Dutch Elections Roundtable: Understanding populism and election dynamics in the Dutch context
In the midst of Storm Doris, the Pembroke Politics Society and POLIS put on a roundtable discussion about the upcoming Dutch Elections.
The Dutch general elections on the 15th March currently look set to follow the trend begun with Brexit and Trump; an increasing presence of populist parties in mainstream politics. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’s populist Freedom Party (PVV) is doing well in the opinion polls.
Unfortunately, as a result of Storm Doris, only one speaker was present for the main part of the event. Dr Matthijs Rooduijn from the University of Utrecht and specialist on populist parties, made it from the Netherlands despite the high winds. The event was chaired by Dr Pieter van Houten from POLIS, who opened the evening by setting the context of the elections:
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Dr Pieter van Houten[/caption]
The main story reported about these elections has been about Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right PVV, who is currently leading in polls. Pieter pointed out, however, that in the 2012 general elections much changed in the last few weeks leading up to vote, with a leftwing party that had been in the lead losing out to the right. There’s lots of uncertainty and volatility that makes it difficult to predict election results.
Also worth talking about, despite the focus on Wilders, is the fragmentation of the Dutch party system; a total of 28 parties made the final cut and will appear on the ballot box for the general election, and the final result could be as many as eight parties with ten seats or more, which would create challenges for the formation of government. This fragmentation is very clear on the left, where there are four or five mid-sized parties competing for seats. This begs the question of why so much attention goes to the far right – and part of the answer lies in the specific context of Dutch consensus politics, which frees up political space for anti-establishment parties set against the ‘normal’ way of things. The irony is that, with greater fragmentation of parties, there is a stronger need for compromise.
What makes this fragmentation possible is the Netherlands’ pure proportional representation system. There is only one constituency (the entire country), and the election threshold is a negligible 0.67%. This enables single-issue parties such as the 50+ party – a party catering to the needs of people above the age of fifty – to have a chance at being part of the final government. There are no institutional hurdles that make it difficult for smaller parties to get in like there are in Germany, for instance, where parties need to get at least 5 percent of the votes to gain seats
In the past, the Dutch used to be extremely loyal to their parties, creating what is known as a ‘pillarized’ society. Since the 60s, however, voters have started to switch between parties; in other words, elections have become more volatile and therefore less predictable. Volatile, that is, not whimsical. It’s possible to see the limits of how people switch; there will be several parties an individual feels ideologically close to, and they will make a decision within that group based on various other factors. Understanding these patterns makes the uncertain and fragmented political landscape begin to look a little clearer.
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Dr Matthijs Rooduijn[/caption]
Matthijs structured his comments around 5 quotes he had heard in the past weeks leading up to the election, giving his thoughts on each.
“Geert Wilders is dragging all of Dutch politics in a nationalist direction” – The Economist
Geert Wilders is indeed a nationalist, but a specific type of nationalist. As well as focusing on the nation, he considers all outside of it to be a threat and places a strong emphasis on law and order. Like other populist party leaders, he is critical of elites but differs in several ways. While Wilders is even more anti-Islam than Trump, ethnic differences are of less interest to him. Interestingly, the PVV is progressive on many other issues, such as homosexuality and abortion. Other small emerging right-wing parties such as Thierry Baudet’s Forum for Democracy (FVD) and Jan Roos’s For the Netherlands (VNL) present themselves as more respectable and more right-wing on socio-economic issues, in order to compete.
The Economist was making the point that mainstream parties have incorporated these ideas; the leader of the Conservative Liberals was quoted as saying “Act normal, or leave the country”. But right-turn trend started around 50 years ago, long before Wilders’s success, and so cannot be entirely attributed to him.
“I wonder if the social democrats will ever recover from this crisis” – family member
The reason the social democrats could be described as ‘in crisis’ was made clear by a graph Matthijs presented showing the steep decrease in votes for the party; in 1982 they had 30% of the vote, and they are predicted to achieve only 8% in 2017. Matthijs suggested three main reasons for this:
1) Cost of governing; on average parties lose seats after governing, particularly if they have been a junior coalition partner
2) The party has become increasingly liberal and more right-wing economically
3) Their voter base was traditionally made up of working class people and progressive intellectuals, but it’s become harder to keep these groups together as the issues that divide them become more important and divisive in election cycles.
“Supporters of left-wing parties are thinking about voting for the conservative liberals, just to thwart Wilders”
This kind of ‘strategic’ voting, Matthijs argues, is misguided in the least. Not because of the parties being voted for necessarily, but because it may not produce any outcome of benefit to supporters of the left. All parties that matter have refused to form a coalition with Wilders, and voting for other right wing parties makes it easier for them to form a government. Not only that, but in Dutch elections one is not voting for the Prime Minister, so the leader of the party that wins the majority is not guaranteed to become PM.
“I will be happy if we manage to form a coalition at all” – leader of the Conservative Liberals in Parliament.
In 1969 there were nine parties, with two big parties and one or two medium sized. Now there are no big parties at all, with around nine parties of similar size. This change has huge consequences for forming a coalition. Normally, there have been two or three parties with two ideological currents, but for this year the Financial Times has calculated two scenarios in which there are five parties in a coalition, and thirteen scenarios in which there are six. These are not circumstances that make for easy coalition-building.
“Our democracy is in crisis” – Thierry Baudet
Whilst it’s true that people are increasingly dissatisfied, and have less and less trust in institutions and politicians, it’s also true that trust in the way that democracy works is actually increasing. What this actually means is unclear at this point.
So what are the proposals for improvement? There are, Matthijs argued, two main ways that could help improve politics in the Netherlands?
1) Improve governability
- The most drastic move would be to create a majority system, changing the structure of Dutch elections entirely
- Introduce a more meaningful electoral threshold
- Create minority cabinets
- Enable pre-electoral coalitions
2) Involve voters more heavily in the process
- Referendums
- Lotteries (also known as sortition)
Thank you to POLIS, the Pembroke Politics Society, and graduate Léonie de Jonge for such an interesting and informative event. Thank you also to Melle Garschagen (NRC correspondent for the UK and Ireland) and Clive Betts (1968) (Labour MP and Pembroke alumnus) who later arrived with Lord Chris Smith, having unfortunately been delayed by Storm Doris. Melle spoke about the challenges and opportunities these elections are posing for Dutch journalists. Clive, as Chair of the Netherlands MP, highlighted the importance of the upcoming elections for the UK, and drew interesting parallels between the Dutch and British Labour parties.