations have managed to secure a seat at the table. They have made sure that agricultural issues are also seen from an environmental perspective and that space has been created for an ‘environmental agenda’ at the Ministry. According to neo-pluralists, the system of interest groups and social movements is complex, like an ecosystem (Gray & Lowery 1996). In this system, social, economic and political factors influence both the number of organisations and their activities. In other words, a large potential constituency and the degree of government regulation together determine the number of interest groups in a sector. A similar dynamic can be seen in organisations that are part of a social movement. For instance, in the 1960s in the United States the increasing awareness among homosexuals about their position in society produced a potential constituency for increasing numbers of gay-rights organisations . However, there is a limit

Interest Groups and Social Movements

191

as to the number of gay-right associations can meaningfully represent this constituency and in the course of the 1970s, the potential target group was well represented, stabilising the actual numbers of organisations. In general, the number of organisations is linked in part to the interests of society, and in part with the political environment. Table 1 gives an overview of the number of interest groups by economic sector in France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany. What is clear is that there are important differences by economic sector, and more so than among countries. These differences are largely linked to the market structure of each sector (number of enterprises, turnover, and so on) and to the nature of public policy.

9.5

From the streets to the State: the strategic choices made by interest groups and movements

The third aspect is the development of a strategy to influence public policy. These are activities that one usually associates with ‘lobbying’, that is, the collection of activities that groups or individuals engage in to influence public policy (Lowery & Brasher 2003). For instance, lobbyists can get in touch directly with the minister, approach a member of parliament from the opposition or from one of the parties in the government, provide a ministry official with information, develop a media campaign, or organise a strike. Also, organisations need to decide on cooperation with political partners (sometimes competitors for potential members) and can seek support outside the Netherlands in the European bodies or in a neighbouring country. Still, not all of these activities are equally effective. If one takes an optimistic view, (1) there is relatively little disparity between different types of organisations in terms of their capacity to choose from a variety of strategies and how effective they are, (2) there are low barriers to entry into different political arenas and (3) there is a lot of transparency in the way different interests are heard by policy-makers. Pessimists point to several important limitations on these points. To untangle the knot of strategic options, it is advisable to distinguish five important choices (figure 2). First, researchers often make a distinction between direct and indirect strategies (Kollman 1998). Direct strategies include direct contact with decision-makers, such as members of the government, members of parliament, or officials (i.e. inside lobby). Indirect strategies aim to influence the political decision-making process by mobilising public opinion through the media or protest actions (outside lobby or contestation). In general, direct strategies are used more by companies and

192 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

organisations with an institutionalised character. These organisations often have good political and/or administrative contacts and a good reputation when it comes to supplying of technical policy-specific information. This makes it easier for them to make their voices heard through direct channels. Organisations with predominantly social objectives or a less institutional position make more-frequent use of indirect channels because this allows them to break the status quo (Dür & Mateo 2014). In practice, virtually all organisations use both direct and indirect strategies, depending on the situation. Thus on the one hand, representatives of the business community will use a lot of indirect strategies if a lot of media attention is being paid to a given subject. On the other hand, there are many institutionalised civic organisations with excellent contacts in politics, such as Oxfam and Greenpeace (Hanegraaff et al. 2016). Figure 2 Strategic choices that interest groups make Strategy

Dilemma

Example

Try to get in touch with a Lobby policy-makers directly or try to influence policy via an member of parliament or intermediary such as the media? contact a journalist on a policy issue. 2 What lobbying Concentrate on one channel or Just try to get in touch with channels to use lobby over multiple channels at one official, or also with media outlets, politicians, and so on? the same time? Start an independent lobby 3 Cooperate? Lobby on your own or look for campaign or collaborate with cooperation with others (and with whom and for how long)? like-minded groups? Greenpeace seeks contact Try to get in touch with 4 Lobby ­political politicians with similar views or with an ideologically close partners or left-wing party (GroenLinks) those with opposing views? opponents? or an ideologically distant right-wing party (VVD) in order to influence policy. 5 Phase of the policy At what moment should the Start a pro-active campaign to process lobby campaign start? get a topic on the agenda or wait for it to be discussed in the Lower House of Parliament. 1 Direct or indirect lobbying

A second important choice is whether to lobby in different places or to focus on one or a limited number of political channels (venue shopping). Moreover, one needs to decide who will be approached first and in what order other venues are targeted. A lobbyist must make a choice about whether to broadly focus on parliament, the bureaucracy or the media.

Interest Groups and Social Movements

193

For example, approaching the media can be a major risk, because public opinion is hard to steer. You have to be convinced that things will go in the right direction, otherwise it will be almost impossible to steer any more. In addition, broadening the attention an issue gets through the media is a risk because it also alerts potential opponents that you are actively lobbying on this topic. In the end, it is not only the choice of which political channels are activated, the intensity and the possible combination of channels are also important in developing a lobbying strategy. Organisations can also be differentiated on the basis of their networking strategies, the third choice that must be made. Virtually every organisation partners with others to exert political influence. This happens in different ways. Interest groups can organise themselves around a specific subject in a temporary coalition, such as a smoking ban in restaurants, closing coal plants, or the trade agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. In this case, the cooperation lasts as long as a political topic is relevant. Another form of cooperation has to do with a long-term partnership among interest groups that is focused on a more-broad-based social problem in which a network is formed in order to allow long-term cooperation. Often, cooperation is institutionalised and a small secretariat is set up. Well-known examples are the global network Oxfam has, and the European Environmental Bureau. This cooperation has a sustainable and institutionalised character that is separate from the political agenda. A fourth important choice is the question of whom to lobby in terms of political opponents or allies? (Beyers & Hanegraaff 2017) Journalists sometimes portrait lobbying as an offensive activity in which interest groups put pressure on politicians to change their views. In practice, however, this is not the way things usually go. In many more cases, lobbying is an exchange of information between people who broadly agree. In that case, lobbying has nothing to do with arguing a case or putting pressure on politicians, but is a matter of getting the right information to politicians so that they can win the political debate (legislative subsidies). Different organisations often make different choices. Thus we know that companies often seek to exert pressure on politicians more often than social groups and there also seem to be large differences between countries in terms of the style of advocacy. In the United States pressure is more commonly put on politicians than in European countries. Certainly in the Netherlands we know the tradition of lobbying political friends more than political opponents. The polder model leaves a lot of room for political actors to compromise based on the input of interest groups. A last important strategic choice has to do with the best stage of the policymaking process at which to start trying to influence policy (agenda-setting,

194 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

decision-making, implementation). As an advocate, one can start lobbying early to get a topic on the political agenda, but you can also wait and get going only when a topic comes up in the course of the decision-making process. One can even choose to be active only where the implementation of policy is involved. Of the aforementioned strategic choices, the choice of what stage to become active at is, perhaps, the most restricted. That is, in many cases it depends on what position you are speaking out in favour of. If you agree with the status quo, there is no reason to put the topic on the agenda. If you find opponents trying to push and issues on the agenda, you will opt for defensive lobbying. The same goes for the implementation phase. Once you are satisfied with the outcome of the policy process and you have confidence in the bodies that are going to carry the policy out, there is no reason to keep on lobbying. Only when you notice opponents who are trying to influence this process can you opt for defensive lobbying. It is during the actual decision-making process that activities are at their most intense. You have little choice at this stage but to engage in lobbying. In that case, almost all stakeholder organisations, on both sides of a given debate, will be active (Beyers & Hanegraaff 2017). In short, what stage you are active at will often be determined by the specific position you have taken up in a debate. If you want to change the status quo, the first and most crucial strategic choice you will make will be to try to influence the political agenda (Lowery 2013). If you do not manage to pull that off, other options become meaningless because your interests will never come up for discussion in the first place within the political arena. To sum up, interest groups have to make many choices on their way to acquiring political influence. It is important to note that many of those choices can lead to other outcomes. Which choice an organisation makes will invariably depend on the specific circumstances involved. There is little point in lobbying European institutions on social security in the Netherlands. That falls within the jurisdiction of the Netherlands, so it would make much more sense to organise any efforts at the national level. The same goes for lobbying on highly technical issues through the media. The chance is very small that journalists or a wider audience would be interested in, for instance, determining the maximum sizes of a shipping container. On the other hand, the media will be a really appropriate tool when it comes to refugees, care for the elderly or the fight against crime. In other words, the precise context determines whether a strategy can be successful, and organisations thus try to determine the right strategy for a specific situation. This brings us to the last aspect of the process of trying to influence policy.

Interest Groups and Social Movements

9.6

195

From the streets to the state: the political influence of interest groups and movements

The last stage in the influence production process is the actual influence that organisations have on political decision-making (see figure 1 above). In this step, the question is whether interest groups are influential in politics, and what factors best explain success in lobbying. Surprisingly enough, research shows that the influence of interest groups is hard to show, and where that has been done, it seems that this influence is relatively low (Lowery 2013). Some of the empirical problems with the study of influence are caused by the conceptual discussion on power and influence. Recent research has been mainly about ‘success’: a group, a coalition or a movement ensures that the position of a political authority is moving in the direction it prefers. We are thus talking about the ‘first dimension’ of power, as discussed in Chapter 1, and which is reflected in behaviour or a policy preference that has changed perceptibly (preference attainment). What is striking here is that, according to research, the financial power of interest groups does not translate directly into influence on policy. It is certainly not the case that groups with more financial resources have more influence over decision-making. Moreover, businesses generally have no greater impact than other interest groups (Dür et al. 2015). This is confirmed by research in many different countries. There are two possible explanations for this. On the one hand, lobbying by different kinds of interest groups such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and trade unions has been heavily professionalised in the last few decades. The staff of these organizations is usually well educated and organizations increasingly bring in specialists, and even the ways of working matches those of the typically more resourcefull, business lobbyists. A second explanation for the limited influence of the financial power of interest groups has to do with the nature of the social system or conceptualisation of power. Companies may not be more successful than others, but the issues that are fundamentally important for them are less likely to actually reach the political agenda (e.g. control over business strategies, board appointments, restrictions on free enterprise). Preventing topics that may harm the interests of companies from making it onto the political agenda is also a form of power, the second dimension of power, as it is called. This second, and also the third structural, dimension of power are much less studied in this type of research, which is often focused more narrowly on decision-making (Lowery 2013). While research on the influence of interest groups is difficult, we can still point to various factors that increase the likelihood of success. A first

196 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

factor is direct lobbying. Generally, influencing policy-makers directly is regarded as more effective than lobbying through indirect channels. It helps if the channels that are tapped into go directly to important politicians or officials. This rule is not set in stone, and exceptions are possible. Thus, media attention will indeed spawn success if it leads to a change in public opinion. For highly technical topics, it is very important to have good contacts with officials who generally draft the bills in question. In short, aiming one’s lobbying efforts directly at key political actors will often lead to the greatest success, though this depends on the specific topic an interest group is active on. A second factor is the position that interest groups have in the lobbying process. It matters a great deal whether an interest group is trying to change or defend the status quo. Virtually every study shows that it is much easier to defend the status quo than to change it. That is because very little new legislation is passed as a general matter, especially in comparison to the number of changes that could potentially be made. It is possible to pay only limited attention to various topics. And besides, even when topics do make it onto the agenda, only a small few will actually lead to new legislation. This means that interest groups that do not want change will, by definition, be more successful than those who try to challenge the status quo. The timing of lobbying is a third important factor. It is very important not to start too late. Precisely because there are few opportunities to get a topic onto the political agenda, it is important to start nurturing contacts early on with politicians, civil servants and other stakeholders. That is not to say that every lobbying effort that starts early is successful. Rather, a lobbying effort that gets a late start will be less likely to succeed. As any lobbyist will agree, it is difficult to get politicians to move in a different direction at the last minute if one or another topic is already on the political agenda. Their opinion will often have been formed by that point. Certainly if the topic has reached the parliamentary arena, it makes little sense to do any more lobbying. It is then up to politicians to defend the views they have already formed. This means that lobbyists always need to keep their fingers on the pulse and follow political developments really closely. For interest groups that are active only at the last minute, it is often too late to exercise any influence. A fourth important factor that is often cited is the salience of issues lobbyists focus on. It is easier for interest groups to exert influence if little attention is being paid to a topic. There are two reasons for this. First, if there is less media coverage of a topic, there will be fewer interest groups who are active on it. As we have mentioned, this increases the chance that individual

Interest Groups and Social Movements

197

organisations have to exert their influence. The second reason is that, if politicians are feeling the pressure because of media coverage, they will be less inclined to abandon party positions. With the presence of cameras and journalists, it is really important for politicians to be as responsive as possible to their constituencies. If, however, little attention is being paid to a topic, politicians will be more likely to shift their positions and come to some compromise. It is precisely in these cases that the likelihood of success for lobbyists is greatest. A final important factor that is often cited in the literature is the strength of the lobby coalition. Research shows that it is not the individual power of an interest group that is key to its influence. Rather, it is the combined power of all groups that are lobbying on a particular topic that plays a major role (Klüver 2013). This means that it is not the strongest link that determines whether a lobbying effort is successful, it is the combined strength of the links that determines the outcome of the lobbying. Creating broad support for a subject is of the utmost importance for interest groups. For this reason, they rarely lobby on their own, and a lot of time and effort go into mobilising like-minded groups to support their position. Success in lobbying is however not dependent on one particular factor and is hard to predict in advance. In many cases, the context determines the final result and interest groups have only limited impact by themselves. Rather, they try to optimise the limited possibilities by putting together the right mix of strategic choices. In this way, they have done everything they can, but they will still have to live with the fact that in most cases their actions will have little to no effect. This is the nuanced view of lobbying. In a more pessimistic view, there is concern above all about the disproportionate influence of business. Studies on certain policy areas such as international trade show that there are several ways for business to bring government initiatives closely into line with the wishes and interests of large companies in particular.

9.7 Conclusion The study of interest groups and social movements focusses on the process of people coming together in order to try to influence public policy in an organised fashion. Social movements do this in a looser and more informally organised manner than interest associations. There is an optimistic and a pessimistic view of the emergence of interest groups and of how they operate. Optimists assume that citizens organise themselves when their

198 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff

interests or preferences are insufficiently accounted for . For their part, pessimists assume that citizens do a rational, and often material, cost-benefit analysis and this leads them to expect citizens to prefer not to join interest associations and not to participate in collective action. This is what is known as free-rider behaviour. Citizens assume that the proceeds of collective advocacy, such as a pay raise or an improved subsidy scheme, are also for their benefit, even if they have not helped cover the ‘costs’ of the action in question. In this chapter, we have shown that the process of advocacy looks completely different in the eyes of the optimists than in those of the pessimists (see figure 3). The nuanced vision takes an intermediate position on this score: it assumes that people can also entertain solidarity as a motive or are ready to incur ‘costs’ to express their political preferences. Figure 3 The process of advocacy: optimists versus pessimists 1. Mobilisation and organisation Optimists

Citizens take action together to make their political voices heard. Pessimists Citizens take action only when they get something in return.

2. System of organisations

3. Activities and strategies

Political arenas are transparent and open to a wide range of organisations. Only the strongThe system est organisations represents only can get access to the voice of privileged citizens relevant policy areas where there and businesses. is little transparency.

All pressing interests and issues are expressed.

4. Influence on public policy

Limited and balanced between different interests. Lobbying is the preferred political channel for businesses; civic organisations or movements struggling to be heard.

The question remains whether the system of advocacy gives all groups in society an equal opportunity to influence government policy. At several points in this chapter we have emphasised that existing social inequalities may be enhanced as a result of advocacy. At the same time, we have seen that some empirical research in this area ultimately draws a mainly nuanced conclusion. How these empirical findings are normatively assessed depends on what democratic standards of equality, democratic representation and accountability are applied. A recent discussion of Dutch lobbying reached the following conclusion: ‘The strong differences in political participation among citizens, and between the political organisation of certain interests

Interest Groups and Social Movements

199

and the necessarily specialised character of policy processes, lead in the end to an uneven playing field when it comes to lobbying’ (Berkhout 2017). Without convincing evidence to the contrary, we will simply leave it at that. References Baroni, L., Carroll, B., Chalmers, A., Marquez, L.M.M. & Rasmussen, A. (2013). ‘Defining and Classifying Interest Groups’. Interest Groups and Advocacy 3(2), 141-159. Baumgartner, F.R. & Leech, B.L. (1998). Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Berkhout, J. (2017). ‘Lobby in daglicht: een eerlijker politiek speelveld?’ [‘Lobbying in Broad Daylight: a More Level Political Playing Field?’] Beleid en Maatschappij 44(1), 85-87. Beyers, J. & Hanegraaff, M. (2017). ‘Lobbying Opponents or Allies? On the Importance of IssueContext, Group Type and Institutional Environment’. Review of International Organisations (forthcoming). Dekker, P. (2004). ‘The Netherlands’. In: A. Evers & J.L. Laville (eds), The Third Sector in Europe, 144-165. Edward Elgar. Della Porta, D. & Tarrow, S.G. (eds) (2005). Transnational Protest and Global Activism. Rowman and Littlefield. Dür, A., Bernhagen, P. & Marshall, D. (2015). ‘Interest Group Success in the European Union: When (and Why) Does Business Lose?’ Comparative Political Studies 48(8), 951-983. Dür, A. & Mateo, G. (2014). ‘Public Opinion and Interest Group Influence: How Citizen Groups Derailed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement’. Journal of European Public Policy, 21 (8), 1199-1217. Fraussen, B. (2013). ‘The Visible Hand of the State: on the Organisational Development of Interest Groups’. Public Administration 92(2), 406-421. Gray, V. & Lowery, D. (1996). The Population Ecology of Interest Representation Lobbying Communities in the American States. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press. Hanegraaff, M., Beyers, J. & De Bruycker, I. (2016). ‘Balancing Inside and Outside Lobbying: The Political Strategies of Lobbyists at Global Diplomatic Conferences’. European Journal of Political Research 55(3), 568-588. Jordan, G., Halpin, D. & Maloney, W.A. (2004). ‘Defining Interests: Disambiguation and the Need for New Distinctions?’, British Journal of Political Science 6(2), 195-212. Klüver, H. (2013). ‘Lobbying As a Collective Enterprise: Winners and Losers of Policy Formulation in the European Union’. Journal of European Public Policy 20(1), 59-76. Kollman, K. (1998). Outside Lobbying: Public Opinion and Interest Group Strategies. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Korteweg, A. & Huisman, E. (2016). Lobbyland: De geheime krachten in Den Haag, [Lobbyland: The Secret Forces in The Hague] De Geus. Kriesi, H., Koopmans, R., Duyvendak, J.W. & Giugni, M. (1995). New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lowery, D. (2013). ‘Lobbying Influence: Meaning, Measurement and Missing’. Interest Groups and Advocacy 2(1), 1-26. Lowery, D. & Brasher, H. (2003). Organized Interests and American Government. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Olson, M. (1965). The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.

200 Joost Berkhout and Marcel Hanegr a aff Olson, M. (1982). The Rise and Decline of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sanchez Salgado, R. (2014). Europeanizing Civil Society: How the EU Shapes Civil Society Organisations. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Schattschneider, E.E. (1960). The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in Movement: Social movements and Contentious Politics (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Truman, D.B. (1951). The Governmental Process. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Visser, J. (2007). ‘De wankele evenwichten van het corporatisme’ [The Shaky Balance of Corporatism’]. Beleid en Maatschappij 34(1), 6-22. Wilson, J.Q. (1974). Political Organisations. New York: Basic Books.

10 Politics and Media Philip van Praag 10.1 Introduction Media democracy, fake news and filter bubbles are some of the terms to describe the dominant position of the media in politics. The terms certainly do not express appreciation for the functioning of the old and new media in the current democratic systems, far from it. Many observers worry about the developments of the last decades and vehemently reject the ways in which journalists report on politics nowadays. Former D66 leader Hans van Mierlo (1931-2010) indicated in 2000 that he was concerned about the displacement of traditional news values by entertainment values (Van Mierlo 2000). Other politicians accuse the media of having an eye only for the short term, for a sensational or provocative statement, and worry about over the top statements, generalisations and personal opinions from journalists. Citizens are also dissatisfied. The NOS Journal, television news of the public broadcasting organization, sometimes gets complaints that it is on the left and that its reporting on non-Western minorities in Dutch society is ‘politically correct’. Others argue, by contrast, that the media pay too much attention to the views and contentions of populists, critics of the EU, and those who are against admitting large groups of refugees. After the 2016 Ukraine referendum in the Netherlands, the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, and Donald Trump’s victory in the United States, many observers blamed the media. Some accused them of not knowing what the people’s concerns were, others stated that the media didn’t subject the arguments of the other side to a sufficiently rigorous critique. Criticism of the media is certainly not new, as is clear from the following complaint: Reading the newspapers has taught me, especially after the war, that normal reporting is almost always quite exaggerated. Articles highlight the desire for sensation … If someone says, as proof that their story is true because it was in the papers then the best response these days is: Well, then it was all lies, or some gross exaggeration.

The quote comes from a 1954 survey of 500 members of the Dutch political elite (Prakke 1954: 54-55). The language has changed, but even then, many

202 

Philip van Pr a ag

people judged media coverage as harmful. Media historian Wijfjes points to an even earlier wave of criticism in the Netherlands. As early as 1900, members of Parliament complained that ‘what seemed to matter to the press was no longer the debates, but the politicians, what they looked like, their appearance, their behaviour, and their good and bad manners’ (Wijfjes 2002: 21-22). There is undoubtedly a lot to remark on the functioning of the current media. At the same time, it may be said that critics strongly idealise the past and have little understanding for the recent dramatic changes in the media landscape. The advent of new media, just like television in the early days, always goes hand in hand with heightened concerns among politicians and intellectuals. With the arrival of a new public broadcasting organisation, Tros, which had a strong focus on entertainment, people spoke in the 1960s with disgust about the ‘verTrossing’ (Trossination) of television. This chapter focuses on how the media operate and how they cover politics. We will look at the changes that have taken place in the last few decades, the power of the media, and the role of social media.

10.2

The functions of the media

In a democratic system, independent media serve as an intermediary between citizens and the political elite. They fulfil a number of functions to allow the political system to work properly. First, they have an informative function: independent of the state and business, they provide information on developments that are of importance to citizens and the public good. An important part of this involves providing information on proposals for, and the implementation of, policy by the government. Second, the media are supposed to fulfil a platform or expressive function. The media should offer citizens and groups in society the opportunity to express the their concerns about politics and socially relevant issues. This can be seen as a bottom-up function with regard to politics, in contrast to the first function above. Third, the media should serve as a check on power, work to find out the truth. Like a watchdog, they follow and subject to critical scrutiny the promises and actions of political decision makers and their exercise of power. It is especially this third feature that justifies speaking about the media as the fourth estate in a democratic system. The public, thus informed by the media, may participate fully in parliamentary democracy and make well-considered decisions in the polling station. Some authors also cite the education and socialising of citizens as an important function

Politics and Media

203

of the media (McNair 2012). The entertainment function, whereby media offer amusement and some escape from the daily stress, responsibilities and the uncertainties of a complex society, are usually not cited as a part a of a theory of democracy. Critics argue that there are deficiencies in how the media fulfil the first three functions. As they see it, the entertainment function supplants the other functions, and politicians and political parties may no longer get their story out, without the media’s putting their own spin on it. Journalists, they say, pay too much attention to juicy details, and not enough to really important issues. Citizens are no longer well enough informed about the views parties and politicians have on political issues, and the diversity of views in society no longer comes up for discussion. The result is, according to critics see it, doubts about the opinion of citizens. The popularity of social media, which show scant regard for these functions of the media in a democracy, reinforces many people’s feelings of malaise.

10.3

Three models

The way in which the media operate is strongly influenced by the social environment. Two developments cannot be denied: the educational level of citizens has risen sharply, and the media landscape has been changed dramatically by technological developments such as the advent of television in the fifties of the last century, the success of commercial television in Europe, and the rapid rise of digital media. As a result, the coverage of politics and the relationship between politics and the media have changed significantly. Regardless of one’s positive or negative view on the current media, one must understand their methods and the social forces that influence them. To comprehend the relationship between the media and politics, we will examine three ideal types: models in which the media keep operating in accordance with a different logic and have to deal with other forces. In each model, journalists work with other professional norms. In the pure form in which they are described here, these ideal types do not occur in everyday reality. The existing media systems do have some of these characteristics to a greater or lesser extent. The three ideal types belong to different phases of development in modern society and follow in a historical sequence. In practice, they are sometimes next to each other. Moreover, the transition to the characteristics of a new type starts earlier in some countries than in others.

204 

Philip van Pr a ag

Partisan logic The first model is situated around the rise of mass society. Daily newspapers have existed for hundreds of years, but had a very limited reach for a long time. Newspapers that could reach large groups of people emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a direct result of industrialisation and modernisation. Growing literacy rates among the population and a growing political awareness created a market for mass media. Initially it was newspapers, but then radio too, starting between the World Wars I and II. The relationship between media and politics during this period may best be characterised as partisan logic – a logic whereby the interests of political parties dominate political news coverage. Ideologically, the most important media were closely linked to parties and both organisationally and in terms of content were mostly under the direct control of the party leadership. In this situation, political parties determine not only the political but also the media agenda. The task of the media only consists in giving accounts of developments in politics; a private, independent political role for the media does not fit into this division of labour. A certain political one-sidedness is regarded as utterly self-evident. After all, many media outlets were part of a broader social and political movement and were deployed to support the goals of the movement. This ideal type was dominant in most of Europe from around 1850, when society started rapidly modernising, until the second half of the twentieth century. This type actually coincides with the heyday of the traditional mass party, a period that is nicely described in German as Parteiendemokratie (see also chapter 8). In the Netherlands, this is the type that predominated around the time of the pillarization (see diagram 1). The links between the media and political movements were strong. The ‘founding fathers’ of the various Dutch movements were not only the founders of and the driving force behind ‘their’ newspaper, but sometimes served for many years as editors-in-chief. Thus Abraham Kuyper, the founder of the orthodox Protestant Anti-Revolutionary Party, was for years editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper De Standaard, while in 1900 Pieter Jelle Troelstra (of the Social Democratic Labour Party) became the first editor-in-chief of the social-democratic newspaper Het Volk (The People). The formal and personal links between the media and politics became looser over time, but certainly did not disappear. Thus the editor-in-chief of Het Vrije Volk (The Free People), which in the 1950s was the largest paper in the Netherlands, was appointed by the Congress of the Labour Party and took part in the meetings of the party executive. In this period there were strong ideological ties, and often

205

Politics and Media

formal and personal ties as well, between broadcast organizations as the protestant NCRV, the catholic KRO and the social democratic VARA, and the related political parties. Table 1 The logics of political communication

Period in the Netherlands Media identify with Public addressed as

Partisan logic

Public logic

Media logic

Pillarization < 1965 Party ‘Subject’ bound to a pillar (zuil)

Depillarization 1970-1990 The public good

Fragmentation > 1990 Public

Citizen

Consumer

Respectful and assertive Parties Descriptive and substantive

Dominant and entertaining Media Interpretive and less substantive

Role journalism

Compliant

Agenda set by Nature of the news coverage

Party ‘Coloured’ and substantive

There is little reason to idealise this period. There was a closed political communication system without political competition among the media. Because of the alignment with the political parties, the coverage by the various media of political events was one-sided. Media followed their own party uncritically and ignored, criticised or ridiculed other parties. The individual citizen, who relied on their own daily newspaper and listened to their own radio station, got a really limited picture of society. Political journalism from this period simply does not meet criteria such as independence and a commitment to a certain degree of impartiality. The critical or control function never impacted the related party or politicians, but always impacted the other parties (Brants & Van Praag 2006). Around 1960, the press was law-abiding and docile, with the result that most news ‘came directly from the political elite, whose every word, however vacuous, was noted down faithfully’ (Hofland 1964: 113-114). The unspoken assumption that, before the rise of television, the media were less superficial and more strongly focussed on policy, and that they thus contributed to a political debate among broad swaths of the population, shows no familiarity with that past. If we assume that the media should provide relevant information to citizens so that they can come to a judgement independently, there is little reason for a positive assessment of the role of the media in this period.

206 

Philip van Pr a ag

Public logic The second period may be characterised as public logic. This period begins, at least in the Netherlands, in the mid-1960s. In some countries it started earlier; in other countries later. During this period, television became the dominant medium, and the media broke free of the paternalistic role of the political authorities. The formal ties of the newspapers were cut in no time, whereas that process unfolded more gradually among broadcasters. The docility disappeared, the political autonomy of the media got priority, and the professional norms of the journalists changed. Professional journalism started to follow politics and the political parties critically and with considerable independence (diagram 1). Another important feature is that the media no longer identified with the interests of a party, but with the public good. Journalists saw it as their task to make a constructive contribution to a well-functioning democratic system. The media adopted an attitude that, while critical, was above all careful and responsive, and acted out of a sense of shared responsibility for the political system and the democratic process. This meant that the historical division of labour between politics and the media was accepted and the primacy of politics was not called into question. The strong identification of journalists with the public good meant that substantive news was an indispensable part of media coverage. This period of public logic corresponds most closely to the theory on the role of the media in a democracy. The media function as a watchdog, following politicians and administrators with a critical eye, thus constituting an important part of the system of checks and balances. Critics of the current media often refer to the professional standards of this period. In the case of the Netherlands, we can remark not only that this phase was brief, but that it existed in only a weak form. Various studies on journalism in the 1970s and 1980s show that there were no longer any formal ties with political parties, but that the personal and ideological links between individual journalists and politicians actually had considerable influence on political news coverage. For many journalists at Dutch newspapers as de Volkskrant, and weeklies as Vrij Nederland or the Haagse Post, political engagement was completely natural; nailing one’s colours to the mast was not a cause of shame – it was a standard. On the other end of the political spectrum, there were intensive contacts between, for example, Hans Wiegel, leader of the liberal VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy), and Ferry Hoogendijk, who was then editor-in-chief of Elseviers Magazine. In 2002, Hoogendijk revealed in a

Politics and Media

207

television programme that he had been closely involved in editing the full-page VVD advertisement that appeared in a number of newspapers on the eve of the 1972 elections, an ad that was, moreover, funded by beer magnate Freddy Heineken.1 Media logic The third ideal type, referred to as media logic, is derived from the developments that have taken place in recent decades. The current media take much less of a back seat in the political process, and the view of journalists about their own role has changed. This development is related to the fact that, in all European countries, the media market has been taking on a fundamentally different character since the early 1990s. The strong growth in the number of television channels, followed by the digital revolution, has led to a fragmentation of the media market and to increasing competition among television stations and among television, print media, news websites and social media. As a result of this changes, the media market no longer has the features of a supply market, but now functions as a competitive and volatile demand market. The power of media consumers has grown significantly, and their reading and viewing habits are reflected more and more clearly in the ways news media select and present news. Journalists and programme makers can no longer ignore the wishes of viewers and readers. The battle for market share forces the media to focus on their own interest and made features of the public logic disappear from political news coverage. A lot of the elements of the media logic ideal type may be found in the way the media currently operate. A primary feature of the current media logic is that the strong competition for the public’s favour means that the media increasingly identify with the public – or at least with what they think the public will find entertaining and important. Reportage and the selection of news are driven less by the felt need to contribute to the democratic process and more by the need to achieve market share. One of the consequences of the market orientation on the part of the media is that substantive coverage is subordinate to the interests of the medium. Second, journalists have a strong need to emphasise their independence. This is expressed not only in the critical coverage of politics, but especially in the fear they will be used by politicians. The distrust journalists have felt since the 1990s has increased significantly as a result of the ways in which 1

Television programme Hoge Bomen, January 4, 2002.

208 

Philip van Pr a ag

the government and political parties have tried to influence media coverage. News management is nowadays a totally accepted activity for political parties, departments, interest groups and numerous other organisations (see 10.6 below). Third, the media no longer accept the traditional division of labour between themselves and politics. They attach less importance to following politics and opt increasingly for an active role in setting the political agenda. This attitude leads to a strong need to score with remarkable quotes as well as scoops and especially to the search for conflicts and frictions in politics. The dominant market orientation extends to almost all media. When it comes to political journalism, we can follow American researcher Thomas Patterson in noting that descriptive journalism is giving way to interpretative journalism. These days, journalists interpret the news from a standpoint in which they ‘just know’ the underlying motives of a politician, and then go looking for facts that will illustrate the interpretation they have come to. The interpretative style elevates the journalist’s voice above that of the newsmaker. As the narrator, the journalist is always at the centre of the story … Interpretation provides the theme, and the facts illuminate it. The theme is primary; the facts are illustrative (Patterson 1996: 101-102).

This interpretative journalism manifests in different ways, according to Patterson, and is practiced at the expense of substantive political reporting. We may distinguish five features of interpretative journalism. First and foremost, it is the interpretative framework or frame the journalist uses, rather than the actual development or event that is at the heart of political news. Only those facts are relevant that fit into the interpretative framework or the storyline of the journalist. A second feature is that there is a heavy emphasis in the reportage on the strategic motives of parties and politicians and on the way the political game is played. This leads to a form of political reporting that has parallels with sports reporting and locker-room journalism. In this so called horse-race reporting we see a lot of attention at election time to opinion polls and to who is going to win. A third feature is that the media have a strong preoccupation with political conflicts and scandals that are supposed to captivate the viewer more than substantive coverage. There is a shift toward soft news with a high degree of infotainment at the expense of hard political news. In this context, a lot of attention is paid to human interest news about politicians and to nice shots of meetings and political rituals.

Politics and Media

209

A fourth, important, feature is that the journalist turns into the main player in political news. The journalist – certainly the anchor in the studio, but also many a reporter – is a personality in his or her own right who is always at the centre of the story. Politicians themselves come hardly to speak. Soundbites from politicians serve only to support the interpretation of journalists. And finally, there’s the tone of journalism, which turns from critical to cynical. According to Patterson, the message of many journalists to the citizen is: ‘Please note that politicians are not to be trusted. They are interested, not in solving your problems, but in getting your vote.’ It is the sort of journalistic tone that questions motives and integrity of politicians.

10.4

Developments in the Netherlands

In all countries with independent media, similar developments take place, but there are also important differences from one country to the next. Not every feature of the media logic ideal type, or of the corresponding interpretative journalism, is noticeable to the same extent. One factor that may help make developments in some European countries less pronounced is the presence of a relatively powerful public-service broadcaster. This certainly applies to countries where public-service broadcasting depends on advertising revenue either not at all or only to a limited extent. Public broadcasters in most countries pay more attention to politics than commercial broadcasters, and are under less pressure from the increased competition and the struggle for advertising revenue. In the Netherlands, there was a slight increase in programme offerings that had a high degree of informative content, from 22% in the early 1990s to 27% in 2008. The increase was mainly caused by the growth in the number of talk shows such as De Wereld Draait Door [The World Keeps Turning] and Pauw (formerly Pauw & Witteman). Commercial broadcasters, by contrast, are cutting the time they devote to informational programmes – the figure went from 10% of all programmes in the early 1990s to 6% in 2008 (De Beus et al. 2011). In the Netherlands, some characteristics of media logic and interpretive journalism are clearly present, while others are absent or less noticeable. Research that has been carried out since 1994 on campaign coverage in the Netherlands shows that there has been no increase in media logic in the national newspapers (Brants & Bos 2014). Throughout the period under review, these newspapers devoted more than a third of their campaign messages to policy issues, perspectives and policy proposals. In addition, it is the quality Dutch newspapers such as de Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad that

210 

Philip van Pr a ag

report a lot about campaigns, but that are afraid of making their reportage too boring and focused on content. More than other Dutch daily newspapers such as De Telegraaf and Algemeen Dagblad, they put out reports of the horse- race type, with polls and strategic considerations, and often have a section devoted to the campaign, offering descriptions of the atmosphere and stories of incidents, amusing and otherwise. The developments in Dutch television are more remarkable. The share of substantive reporting by NOS and RTL news on policies that are being implemented or that have been proposed, was still fairly high, at 50%, when the 1998 elections were held, but it dropped after that. Fourteen years later, in the 2012 campaign, just over a third of the coverage was substantive, whereas almost half of the reporting was of the horse-race variety, especially analyses in response to polls. Editors like to delve into speculations about possible government coalitions and to comment and discuss the many television debates (Van Praag 2014: 93). It is clear that during a campaign the newsrooms are especially interested in the possible political coalition after the elections. Even where content-related topics are involved, they examine the possible consequences of the positioning of one and another party with respect to the formation of a new coalition. Even if news with some amount of actual content is put out, it is often little in-depth. Journalists often find it more appealing to report on a substantive topic from a strategic point of view. In that case it is only partly about the issue, and more especially about calling into question the motives of a party as regards that topic and the consequences this may have for the formation of a cabinet. Even when there is no election on, political journalists are similarly preoccupied with political power. Criticism by a ruling party on cabinet policy will always get more attention than criticism by an opposition party. Friction within the governing coalition is news, because it will perhaps lead to a political crisis; a well-constructed proposal by an opposition party, however, is unlikely to attract interest from journalists. Media are also especially good at revealing incidents and scandals, news that dominate only for a short time. The predominant presence in news coverage of the political anchor man and reporter also makes clear the advances interpretative journalism has made. It is journalists above all who hold forth on political news. The input of politicians is limited to quotes, often no more than 10 seconds. In the Netherlands, a striking phenomenon that does not fit seamlessly into a media logic is the role of talk shows. In 1998, the television evening news was still the main programme for many parties, but the centre of gravity shifted to daily talk shows for the campaigns of 2012 and 2017. Scoops are awarded to popular talk shows (Kee 2012). Although far from always

Politics and Media

211

thoroughgoing, the roundtable discussions on these shows often take on substantive topics. In addition, in the Netherlands television debates in the campaign have become very important. There are few countries where, in the three weeks before the election, six, seven or eight live debates are broadcast.

10.5

The power of the media

The image that the media sketch out is not a faithful representation of reality, but always a reconstruction of it. The idea that journalists can give an objective picture of an event is a nice but unattainable ideal. Requirements regarding journalists’ working methods may include accuracy, fairness, balance or factualness, but the result will never be a neutral, impartial and objective image of reality (Bennett 2012: 194-201). The method of a journalist or editors may be assessed on the basis of these criteria. We sometimes speak, in this connection, of objectivity as a method. Objectivity as a result, as a faithful representation of reality, doesn’t exist (Broersma 2015). The widely held view is that the media nowadays have more power than several decades ago. The power of the media, however, is discussed in very general and often messy terms. It seems as though everyone knows what is meant, but the important questions are rarely asked: Whom do the media have power over, and what kind of power do they have? It makes a difference whether it is a matter of power over citizens or that politicians and parties are forced to a greater or lesser extent to adapt to the demands of journalism. It is quite conceivable that the behaviour of politicians is much more strongly influenced by the media than the political behaviour of citizens. If we speak about the power of the media, it is important to distinguish between two power relationships: between the media and politicians, and between the media and citizens. In fact this is already a further simplification, and we should consider specific media, politicians and groups of citizens. The power of the media has a symbolic nature and consists of several aspects: the power to command attention, the power to set the agenda, and the power to define issues. The power to command attention and the power to set the agenda Journalists have the power to raise facts and events to the status of news. In their pursuit of making an engaging journalistic product, one of the means they have at their disposal is the choice of whether to give any attention

212 

Philip van Pr a ag

to a political topic. An important component in the power of the media consists in selecting from the daily offer of incidents, events and developments. The media make politics visible and bring politicians indirectly into contact with large groups of citizens. They still operate partly as the gatekeepers of publicity, but they have lost their monopoly on it. Social media and independent websites also play a role in the public domain and pay attention to political topics. Thanks to social media, politicians also have new opportunities to communicate with citizens without going through the traditional media, but the reach of social media should not be overestimated. Though a politician may have a few hundred thousand followers, a tweet has really significant reach only to the extent that the traditional media pay attention to it. The essence of the selection process has not changed under influence of the more dominant media logic. The increased competition is, indeed, forcing editors to entertain other considerations and priorities. Four factors have significant influence on the selection process: 1. how the newsroom is organised, 2. the newsworthiness of an event, 3. the technical possibilities associated with the medium, and 4. the preferences of individual journalists. The way in which the newsroom is organised partly determines what news is put out each day. A team of editors with many foreign correspon­ dents will put out more foreign news than one that lifts everything from pieces posted by international news agencies. The fact that many political editorial teams are located in or close to the parliamentary buildings (the Binnenhof in The Hague for example) means that official sources such as politicians and their communication and information services have easier access to journalists and therefore to the news than do social movements or peripheral groups. Ownership of media may be counted among these organisational characteristics. It makes a difference whether a media outlet is in private hands and aims to make a profit or is held by a collective of journalists, and whether it is a public medium that is part of the public-service broadcasting network, for instance. Private owners are interested in their rate of return and from that point of view sometimes interfere with the content of the media. Other media owners, such as Rupert Murdoch in the United States and the United Kingdom, or Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, do however, have their own political agenda, and this explains why they interfere heavily in the content of their media. A second important factor is the news value of an event. In a classic article, Galtung and Ruge (1965) claimed that the news value of an event increases significantly if it meets one or more of the following criteria:

Politics and Media

– – – – – – – –

213

it affects many people; there are many victims; it is unexpected; it is topical, hot off the presses; it happened nearby; it is negative; it is about people at the top; it is unambiguous.

News values as above are sometimes difficult to establish objectively, but journalists who are called to account over their coverage tend to appeal to these values. In practice, it is generally the features that journalists ascribe to an event that are decisive. Journalists’ own assessments of the event play a role, as does the target group on which a medium is focused. Thus some target groups can deal more easily with ambiguous and complicated news than others. Since the 1960s, at least one new criterion has been added: for television news and Web news, there should be images. Without images associated with them, many topics will not make it onto the television news, even if they meet a number of important criteria. These criteria for newsworthiness declares, for example, how an earthquake caused by drilling for natural gas in Groningen, without victims, may sometimes get more attention in the Netherlands than a powerful earthquake in Asia that claims thousands of lives. With the rapid development of technology, a third factor influencing the news selection is the increase in the supply of news. Twenty-four-hour news channels can operate only because a permanent flow of news keeps coming in, especially from the large international press agencies, and because it is possible to connect almost instantly to countless places in the world. Owners of a smartphone, whether or not they use social media, often provide the first examples of news photos. As a result, domestic and foreign media have more opportunities to select news, especially at times when there is a large supply of stories. Technical developments have also dramatically increased the speed of the news: not only may people learn about important events all over the world almost immediately, but news also is outdated much faster than before. Within 24 hours, and sometimes even less than that, an important news item is discussed in all its aspects, everyone has commented on it, and the media interest has disappeared, unless there are some new and exciting developments. A few decades ago, such a news cycle would often last another two days or more.

214 

Philip van Pr a ag

Technical developments create new challenges for traditional news media. Social media are followed intensely, but social-media reports cannot be copied indiscriminately just like that. Hans Laroes, until 2011 editor in chief of the Dutch public broadcasting news (NOS Journaal), notes that television may no longer be the first to break news. He sees its new role especially in validation and selection: in checking facts, and sketching out and contextualising background information (Laroes 2012: 296). Finally, the personal preferences of journalists play a role. One journalist sees as newsworthy a report on the role that the European Union plays in conflicts in the Middle East, because it is connected with that journalist’s own area of interest, while another will prefer to report on domestic unrest or tensions in France. Individual journalists may affect the selection of news within the margins of the editorial policy, while talk-show hosts have considerable more influence over the selection of guests. A reproach that is made in this context with some regularity concerns the political preferences of the media. A majority of journalists, it is claimed, lean to the left, and that is reflected in their reports. Others accuse the media of reporting from the standpoint of the political establishment. These accusations are certainly not isolated to the Netherlands. In the United States, the complaint is often made that the media let themselves be influenced by progressive (‘liberal’) views. Fox News, the channel owned by Rupert Murdoch, on the other hand claims to be neutral and objective. Researchers in the United Kingdom have, by contrast, regularly found that in their country the print media, especially the tabloids, have a preference for the Conservative Party (McNair 2012: 55). The accusation of left-wing bias in the Netherlands has been made since the elections in 2002. Pim Fortuyn accused the media of being part of the political establishment and of demonising him.2 Fortuyn made these accusations as part of his strategy of presenting himself as an outsider who was up against the powers that be. We see a similar attitude towards the media from Geert Wilders, the leader of the populist PVV (Party for Freedom), and from populist politicians in other countries. Research around the 2002 elections did not show that the media had a bias in favour of the ‘purple’ cabinet (a coalition of the labour Party PvdA, the liberal party VVD and the social liberal party D66), or that they demonised Fortuyn. The researchers found that national newspapers and 2 Fortuyn was assassinated ten days before the 2002 election day; the campaigns stopped but the elections went on.

Politics and Media

215

television news were in fact quite critical of the cabinet during this period. Criticism of Fortuyn on ‘de puinhopen van Paars’ (‘the ruins of Purple’) was largely adopted by the media, while the positive aspects of the purple cabinet barely got a look-in (Kleinnijenhuis et al. 2002: 52). The explanation for this coverage must be sought in the dominant media logic. As a result of strong competition, media are primarily interested in unexpected events, spectacular developments and political tensions. Election campaigns often fit the bill, with the sensational rise or fall of a party in the polls, a bumbling party leader, or a striking quote. The huge attention Fortuyn attracted in 2002 complies with this picture, and did not come from sympathy or antipathy towards him. In the United States, the rise of presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 was also accompanied by an enormous amount of media attention. The media cannot get enough of these kinds of events and performances, especially when it turns out that viewers and readers like it and follow this news in great numbers. The four factors cited above largely explain how news selection works. Certain political events always make it into the news: the so-called breakingnews topics such as the death of a Head of State or Prime Minister of a friendly country, a coup d’état in an important country or a terror attack with many dead and wounded in Europe. However, in other matters, selection may depend on the supply of news at a given moment, earlier news reports, or the expected reaction among the public. The media certainly have power when it comes to whether to give attention to topics and politicians. The public debate is partly determined by topics that are central to the media, and it has influence over the public agenda. Citizens often put topics that are discussed frequently in the media high up on its list of urgent problems. Government policy is, however, determined only to a limited extent by the media. Although many questions by members of the Dutch Parliament to the government are based on media reports, the political agenda is mostly determined by politics itself. Once in a while, a revelation by a programme or a newspaper will have enormous consequences. Thus, for instance, a report in 2015 by the Dutch television programme Nieuwsuur, about the disappearance of legal evidence (a ‘receipt’) from a deal with a criminal, led to the resignations of Minister of Justice Opstelten. In general, however, the most important policy decisions are taken in politics during the formation of the Cabinet, and are barely affected by the issues of the day.

216 

Philip van Pr a ag

The power to define issues: the interpretation and framing of the news According to Patterson, the news used to be more descriptive. Journalists reported actual developments and filled this reporting out with accounts of earlier events to provide context. These days, he says, they are not limited to this form of reporting. They also offer their reading and interpretation of political developments and of the motives of a politician, as well as speculations about the possible consequences of what has happened. In this connection, the choice and interpretation of the frame are of considerable importance. The use of a frame allows people to make sense of a complex reality, and highlights one or another factor. According to Entman, the idea with framing is to select ‘some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation’ (Entman 1993: 52). Journalists give meaning to events and people by choosing a particular frame. The frame selected, and the specific way in which it is interpreted, make it possible for journalists to fit a news item into a story line. Two types of news frames may be distinguished: issue-specific and generic. Issue-specific frames vary from topic to topic, while generic frames have a more general character and are better suited to generalisations and comparative statements about how the media operate. Generic frames come in three different types: strategic frames, conflict frames and humaninterest frames. The strategic frame emphasises the gain and loss of parties and politicians (whether or not in polls), their style of performing, and the motives for the ways they act – all of this usually in a language that is full of metaphors around war and sports (such as ‘score’, ‘fight hard’, ‘strategic retreat’, ‘holding the cards’). With the conflict frame, the focus is on quarrels, irritations and opposing interests between political actors. The human-interest frame presents matters from the standpoint of individuals, with their emotions and feelings. Political reporting, for example, focuses on the consequences for individual citizens of a given issue. Reports which emphasize ‘the private life of politicians’ also often use such a frame. Influenced by media logic, these frames have become more important at the expense of the substantive frames. An example can illustrate the importance of the choice of frame. As soon as the independent agency of the Dutch government CPB (Centraal Planbureau, Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis) issues the figures for economic growth over the past quarter, for example 2% growth, this may be framed by the media in different ways. One journalist stresses

Politics and Media

217

that the economy is doing well and reports about ‘sustained growth’; another, however, looks at an earlier forecast, notes that the increase is lower than was predicted, and opts for a less positive interpretation, for example, ‘growth is stagnating’. Both are correct, but each conveys a wholly different picture. It goes without saying that the ruling parties have a preference for the first interpretation.

10.6

News management

Political actors like to present themselves as helpless victims of media coverage. That is only partly justified. Any self-respecting organisation currently has a number of professionals who deal with the media. These experts are not only the traditional public-relations officials who write brochures and press releases, manage the Web site or follow social media, but also include specialists who have the task to generate favourable publicity on a topic or a politician. A directorate of information and communication in a Dutch ministry has 40 to 100 full-time officials, and the national government information service (Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst) under the Prime Minister counts another 180 people. Political parties have less financial resources, but they also work with a public-relations staff and other media professionals, who are sometimes brought in just for the duration of an election campaign. Some of these specialists are responsible for maintaining intensive contacts with journalists in order to influence the media agenda and the news coverage. A primary activity that is part of the professional news management of political parties and departments is setting up a general media strategy: how does a party, a ministry or a politician want to be in the news, what image should be pushed and in what media, and how is the media performance of other political actors? Media professionals are also engaged in framing important messages, in attempts to get the desired frame out in the media, but also in efforts to keep unwanted news from the media and portray other political actors negatively. Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Facebook often prove suitable as quick-response tools, with many a tweet or Facebook message from a politician being drafted by a media consultant. The professionals who deal with these issues are now commonly referred to as spin doctors, a relatively new term for activities that have long since been part of politics. And spin doctors have become more important because of the emergence of interpretative journalism.

218 

Philip van Pr a ag

Another important part of the work that media professionals do involves building good contacts with journalists. Giving a scoop to a journalist now and again, or selectively leaking information, serves that end. The unspoken expectation is that it will be easier, then, to appeal to the journalist to return the favour by reporting reluctant on a particular topic. A widely used instrument to generate publicity involves organising pseudo-events, activities that are specially designed to get publicity. A pseudo-event is deliberately attuned to the way journalism works. This may include engaging a famous personality from the media or entertainment world, or bringing a well-known foreign politician to a meeting. The photo opportunities that parties organise during campaigns, the famous walk along the beach, for instance, are attempts to meet the needs of the media for nice pictures. A lot of news in the media is the result of intensive behind-the-scenes contacts and negotiations between journalists and media professionals working for politicians and political parties. The very fact that politics gets involved in refining their news-management strategy, however, leads to growing mistrust among journalists.

10.7

Influence on citizens?

As early as 1975, Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki argued that the news media were responsible for declining confidence in political institutions and political authorities and that they thus contributed to the crisis of democracy. American researchers such as Cappela and Jamieson (1997) are convinced that the emergence of interpretive journalism has a lot of influence on the views of a great number of citizens. The focus on the motives and strategic motivations of politicians – the strategic frame – helps to ensure that citizens’ attitudes are getting more and more negative towards politics. There is apparently a downward spiral into cynicism: the cynicism of political journalism leads to growing cynicism among the citizens. This pessimistic view, often referred to as media-malaise theory, holds the media responsible for the growing political cynicism in many democratic countries. Media-malaise theory is controversial. There are few empirical indications that the growing political cynicism in the United States and other countries can be explained by media coverage. If we look at the intensity of the individual use of media, particularly television news, and the degree of political cynicism, there is no positive correlation in Europe or in the United States (Norris 2000). Other scholars argue that the correlation is much more

Politics and Media

219

complicated and more nuanced than the theory states (De Vreese 2005). In the Netherlands, moreover, confidence in a political institution such as Parliament has been relatively high and stable since 1998, and political cynicism has increased only slightly (see also Chapter 6). However, more than half of the Dutch population may be described as cynical (Tillie et al. 2016: 148). The views on the possible effects of the media on the opinions and behaviour of citizens have changed over time. In the 1920s and 1930s, many scholars were convinced that the media were all-powerful. The propaganda around the time of World War I, and the Nazi propaganda machine led by Joseph Goebbels, were seen in this period as really effective. On this view, the media work as ‘hypodermic needles’ that can stun and manipulate the irrational masses. It is not by chance that in 1930 the famous book The Revolt of the Masses by the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset appeared. In this culturally pessimistic book, he writes: ‘Most people do not have their own opinions. These must be imparted to them under pressure from outside, just as oil is sprayed into machines.’ (Ortega y Gasset: 1958 195)3 Extensive empirical research in the United States from the 1940s on the influence of the media on Americans’ voting behaviour gives no indication that the media are all-powerful. It turns out that few voters change their preferences because of the influence of the media. What is most striking is that voters respond to information very selectively, during campaigns it is the existing beliefs and preferences that are reinforced. In the Netherlands this ‘selective exposure model’ applied to the period of pillarization. Today it continues to be relevant in a lot of countries. Fake news on social media and blogs succeeds mainly when it responds to and seems to confirm existing views. The phenomenon of fake news is certainly not new. In wartime, misleading information or disinformation has always been used, and is part and parcel of psychological warfare. These days the opportunities to ‘invent’ and spread fake news are not only available to established organisations, but also to every citizen who is active on the internet. There may be both commercial and political motives for spreading fake news. Sensational fake news is widely shared on Facebook and may bring in a lot of ad revenue for a website. Twitter is also an important channel to spread fake news. Politically inspired fake news and misleading information may be distributed by countries such as Russia, but also by politicians, parties and movements in democratic countries, like Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign, 3

English translation from the 1958 Dutch edition.

220 

Philip van Pr a ag

and in the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom. For this reason many established media outlets today are doing fact checking. In the last decades, the theory of the all-powerful media knew a remarkable comeback. Numerous studies show that, under certain conditions, reportage has some effect on the views, preferences and voting behaviour of some groups. These effects may be important in elections, for instance, in a neck and neck race between two parties. Loosing politicians are ready to point an accusing finger at the media, but we should beware of overestimating the power of the media. Not only is there no empirical evidence to support the proposition that the media are responsible for a drop in trust in politicians and political institutions or for large electoral shifts. The influence of the media on electoral behaviour in the Netherlands is limited, and may explain only a very small part of electoral changes. Electoral changes are linked hardly at all to how citizens use the media. The growth or a decline in support for a party usually occurs among citizens regardless of how they use media (Aaldering & Van der Meer 2014). The recent general image of a party is far more important than the way in which certain media or newspapers write about it. It is also important that the one-sided emphasis on the effects of the media on the public is based on the assumption of a completely passive and helpless public. It seems more realistic to assume that citizens themselves play an active role in processing information. Political messages are assessed on the basis of the citizens’ own views, interests and experiences, and the effect on them of a political message or a broadcast depends on how recognisable it is to them. In addition, it is important to distinguish short-, medium- and longterm effects. Incidents, hypes, or an important event in a campaign may strengthen or weaken existing trends among voters, but they do not cause them. The electoral success of the Dutch PVV (Party for Freedom) and new parties in other countries is not caused by the way in which the media have reported on these parties, but by the disaffection among citizens about what they see as threatening developments in society.

10.8

Is there a reason for gloom?

There is no doubt that political journalism has changed profoundly in the last decades. More attention is paid to the strategic aspects of the political struggle, its players and the winners and losers. In the coverage of substantive issues, a strategic frame is often dominant. The delivered

Politics and Media

221

criticism may be relativized somewhat. The media are responding to the needs of many citizens. People find it more and more difficult to see the ideological differences among the parties and look for other cues, such as trust in a party leader. Some voters who prefer to make a strategic vote need information about polls and the position of parties. The evolution towards an interpretative political journalism has strengthened this process, but is not the cause of these changes. The main question is whether these changes justify a pessimistic vision of the development of representative democracy. There is another development that got little attention so far but that affects the democratic system. The circulation of newspapers is dropping steadily, the readership is aging, young people are watching less and less at linear TV, and social media are immensely popular. All of this has consequences for the extent to which citizens keep informed about political and social developments. Some citizens close themselves off to news coverage by independent media and hardly follow the news, or people think they may be kept abreast by the timeline on Facebook or by specific websites and newsgroups. Traditional news organisations are increasingly forced to take into account technological changes and commercial mechanisms. Social media, with their great sensitivity to popular topics, drive media logic to its most extreme consequence: a supply of news completely dominated by commercial interests (Poell & Van Dijck 2015). Google adds to this with the algorithms in their search engine, based on previously selected search behaviour. As a result, individual filter bubbles or information bubbles arise, and people are no longer pointed to other important news. These are not consciously chosen bubbles, they are a side effect of the social media behaviour of citizens. One of the consequences may be narrow-mindedness, whereby information is exchanged only with like-minded people and people’s own judgments and prejudices seem to be confirmed. In such a situation, a lot of news will barely reach large groups of citizens (Sunstein 2009). It seems at this point as though there is a return to the time of partisan logic, with its closed communication circuits and a public that is fed a diet of one-sided information. Another consequence may be that the role of social media in the production, distribution and reception of news undermines the editorial independence of the media. In the most gloomy visions of the future, the commercial interests of Silicon Valley will determine what counts as news and to whom it is distributed. The two main democratic functions of the media thus come under pressure. Journalism thinks it increasingly difficult to contribute to an informed public debate; its critical function as a political watchdog is under threat.

222 

Philip van Pr a ag

It’s still not that far, and maybe the perspective is too pessimistic, but it is a development that citizens and scholars alike should follow closely. Without a well-informed public and autonomous and critical media, a democratic system cannot function. References Aaldering L. & T. van der Meer (2014). ‘Veranderlijk maar standvastig: partijvoorkeuren en de rol van de media’ [‘Variable but Steadfast: Party Preferences and the Role of the Media’]. In: Ph. van Praag & K. Brants (eds), Media, macht & politiek; de verkiezingscampagne van 2012 [Media, Power & Politics; the Election Campaign of 2012], 207-225. Amsterdam: AMB. Bennett, W.L. (2012). News: The Politics of Illusion (9th ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Beus, J. de, K. Brants & Ph. van Praag (2011). ‘Media en hun rol in de Nederlands democratie’ [‘Media and Their Role in Dutch Democracy’] In: R. Andeweg & J. Thomassen (red.), Democratie doorgelicht: het functioneren van de Nederlandse democratie, [[Democracy under Scrutiny: How Dutch Democracy Functions, 387-405. Leiden: Leiden University Press. Brants, K. & L. Bos (2014). ‘Dagbladen in de marge van de medialogica’ [‘Daily Newspapers on the Fringes of Media Logic’.] In: Ph. van Praag & K. Brants (eds), Media, macht & politiek; de verkiezingscampagne van 2012 [Media, Power & Politics; the Election Campaign of 2012], 65-84. Amsterdam: AMB. Brants K. & Ph. van Praag (2006). ‘Signs of Media Logic. Half a Century of Political Communication in the Netherlands’. Javnost, The Public 13(1), 25-40. Broersma, M. (2015). ‘Objectiviteit als professionele strategie; nut en functie van een omstreden begrip’ [‘Objectivity as a Professional Strategy; the Utility and Functioning of a Controversial Concept’]. In: J. Bardoel & H. Wijfjes (eds), Journalistieke cultuur in Nederland [Journalistic Culture in the Netherlands] (second revised edition) 163-181. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Capella, J.N. & Kathleen H. Jamieson (1997). Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crozier, M., S.P. Huntington & J. Watanuki (1975). The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission. New York: New York University Press. Entman, R.B. (1993). ‘Framing: toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’. Journal of Communication, 43: 51-58. Galtung, J. & M.H. Ruge (1965). ‘The Structure of Foreign News. The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers’, Journal of Peace Research 2 (1): 64-90. Hofland, H. (1964). Opmerkingen over de chaos [Comments on the Chaos]. Amsterdam: Bezige Bij. Kee, P. (2012). Het briefje van Bleeker; over intriges op het Binnenhof, politici, spindoctors en Pauw & Witteman [Bleeker’s Note: on Intrigues in the Binnenhof, Politicians, Spin Doctors, and Pauw & Witteman.] Amsterdam: Atlas Contact. Kleinnijenhuis J., D. Oegema, J. de Ridder, A. van Hoof & R. Vliegenthart (2002). De puinhopen in het nieuws. De rol van de media bij de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen van 2002. [Ruins in the News: the Role of the Media in the Dutch General Election of 2002.] Alphen aan de Rijn: Kluwer. Laroes, H. (2012). De littekens van de dag: kracht en zwakte van de journalistiek en het nieuws van morgen [The Scars of the Day: the Strength and Weakness of Journalism and Tomorrow’s News.] Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans. McNair, B. (2012). An Introduction to Political Communication (5th ed.). London: Routledge.

Politics and Media

223

Mierlo, H. van (2000). Democratie en politieke vernieuwing [Democracy and Political Renewal]. Thorbecke Lecture 2000. Thorbecke Association and the University of Amsterdam. Norris, P. (2000). A Virtuous Circle: Political Communication in Postindustrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1958). De opstand der horden [La Rebelión de las Masas]. (eleventh edition). The Hague: Leopolds Uitgeversmij. Patterson, T.E. (1996). Out of Order. New York: Alfred Knopf. Poell, T. & J. van Dijck (2015). ‘Democratisering van het nieuws? Sociale media en de onafhankelijkheid van de journalistiek’ [‘Democratising the News? Social Media and the Indepen­ dence of Journalism’]. In: J. Bardoel & H. Wijfjes (eds), Journalistieke cultuur in Nederland [ Journalistic Culture in the Netherlands] (second revised edition) 343-359. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Praag, Ph. van (2014). ‘Het televisienieuws: in de ban van debatten en peilingen’ [Television News: under the Spell of Debates and Polls’]. In: Ph. van Praag & K. Brants (eds), Media, macht & politiek; de verkiezingscampagne van 2012 [Media, Power & Politics; the Election Campaign of 2012], 85-105. Amsterdam: AMB. Prakke, H.J. (1954). Pers en politieke elite [The Press and the Political Elite.] Assen: Van Gorcum. Sunstein, C.R. (2009). Republic.com 2.0. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tillie, J., J. van Holsteyn, H. van der Kolk & K. Aarts (2016). Nederlandse kiezers en politiek 1998-2012 [Dutch Voters and Politics from 1998 to 2012.] Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Vreese, C.H. de (2005). ‘The Spiral of Cynicism Reconsidered’. European Journal of Communication 20 (3): 281-301. Wijfjes, H. (2002). ‘Haagse kringen, Haagse vormen. Stijlverandering in politieke journalistiek’ [Insiders and Forms in The Hague: Changes in Style in Political Journalism’.] In: J. Bardoel & H. Wijfjes (eds), Journalistieke cultuur in Nederland [Journalistic Culture in the Netherlands], (second revised edition) 19-34. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.



About the Authors

Joost Berkhout is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, where he teaches in the bachelor’s and master’s programmes. His research focuses on advocacy by organizations such as trade unions, think tanks, local authorities, businesses, citizens’ initiatives, professional associations, employers’ organisations and NGOs. He looks at such questions as who is trying to influence government policy, what the results of their efforts are, and whether there are differences among sectors and countries. Luuc Brans is Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. He studied Political Science and the Sociology of Culture at the University of Amsterdam, and went on to earn a master’s in Nationalism Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Luuc focuses on nationalism in general, and the development of German national identity after the fall of the Wall in particular. He teaches undergraduate courses in political science. Wouter van der Brug is Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on electoral processes in international comparative perspective, including voting behaviour, changes in party systems, and the rise of right-wing populist parties. He publishes regularly on these topics in international journals. In 2016, Oxford University Press published a volume that he co-edited together with Claes de Vreese, (Un) intended Consequences of EU Parliamentary Elections. Cees van der Eijk is Professor of Social Science Research Methods at the University of Nottingham. From 1990 to 2004 he was Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. In the 1980s, he was one of the driving forces behind the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies (Nationaal Kiezers Onderzoek). From 1989 to 2009 he was one of the Principal Investigators of the European Election Studies, and since 2014 he has been playing that same role in the British Election Study. Armen Hakhverdian is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. His research interests include political representation, public opinion and political trust. Nepparlement? Een pleidooi voor politiek hokjesdenken [’Sham Parliament? The Case for Descriptive Representation’] (Amsterdam University Press), a book he co-wrote with

226 

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND CHANGING POLITICS

Wouter Schakel, calls for a better reflection of Dutch society in politics. He teaches in the bachelor’s and social science research master’s programmes, and is co-founder of the Dutch political science blog stukroodvlees.nl. Marcel Hanegraaff is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on the relationship between interest groups and political actors at the national, European, and international levels. He also investigates decision-making processes in international negotiations, particularly in the domains of climate and of trade policy. He lectures, among other things, on lobbying and is responsible for the research-methods course in the bachelor’s in Political Science programme. Eelke Heemskerk is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. He wrote his PhD on the Dutch old boys’ network (Decline of the Corporate Community, Amsterdam University Press 2007) and conducts research on power and influence in national and international business. Key areas of study include elite networks in business, the power of shareholders, and the relationship between government and business. His work combines various research traditions, including interviews, network analysis and computational social science. Franca van Hooren is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. She wrote her doctoral thesis on the political causes and consequences of labour migration in child and elderly care, and is co-author, with Peter Starke and Alexandra Kaasch, of The Welfare State as Crisis Manager: Explaining the Diversity of Policy Responses to Economic Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Her research looks at the ways in which migration status and gender affect the social rights of vulnerable workers. Franca teaches in the bachelor’s and master’s programmes in Political Science, in the bachelor programme Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE), and in the Social Science Research Master’s programme. Theresa Kuhn is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science of the University of Amsterdam and Head of Studies in Political Science in the BA programme Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE). She holds a doctorate from the European University Institute in Florence and has worked at the University of Oxford. She does quantitative-experimental research on Euroscepticism, collective identity, and public opinion on European integration and globalisation.

About the Authors

227

Marcel Maussen is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, where he is also Director of Undergraduate Studies. He teaches in the bachelor’s and master’s programmes in Political Science. His research focuses on issues around the governance of religious and cultural diversity, social inequality, democracy theory and freedom of expression. Tom van der Meer is Professor of Political Science, in particular on Legitimacy, Inequality and Citizenship at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on political trust, social capital, and voter behaviour. He is the author of the book Niet de kiezer is gek [It’s Not the Voter Who’s Crazy], and editor of the Handbook on Political Trust. Since 2014 he has been codirector of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies. In 2016 he headed up the first Dutch Local Election Studies. He is also co-founder of the scientific blog stukroodvlees.nl. Philip van Praag was Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Amsterdam until 2014 and up to that year teached the introductory course in political science, together with Uwe Becker. He specialises in, and publishes regularly on, Dutch politics, referenda, electoral developments, and the relationship between politics and media. In 2014 he co-edited, together with Kees Brants, Media, macht & politiek. De verkiezingscampagne van 2012 [Media, Power and Politics: The Dutch Election Campaign of 2012]. Gijs Schumacher is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. His work, which covers representation, party organisation, personality, populism, leadership and emotion, has appeared in publications such as the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Political Psychology, the European Journal of Political Research, and West European Politics. He is also co-founder of the scientific blog stukroodvlees.nl. He teaches in the bachelor’s and master’s programmes in Political Science and in the Social Science Research Master’s programme.

Index Action group 13, 187-188 Advocacy 144, 180-181, 184-186, 188, 190, 193, 198 Agenda (power to set) 24, 189, 195, 211-212 Agenda-setting 24, 27, 189, 192-194, 204-205, 208, 211 Aggregation function 164, 166, 168-171, 176 ARP (Anti-Revolutionaire Partij) 100, 102, 104, 137, 166-167 Articulation function 122, 164, 167, 169-171, 176 Ascriptive inequality 40 Aspect approach 13 Australia 69, 73, 122, 137, 140 Austria 57, 66, 68, 73, 85-86, 97, 138, 171 Belgium 19, 68, 73, 80, 83, 93, 97, 110, 122, 127, 130, 132, 138-140, 145-146, 175 Beveridge, W. 76 Brexit 55, 86, 94-95, 201, 220 Burke, E. 163 Cabinet crisis 100, 106 Cabinet formation 98, 99-101, 103-104, 106, 108-109, 210, 215 Cadre party 165-166, 168 Canada 68-69, 137, 145-146 Care 38, 40, 71-73, 75-85 Cartel party 168-169, 171, 176 Catch all party 167-169, 171, 176 CDA (Christen Democratisch Appèl) 45, 98-99, 101-102, 105, 109, 137, 152-154, 158, 171-174, 176, 180 Childcare 38, 47, 77-83 China 130 CHU 100, 162 Church and state 74-78, 144 Citizen groups 181, 189 Civic culture 117, 119 Civil society 28, 31, 44, 119, 168, 182 Cleavages 77, 93, 137, 143-146, 151, 155 Collective identity 5, 55, 56-59, 67 Compulsory voting 42-44, 101, 122, 140 Confidence (crisis of) 125, 128-130, 133 Conflict frame 216 Consensus democracy 5, 89-91, 93, 96, 103, 107-111 rules of the game 91-92, 96, 99, 103-117, 110-111 Consensus, politics (def.) 90 Constructivism 59-60 Cynicism 129, 218-219 D66 (ook D’66) 87, 99-105, 131, 137, 148, 152, 154, 156, 158, 167, 172, 176, 201, 214 Daalder, H. 89-90, 104, 145 Dahl, R.A. 13, 15, 17, 22-27, 31-32, 115

Daudt, H. 98-99 Dealignment 154, 159-160 Decision-making approach 13, 21, 23-24, 41, 195 Decommodification 77 Deliberation 91, 133, 175 Demarcation 165 Democratic (core) values 126-128 Denmark 73, 86, 97, 123, 127, 138-139, 171 Depillarization 57, 99, 152 Diploma democracy 31, 52, 124, 160 Discrimination 40, 52 Distrust 129, 131-132, 207 Dividing lines 77 Division of labour 77, 81, 204, 206, 208 Domain approach 12-13 Downs, A. 150 Economic crisis 82-83 Electoral system 89, 92-94, 100, 103, 110-111, 116, 132, 138, 141, 168 Elite 20-24, 26, 28-29, 45, 65-66, 89-93, 96, 106, 108, 110, 115, 133, 166-170, 201, 205 Elitists 21-23, 25-27 Environmental issues 158, 189 Environmental organizations 179-180, 183, 188, 190 Esping-Andersen, G. 76-77, 79 Ethnic nationalism 62 Ethnicity 31, 45, 61-63, 124, 155 European integration 46-47, 50, 58, 86, 107, 110, 154-155, 159 European Union 16-17, 55, 69, 83, 85, 182, 185, 193, 214 Expressive incentives 187-188, 202 Facebook 175, 217, 219, 221 Fake news 201, 219 Filter bubble 201, 221 Finland 73, 145 Fortuyn, P. (LPF) 89, 105, 107, 111, 131, 137, 140, 151, 154, 171, 214-215 Frames/framing 189, 208, 216-218, 220 France 42, 61-63, 66-67, 73, 79, 86, 127, 130, 139, 168, 190-191, 214 Free Riding 186, 188, 198 French Revolution 34-35, 61, 166 Front National (France) 55, 70, 86, 168 Frozen party systems 144, 146, 160 Gellner, E. 55, 60, 64-65 Gender 31, 33, 37, 40, 45, 73, 79, 124 Germany 17, 61-64, 73-75, 83-86, 117, 127, 130, 138-139, 141, 144, 146, 171, 183, 190-191 Globalisation 69-70, 82, 155 Google 221

230  Greece 17, 28, 58, 83, 183 GreenLeft (GroenLinks) 46, 102, 150, 152, 154, 156, 172, 174 Greenpeace 183, 192 Historical institutionalism 81-82 Hobbes, T. 34 Horse race 208, 210 House of Commons (UK) 94, 131, 139 Human interest frame 208, 216 Ideal type 63, 67-68, 79, 117, 176, 203, 207, 209 Identity 5, 21, 55-59, 64, 67, 125-126, 172 Ideological distance 171 Ideology 25, 48, 50, 60, 65, 87, 97, 104, 124, 144, 146-148, 168 Immigration 46, 64, 85, 137, 154, 158-159, 171 Individualisation 146 Industrial revolution 74-75, 144 Inequality see political of social inequality Influence (def.) 19-20 Inglehart, R. 118 Institutional consensus 90, 93-96, 99, 103 Integration (cultural) 46, 47-49, 51, 154, 159 Integration-demarcation dimension 156 Interest association 181-184, 187, 189, 197-198 Interest groups 5, 27-28, 44, 81, 95, 166, 179-199 Intermediary organisation 181, 192, 202 Islam 107 Italy 68, 73, 79, 85, 117, 119-120, 139, 144, 146, 171, 175, 212 Ius sanguine 62-63 Ius soli 62-63 Japan 68 Kirchheimer, O. 167, 177 Kok, W. (PvdA) 168 Kriesi, H. 155, 156, 158, 183 Kuyper, A. (ARP) 166, 204 KVP (Katholieke VolksPartij) 97, 108-100, 104, 106 Labour market 40, 81-82, 155 Labour Party (United Kingdom) 95, 172 Lasswell, H. 41 Left-right dimension 156, 160 Left-right distance 156-157, 159 Legitimacy 58, 110, 138, 169 Lijphart, A. 32, 43, 89-94, 96, 98-99, 104, 107-109, 123, 145 Lipset, S. 144-145, 170 Lobby/lobbying 11, 19, 27, 94, 180-185, 186-199 Lobbying strategy 183 Lower House (Dutch Second Chamber) 43-44, 46-48, 100, 102, 122, 131, 137, 143, 152, 174, 192 LPF (Lijst Pim Fortuyn) 137, 140, 151, 154, 171 Lubbers, R. (CDA) 81, 105, 152 Lukes, S. 24-25, 28

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND CHANGING POLITICS

Machiavelli, N. 163 Majoritarian democracy 92-93 Marx, K. 25, 33, 36, 41 Maslow, A. 118 Mass party 165-169, 172, 204 Media attention 175, 192, 196, 208-209, 211-213, 215 Media (functions of the) 202-203, 221 entertainment 203 expressive 202 informative 202 watchdog 202 Media influence 218-220 hypodermic needles 219 reinforcement 219 Media logic 205, 207, 209-212, 215, 221 Media (power of the) 5, 202, 211-212, 220 Meritocracy 53, 134, 160 Michels, R. 166, 169 Michigan model 146-151 Mierlo, H. van (D66) 100, 152, 201 Mills, C.W. 21-27, 29 Minimal winning coalition 109 Minorities 47, 93, 126, 128, 132, 155, 201 Mobilisation of bias 189 Mobilisation (political) 42, 164-168, 171-172, 176, 180, 184-189, 198 Monitoring citizen 123 Muslims/Muslima 40, 57, 107 Nation (concept) 55-56, 59-63 civic 62 ethnic 61-62 Nation state 35, 55-56 Nationalism 5, 55-56, 60-66, 69-70, 96, 126 Nation-building 63, 65-66 National identity 57, 125-126 National Health Service 72, 76, 95, 182 Neo-conservatism 81 Neo-corporatism 97 Neo-institutionalism 116 Neo-liberalism 5, 79-81, 159 Neo-pluralism 187, 190 Network analysis 26, 29 New Zealand 73, 93, 140 News management 208, 217-218 News (selection of) 207, 213-215 News value 201, 212-213 Non-decisions 24-25 Obama, B. 41 Office seeking 163, 166, 176 Oligarchy 166, 169-170 Olson, M. 186-187, 189 Oxfam 181, 192-193 Pacification 1917 (Dutch Politics) 89, 91, 98 Parochial culture 117 Participant culture 117

231

Index

Particularisation 146, 153 Partisan logic 204-205, 221 Party democracy (internal) 169, 173, 176 Party identification 147-148 Path dependency 81-82 Pillarization 57, 91-92, 96, 98, 104, 106, 137, 145, 152-153, 166, 204-205, 219 Pillars (subcultures) 89, 91, 96, 137, 205 Pluralism 50, 188 Policy consensus 90, 95, 98 Policy seeking 163, 166, 176 Political agenda 24, 71, 94, 176, 193-196, 208, 212, 215 Political culture 89, 91-92, 103, 110-111, 116-119 Political elite 45, 66, 89, 91-93, 106, 108, 111, 115, 201-202, 205 Political inequality 31-35, 40-43, 52-53, 73 Political participation 41-44, 52, 73, 115, 119-125, 133-134, 198 conventional 120-121 unconventional 120-121 Political parties (def.) 163 Political parties (functions) aggregation 164, 168-171, 176 articulation 164, 167, 169-171, 176 mobilisation 164, 166-168, 171-172, 178, 180 recruitment 47, 51, 164, 172-173 Political trust 115, 129, 132-133 Populism/populist 15, 55, 86-87, 97, 109, 156, 201, 214 Portugal 68, 73, 126, 128, 145 Positional method/approach 21, 24-29 Post-materialism 118 Power (def.) 16-17 Power (balance of) 108-109, 151, 160 Power elite(theory) 21-24, 29 Power (research on) 20, 25, 27-29 Power (sources of) 15, 17-19, 29 Primordialism 59-60 Procedural consensus 90, 92-96, 98-99, 103 Protest action 188, 191 Public agenda 215 Public logic 205-207 Putnam, R. 119, 135 PvdA (Partij van de Arbeid) 45, 97-98, 100, 102-106, 109, 137, 152-154, 158, 165-168, 170-173, 176, 214 PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid) 89, 109, 111, 140, 151-152, 154, 156-159, 175, 214, 220 Racism 40 Rational choice/behaviour 116, 139-140, 149, 186, 198 Rationality paradox 139 Reagan, D. 81 Realignment 154-156 Recruitment (parties) 47, 51, 164, 172-173 Referendum 16, 55, 86, 94-95, 101-102, 108, 110, 159, 201

Religion 33, 43, 61, 77, 90, 92, 145, 153-157, 160 Religious cleavage 77, 110, 144-145 Religious organisations 120, 166, 183 Religious schools (financing) 75, 89, 98, 166 Reputational approach/method 21-23 Rokkan, S. 144-145 Rousseau, J. 34, 37, 53 Rules of the game (Dutch politics) 93-92, 96, 99, 103-104, 106-111 Russia 15, 62-63, 66, 75, 139, 219 Rutte, M. (VVD) 105, 107, 109, 168, 173-175 Schattschneider, E. 189, 200 Schmelzer, N. 100 School struggle (Dutch politics) 75 Schumpeter, J. 108, 163 Second Chamber see Lower House, Dutch Parliament Second order elections 122, 142 Secularisation 99 Selective incentives 187 Self-expression 118 Social capital 18, 119 Social class 21, 33, 43-44, 46, 53, 76, 79, 143, 153-157, 160 Social identity theory 56, 70 Social inequality 31-43, 72 Social media 19, 122, 170, 175, 202-203, 207, 212-214, 217, 219, 221 Social movements 35-36, 64, 121, 179-180, 183-184, 187, 190, 197, 212 Social provisions 71-74, 77-81, 83, 85 Social security 72-76, 78-81, 86, 194 Social-Economic Council (SER) 97, 98, 108, 180, 182 Socio-structural theory of electoral choice 143146, 148, 151, 153, 159-160 Sources see Power Sovereignty 64-65, 68-69, 159 Spain 67-68, 73, 85, 126, 128, 139, 144-145, 183 SP (Dutch, Socialist Party) 50, 87, 109, 131, 154, 159 SPD (Germany) 165, 167 Spin doctor 169, 217, 232 State building 66-67, 101 State Commission Biesheuvel 101, 103 State Commission Cals-Donner 101 Stealth Democracy 123, 127, 134 Strategic frame 216, 218, 220 Stratification 39, 77, 79 Subject Culture 117 Sweden 67, 69, 73-74, 83, 97, 123, 145 Switzerland 42, 73, 93, 97, 110, 122, 130, 145 Thatcher, M. 81, 95 Thomas-theorem 60 Tilly, C. 66 Tocqueville, A. de 35, 54, 117 Trade associations 181

232  Trade Unions 74-75, 77, 79-80, 86, 95, 97, 166, 179-182, 188, 195 Truman, D. 186, 200 Trump, D. 55, 70, 201, 215, 219 Trust 115, 119, 128-133, 220-221 Twitter 175, 217, 219 United Kingdom 16, 62, 68, 73, 75-79, 81, 86, 90, 117, 131, 133, 138, 141, 173, 182, 190-191, 201, 212, 214 United States 21-23, 26, 34-35, 42, 51-52, 57-58, 62, 67, 69, 72, 75, 78, 81, 83, 94, 101, 117, 119, 123, 129, 139, 141, 146-148, 173, 183, 190, 193, 201, 212, 214-215, 218-219 Universal suffrage 42, 45, 75, 89, 98, 145, 168 Uyl, J. den (PvdA) 98-99, 104-105 Volatility 109, 137, 152-153 voting behaviour 46, 115, 137-138, 143, 145-148, 150, 152-157, 159-160, 219-220

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND CHANGING POLITICS

voting rights 42, 165, 181 VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie) 45, 87, 99-102, 105-106, 109, 137, 145, 148, 152-154, 158-159, 167-168, 171-174, 192, 206-207, 214 Weber, M. 21, 30, 35 Welfare State 5, 28, 35, 58, 71-87, 90, 95-99, 111 conservative regime 77-81 liberal regime 77, 79 sociaal democratic regime 77-79 Westminster model 93 Wilders, G. (PVV) 89, 107, 109, 111, 131, 151, 154, 156, 171-172, 175, 214 Wiegel, H. (VVD) 102, 153, 206 Womens suffrage 42, 45, 47, 122, 145 zoön politikon 121