The Political Centre under Pressure: Elections in the Netherlands

Transcription

1 The Political Centre under Pressure: Elections in the Netherlands Frans Becker and René Cuperus 1 Elections in the Netherlands are starting to look increasingly like a surprise party that the voters throw for political parties. Since 1994, election results have shown major shifts, albeit largely within the right and the left of the political spectrum. The overall division between left-right has remained relatively stable since 1945 and constantly shows a small majority for the centre-right. The changes at each election are very significant, however, and consequently there are always parties that suffer a significant loss or make major gains. In 2002 the party of Pim Fortuyn, who was subsequently murdered, had a meteoric rise on the electoral scene to the detriment of the social democrats and the liberals. In 2006 the left-socialist Socialist Party (SP) and the right-populist Partij van de Vrijheid (Freedom Party, PVV) gained a considerable number of seats, also at the expense of the social democrats and the liberals. In addition, these shifts have occurred in a relatively short period of time. Up to the end of 2001 there was a large degree of satisfaction among the population with the purple coalition of liberals and social democrats that had then been in power for over seven years. However this satisfaction melted away within six months. In 2006 it was no different. To anybody who had been travelling the world for a year the election results of 22 November must have been bewildering. The most unpopular Prime Minister since the war, Christian democrat Jan Peter Balkenende, succeeded once again in leading his party to victory. And the social democrat Wouter Bos, who in the municipal elections of March 2006 achieved a historic landslide victory and who could count on winning 60 seats in the House of Representatives according to the polls, had triumph snatched from his grasp. What had happened? How could this be explained? Why had the fickle Dutch voters again punished the social democrats? What forces were at work here? A broken equilibrium The past six years have been extremely turbulent political years by Dutch standards. This is true not only for the election results but also for the political climate in the wider sense, including threats and political murder, instability of coalition governments and the party landscape. Following his US colleagues Baumgarten and Jones, Dutch political scientist Jouke de Vries refers to a broken equilibrium in politics rather than a paradigm shift to describe the extreme turbulence: a sudden interruption of a stable evolutionary development by a political revolt, or even a revolution. It seems that nothing can be ruled out in this kind of period. Old leaders and symbols are replaced, the existing political agenda is radically criticized, new dividing lines are given attention and politicization runs rampant. In this type of situation there is an opportunity for major drastic policy decisions and margins appear to be greatly stretched. A broken equilibrium 1

2 is thus in fact a turbo-charged variant of a political paradigm shift accompanied by all the accessories of the standard model. 2 The familiar Dutch political relationships and culture consensus-oriented decision-making, stable coalition governments, careful treatment of political minorities were rudely upset in 2002 by the emergence of the post-modern populist movement of Pim Fortuyn. This movement not only opposed further immigration, focussing on the faltering integration of migrant groups but also concentrated on the poor performance of major public services, such as education and care. Fortuyn s movement was anti- Islam, anti-establishment and above all anti-social democracy, i.e. anti-partij van de Arbeid (the Dutch Labour Party, PvdA). Fortuyn was murdered just before the 2002 elections; his party, the LPF (List Pim Fortuyn), won 26 (of the 150) seats in the Dutch House of Representatives and thus achieved participation in government. The PvdA lost dramatically in 2002, not only in the municipal elections held early on in that year (for the first time in over fifty years the social democrats were driven out of the municipal council of Rotterdam, Fortuyn s home base) but also in the parliamentary elections held in May. By contrast, the Christian democrats did well: for many people they served as a refuge in turbulent times. In 2002 the CDA (Christian Democratic Alliance) was led by Jan Peter Balkenende, one of the architects of the resurrection of the Dutch Christian democracy following a difficult period in the 1990s in which the CDA was in opposition. The US communitarian sociologist Amitai Etzioni was a major source of inspiration for Balkenende, whose programme strongly emphasized a renaissance of Christian standards and values in politics, and in society. What followed was a particularly turbulent and unstable period of government, in which Balkenende led three cabinets in four years. In the beginning, he was faced with an almost impossible task. He had to decide what position to take, not only in the international war on terror and the US war of intervention in Iraq, but also with regard to the smouldering issue of multicultural relations. In this hostile political climate, after the murder of Fortuyn, Balkenende formed a government with the conservative liberals of the VVD (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy) and the unstable LPF, a step that ended in a minor political catastrophe. Fortuyn s party fell apart as a result of internal quarrels and dragged the first Balkenende cabinet down with it. The elections of 2003 that followed saw a powerful recovery on the part of the social democrats, but the PvdA still remained outside of government. Balkenende continued to govern, now with a coalition of Christian democrats, conservative liberals (VVD) and progressive liberals (Democrats 66, D66). The political and social climate grew harsher. After the murder of Theo van Gogh in November 2004 by a fundamentalist Muslim, relations with the Dutch Muslim community became conflagrated resulting in a fierce confrontation about integration, fundamentalism and freedom. An increasing lack of restraint eroded trust in political and public institutions. The harsh policy of VVD Minister Rita Verdonk with regard to integration, and the expulsion of asylum seekers only served to sharpen contrasts, rather than alleviate them. In 2002 the citizens' revolt had just begun, as became apparent in the referendum over the so-called European constitution held in mid An unexpectedly large majority of Dutch citizens voted against it. They thus not only expressed their view that the European integration process had been stretched too far for them, but also their irritation, mistrust and uncertainty: irritation about the cabinet s reform policy, which they found to be blunt; mistrust regarding the political elite; and uncertainty about the future of the Netherlands and Europe in a globalizing economy with powerful new competitors. 2

3 In 2006 the second Balkenende cabinet fell, not because of the reform policy or the fiasco of the referendum on the European constitution, but because of the passport of Ayaan Hirshi Ali a member of parliament for the VVD, a high-profile champion of Muslim women and a fierce critic of Islam. It turned out that she had lied about her name and age on her entry into the Netherlands and consequently was not entitled to a Dutch passport and the Dutch nationality, according to Minister Verdonk. Irritation over Verdonk s behaviour on the part of D66, the smallest coalition party, grew to such an extent that this party expressed its lack of confidence in the Minister. The confrontation resulted in a new cabinet crisis. D66 left the government and Balkenende took charge of a rump cabinet of VVD and CDA and called new elections, which were to be held on 22 November The political situation before the elections At the beginning of 2006 the political die had already been cast. Not only had the cabinets led by Balkenende been unstable but the direction they took attracted little sympathy from the citizens, and confidence in the leadership of Balkenende had sunk to all-time lows. In the municipal elections held in March the major government parties, CDA and VVD, recorded disastrous results, so much so that the leader of the VVD, Jozias van Aartsen, decided to step down. The main victor was the PvdA led by Wouter Bos, which seemed headed for a gain of around sixty seats at the next election, more than the PvdA had ever won in its sixty-year history. The PvdA succeeded in benefiting from the irritation about the Balkenende government. What was the cause of this irritation? To understand this we need to return once again to the role played by Balkenende and the political course of his cabinet. During the purple governments led by the social democrat Wim Kok ( ), the CDA strongly opposed government policy on the basis that it was too neo-liberal. In 2001 Balkenende expressed criticism that during the purple period a neoliberal attitude in effect defeated the social democratic tradition in the PvdA. 3 He opposed the reliance on market forces and privatization, the degradation of the collective sector, the unbalanced distribution of prosperity and the closed politiek culture. Against this he set a Christian democratic alternative in which the emphasis was placed on the community, social responsibility and the moral dimension for tackling social problems. After Balkenende had taken office in 2002, this Christian democratic alternative narrowed to a much more limited set of policies: the community disappeared into the background, the moral dimension got bogged down in good intentions without any practical application, and social responsibility amounted to the individual responsibility of the individual citizen. In an economic sense, citizens were regarded as consumers; in a social sense they were victims of their own behaviour. In addition to the value-based conservatism expressed verbally, the Balkenende cabinets concentrated on harsh reforms to the welfare state, with drastic changes being made to the legislation concerning disability schemes and the introduction of market forces in the health care sector. In practice what had happened earlier to the PvdA now happened to the CDA: in a coalition with the conservative liberal VVD the party adapted itself to the market-oriented policy of the liberals. The CDA thus also became a liberal party, focusing on privatization, primacy of the free market and demand-driven services in the public sector. 4 This reform policy met increasing opposition among the electorate. In addition, Balkenende s behaviour as Prime Minister generated little confidence. His awkward and clumsy actions brought the Royal Family into the political arena on several occasions. His Minister of Justice had to openly and publicly prompt him in a case where he had not sufficiently mastered the constitutional details of a government file, and he floundered both inside and outside of parliament. Balkenende was not present when needed at the time of crisis in his cabinet, and he openly became an 3

4 object of derision as the Dutch Harry Potter. In sum, he lacked political authority and basic communication skills. In 2002 his major political opponent was Wouter Bos. He was the first social democratic leader who was elected in a direct vote by the members of his party. He made the party competitive again due to an exceptionally successful campaign in He had learned from the emergence of Fortuyn and compelled himself and his party to go in search of dissatisfied voters. At the beginning of 2006 this image was perhaps not as fresh as it had been in 2003 but it still produced an unprecedented popularity. The VVD, then still the third main party in the Netherlands, suffered from increasing internal divisions. Rita Verdonk was a polarising personality for the liberals. This division exposes a difficult rift between the more moderate, middle-class liberals such as those who in the 1990s formed a coalition with the social democrats in the purple cabinets and the more populist liberals who adopted Fortuyn s hard line on immigration and integration. After Van Aartsen stepped down as party leader, a battle flared between Verdonk and Mark Rutte for the party leadership, which was decided in a direct vote among the members of the VVD and was narrowly won by Rutte. The complexity in the relationship between these two figures was reflected in the results of the last election, where Verdonk gained significantly more preference votes than the leading candidate Rutte. The results of the elections: an initial interpretation The results of the 2006 elections of the House of Representatives differed substantially from expectations at the beginning of What should have been a neck-and-neck race between the major people s parties of the centre-right and the centre-left, between Balkenende and Bos, became a harsh defeat for Bos and his PvdA. The fact is that the PvdA in particular was the major loser of these elections, and that this party in particular was disproportionally affected by the underlying trends. The PvdA recorded the second-worst result of its history (see table). Not only did the PvdA lose the battle for the office of Prime Minister and the political centre; it also got involved in an apparently unexpected battle on the left, where the SP became the major left, rather than the minor left alongside the PvdA. It is especially this split between the centre and the left, the lost battle for the centre followed by a fierce battle on the left, that shook the PvdA once again to its foundations and resulted in a thorough investigation into the causes of this defeat by a party committee led by former party chairman Ruud Vreeman. The liberals too lost a lot of ground, and felt the need for a more thorough analysis. They are once again faced with a serious threat on the right of the political spectrum and risk, just like the social democrats, being caught in the divide between the political centre and the edge of the political spectrum. House of Representatives * ARP CHU KVP CDA SGP PvdA CPN PSP PPR

5 EVP 1 Groen Links VVD BP GPV RPF CU D' DS' NMP 2 RKPN 1 CP 1 CD 1 3 AOV 6 SP LN 2 LPim Fortuyn PVV 9 PvdD 2 TURNOUT 80,0 80,1 * In 1956 the number of seats of the House changed from 100 to 150 A closer look at the results shows the following. While the PvdA lost ten seats (from 42 to 32), the SP gained seventeen seats (from 9 to 26). The PVV led by Geert Wilders, who broke away from the VVD as a member of parliament in the last cabinet period, won nine seats, and the VVD lost six seats. Thus the PvdA and the VVD lost in terms of flank parties on the left and on the right respectively. To a lesser extent the same thing happened to the CDA. This party lost three seats and ended up with 44 seats. The flank party of the CDA, the socially conservative Christian Union (CU), won three seats, going from three to six. The newspaper de Volkskrant ran the following headline on the day after the elections: Voters send confusing message. And indeed Dutch voters made two seemingly contradictory statements. On the one hand, they voted against the cabinet policy of the centre-right coalition and they made a small jump to the left. On the other hand, they re-elected Prime Minister Balkenende by making the CDA, despite its slight loss, once again the largest party. For the PvdA the election result confirmed what political scientists call the paradox of vote-seeking and office-seeking. A smaller PvdA has greater chance of participating in a coalition government with the Christian Democrats than a PvdA that is the largest. And this is exactly what happened: CDA, PvdA and CU formed a coalition cabinet in February An initial interpretation of the election results and the electors movement in the media provides the following picture: The elections show that a reform policy is not rewarded: the coalition parties that supported Balkenende s reform policy, VVD, CDA and D66, lost their majority by a large number of seats. The CDA succeeded in limiting the loss but it did not benefit from the traditional Prime Minister bonus. Who dares to reform loses, was the headline in the Der Spiegel news magazine based on the analysis of the Dutch situation by the economist Bas Jacobs and the cultural historian René Cuperus. 5 5

6 The election results are supposedly an expression of conservatism on the part of the voters, directed against the social liberal consensus by which the last decade was marked. Leftconservative (SP, CU) and right-conservative parties (PVV, CDA) have won and progressive parties have lost (D66, GroenLinks, PvdA). The results supposedly represent anti-modernization and antiglobalization views. The SP represents the social class criticism of the changed society characterized by globalization and liberalization. On the left the SP based its appeal on the promise of the restoration of the welfare state of the seventies of the previous century. 6 Wilders represents the authoritarian-islamophobic criticism of the changing society. The CDA and the CU are moderate variants of this modernization criticism, with their views on norms and values, family-based policy, anti-materialism, anti-consumerism and conservative cultural politics. The results also supposedly represent a crumbling of the political centre consisting of the major people s parties that have formed Dutch government in the post-war period. This reflects the proliferation of populist movements, the legacy of the Fortuyn movement of Populism is represented in the Netherlands by criticism of the political establishment, social criticism ( neoliberal selling-out of civilization ) of the SP and the resistance to immigrants and Islamization on the part of Wilders PVV. The results are seen to indicate a renewed preference for sharply profiled political positions 7 and thus for the fringes of the political spectrum (centrifugal forces). Political scientist Joop van Holsteyn: The PvdA lost the battle with the SP because of the relative lack of clarity concerning its own specific position. 8 One of the lessons drawn from the 2006 elections is that diffuse, ambivalent leadership will be punished and sharply profiled leadership will be rewarded. This signals a return to compartmentalization and ideology, to the detriment of hybrid centre positions. We will discuss this picture and the various interpretations in more detail below. In our opinion there is a complex of factors that determine these election results which requires a more layered explanation. We have to take into consideration events such as the nature of the election campaign and the role of the leading candidates. We also have to include medium term developments such as the views of parties and the development of voters moods. Finally, our approach involves more structural aspects such as sociological and political trends that have become visible in the Netherlands and elsewhere over the last few years. It is extremely difficult, incidentally, to determine the exact weight of all the factors that play a role (without the data of the National Voter Survey carried out by political scientists). What was decisive? Was it battles between parties, battles about ideas, battles between individuals, media battles, or just bad luck? Could the PvdA have won? Was the defeat of the PvdA more than a campaign accident? Was it mainly about a party leader who was out of shape? How much more than the popularity of Jan Marijnissen is there to the success of the SP? Are we witnessing a structural attack by left-populist socialism on traditional social democracy? Or should most weight be given to causes of a more structural nature such as globalization, European uncertainty and multicultural tensions? This much is certain: between February and November 2006 the mood of the voters changed. The election campaigns and the behaviour of the leading candidates played an important role in this. The campaign 6

7 The main challenger to Balkenende and his team in the spring of 2006 was Wouter Bos and the PvdA. Although the SP had also achieved a good result in the municipal elections by doubling the number of seats (to over 330 council seats), it did not come close to the PvdA, which won a total of almost 2,000 council seats, thus profiting from the climax of the anti-balkenende mood. The PvdA s campaign was probably on the wrong track from the beginning, but this was disguised by the unprecedented unpopularity of Balkenende and his team, and the Cabinet s reform policy. But this mood would disappear faster than expected. The CDA and the VVD managed to miraculously transform the fall of the second Balkenende cabinet into a fresh start. The rump cabinet resulting from the departure of D66 in fact sailed along on an improving economy. The day of the Queen s Speech and the final presentation of the Budget by VVD Minister of Finance, Gerrit Zalm, were dominated by the theme of redeeming the promise that after the bitter will come the sweet. Following the harsh reforms, citizens would now begin to see benefits from the economic upturn. Cosmetic expenditures and investments in difficult social issues enabled this cabinet to competently take the wind out of the sails of the opposition. In addition, the PvdA's winning mood quickly disappeared through its own mistakes. At the peak of the PvdA s success in the municipal elections when the party was particularly favoured by voters from a migrant background there arose an awkward debate about the PvdA s status as a migrant party, the Partij van de Allochtonen (Party of the Non-Indigenous Residents). Wouter Bos experienced nasty runins with members of migrant communities in his own party on this issue. Even more important was a lecture given by Wouter Bos to an international audience of economists in which he launched a reform proposal for the state pension. At the core of this proposal was a tax on richer pensioners in order that they should themselves contribute a little more to the pension scheme. This was necessary, he stated, to keep the pension scheme viable in the future and socially just. 9 This proposal became controversial as a result of fierce criticism by former PvdA Minister and columnist Marcel van Dam in particular. His comments exposed the fact that Bos line of reasoning had not been worked out in concrete terms and was therefore extremely vulnerable. It put Bos and the PvdA onto the defensive on their home ground of social policy. The matter developed into a significant image problem, the unwanted litmus test of the PvdA government programme and the political leadership of Wouter Bos. Had this been the intention? How much strategic thought had gone into the further modernization of the welfare state as the driving force of the campaign? This lack of clarity was caused in part by the political themes Bos and others had chosen to focus on over the last few years. The timbre of the PvdA s opposition had been that of a reasonable alternative. Rather than offering head-on resistance to the direction of the Balkenede reforms, the party expressed social criticism that the pain should be distributed more evenly. This pragmatism was ideologically underpinned by Bos attack on the traditional thinking on the concept of equality, and confirmed to in the new PvdA manifesto. However this later appeared to be undermined in his book Dit land kan zoveel beter ( This country can do so much better ), which placed inequality, or the threat of the rise of an underclass, as its central theme. 10 In a similar fashion, the election themes the party considered to be most important evaporated. It was unclear which direction it proposed to take. On balance, the election programme, which had no input from PvdA members of parliament, was a missed opportunity for clearer profiling. The coalition issue remained one of the sources of implausibility and ambivalence during the long campaign. What could voters count on? Wouter Bos had stated at an early stage that his objective was to become Prime Minister. But there continued to be a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the question of which coalition he would then lead. In entering the race for the office of Prime Minister he 7

8 seemed to opt for a clear alternative to the Balkenende cabinets but he did not carry it through. It was patently obvious that Bos could not see the good of a left-wing partnership. The PvdA was embarrassed in this respect by the opportunistic advances of SP and Groen Links. While Bos had crystallized dissatisfaction with the drastic reform measures proposed by the Balkenende cabinets, the impression was now created, fed by fierce attacks by CDA party leader Verhagen, that he wanted to introduce further-reaching reforms. In this regard a parallel can be drawn between the PvdA and Angela Merkel s CDU on the eve of the German federal elections. By proposing drastic reform measures Merkel offered Chancellor Schröder the opportunity to distance himself from his own reform policy during the previous period of government. Here too a surreal switching of roles took place with a government in opposition and an opposition being in office too soon. The trends started to shift considerably. In opinion polls the initially large gap between the PvdA and the CDA and between Bos and Balkenende gradually decreased. In addition, the popular politician Jan Marijnissen of the SP returned to the political arena after a considerable absence due to health problems, an event which was scarcely noticed and discussed. The SP, originally a Maoist party, first managed to secure a solid position in local government by championing the interests of troubled citizens in an activist and direct manner. Over the last decade the SP has adapted its programme, resulting in a more moderate platform. It dropped several oppositional stances, such as its anti-nato and antimonarchy positions. It no longer preached a radical-socialist alternative. The SP became more social democratic in nature, turning them into an increasingly attractive alternative for progressive voters 11. Party leader Marijnissen, unchallenged within his party, did not, as in the past, run a campaign based on anti- stances, but rather presented himself as a social and reasonable alternative to Balkenende. In the meantime, the CDA prepared a harsh campaign against the PvdA and Bos and implemented it. The campaign was extremely personal and comparable to Bush s anti-kerry campaign in The social democratic party leader was depicted as being unreliable and a flip-flopper an image that was able to take root because Bos had behaved awkwardly and the PvdA s programme was unclear. Moreover, Balkenende received an electoral bonus for the economic recovery, and flexibility in continuing to govern with the CDA and VVD. As a result of the new mood among the voters, what had earlier been considered his weaknesses were now regarded as his strengths: awkwardness, tenacity, and conviction. In the mean time the VVD was deeply divided by the battle between Rutte and Verdonk. The liberals had already gone on the offensive against the PvdA during the municipal elections by means of a negative TV advertising spot about a rose that did not know what it wanted, thus setting the tone for the national campaign. But in this national campaign the VVD had enormous difficulty in breaking into the Battle of the Titans between Bos and Balkenende, to the frustration of the leading candidate Rutte. He was, moreover, continuously thwarted by Verdonk, who had her own, aggressive campaign team. Whereas Rutte s message focused on the Americanization of the Dutch economy, Verdonk primarily set herself up as a politician taking a tough stance on integration issues. The leading candidates and public perception Authenticity, that s what would count in the times to come. This was the analysis of campaign guru Philip Gould and up-and-coming Labour talent David Miliband at the spring conference of Policy Network in And indeed everything did seem to revolve around authenticity in the serious debates, in the entertainment programmes and everywhere else. Liesbet van Zoonen analysed the background to Balkenende s miraculous comeback for Vier jaar Balkenende ( Four years of 8

9 Balkenende ). 13 The clumsiness, the ordinariness, the unshakeable attitude: they contributed to the perception of his authenticity. Ultimately these characteristics worked to his advantage and public opinion of him improved enormously. Similarly, winners such as Marijnissen, Wilders and André Rouvoet (CU) also gained an image of authenticity. In the case of Marijnissen this is founded not only on his chastened political career but also on the clarity of his political message. Rutte and Bos had a serious public image problem. Rutte could not shake off his mother, his nonpresent girlfriend and his all-too-present colleague Verdonk. The image stuck that his mother still did his washing for him, he was single and his leadership was constantly undermined by the actions of Rita Verdonk. Bos could not shake off the image of equivocation and vagueness. He continued to be perceived as a social-liberal purple reform politician who, during the 2003 campaign, had successfully managed to connect with his grassroots support in the coffee house. He had thus cleverly managed to accommodate the Fortuyn uprising: he had freed the PvdA from its bureaucratic image and had succeeded in bringing the party s stance on immigration and integration more into line with the views of the rank and file of the PvdA. But in the new context of a polarizing and ideological electoral battle, Bos appeared to be wrong-footed. He had always spoken out in favour of a unifying leadership, but was faced with newly polarized political landscape. In the first direct confrontation with Balkenende, a radio debate between the two leaders, the Prime Minister accused opposition leader Bos directly of lying and equivocation. The CDA campaign was strongly focused on promoting this image, with the chairman of the Christian democratic parliamentary group Maxime Verhagen in the role of the government pit-bull. Electoral researcher Van Holsteyn, among others, has put into perspective the emphasis on the leading candidate in accounting for the voting behaviour of individuals. A vote for Bos is, in their reasoning, not a vote for Bos but in most cases a vote for the PvdA and therefore also a vote for Bos. Nevertheless it is worth considering that Bos ultimately enjoyed little confidence amongst voters as the new Prime Minister. For voters who also had a preference for a different party, such as the CDA or the SP, this meant that sympathy for Balkenende or Marijnissen could play a decisive role. Reform fatigue The campaign and the behaviour of the leading candidates naturally had a major influence on the ultimate results of the elections. But to understand what happened it is also necessary to look at the long-term trends in politics and society. There is, in our opinion, a direct link between the results of the municipal elections of 1990 and 1994, the national elections of 1994 via the elections of 2002, the results of the referendum on the European constitution to the elections of During this period a breach of trust occurred between large parts of the electorate and the mainstream parties who were responsible for the policies pursued. Economic and cultural developments have again divided citizens chances of achieving social success. The reform policy that has been followed for the last 25 years has resulted in reform fatigue, in diminishing confidence in public and political institutions and in a general sense of insecurity. Although the preferences of voters at the elections of 22 November 2006 represent a reaction to these trends, they reflect them only indirectly. Let us start by looking at the reform policy of the last period. To what extent does the course followed by the political parties differ from the master narrative of the policy makers in The Hague who are active in the most important government advisory bodies, such as the Social and Economic Council (SER), the Advisory Council on Government Policy, the Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP) and the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB)? The major parties are all part of the dominant 9

10 discourse of welfare state reform in the Netherlands. Only to a limited extent do they have their own, different story to tell. The CDA puts its own stamp on it with a rhetorical programme of norms and values while the VVD achieves this by means of the right-populism of Verdonk. Finally, the PvdA places emphasis on the social dimension of reform. However, during their time in office both the PvdA and the CDA have in fact conformed to the modernization consensus on economic politics, the reform of the welfare state and changes in the public sector, as formulated in the extra-parliamentary arena of the policy-making institutions, such as the SER and the CPB. To form an accurate picture of the reform policy of the Netherlands it is necessary to be aware that this reform process started as far back as the middle of the 1970s with considerable accelerations at the start of the 1980s and during the1990s. 14 Despite changes of government composition, the direction of the reforms has not changed in essence. From 1975 Dutch social democracy reluctantly launched a policy of diminishing public expenditure growth. In the 1980s there was a breakthrough in the reform policy under centre-right governments. The core of the moderate Thatcher variant in the Netherlands was a) the Wassenaar Agreement, which entailed an agreement between employers and employees about wage restraint and employment policy; and b) a policy based on cut-backs in the public sector. There were severe cutbacks in the public sector, and restrictions placed on access to social security. Institutional reforms of the 1990s followed the financial reforms of the 1980s, with a switch to a different welfare-state regime. Christian democrats, liberals and social democrats participated in this process. Institutional reforms of the social security system shifted the emphasis from assistance and security to activating labour-market policies. From a welfare state that focused on transfers of income, the Netherlands moved towards an activating welfare state in which participation and employment became core objectives. A more obligation-driven approach in social security, training and support to help people find employment, labour cost subsidies and macroeconomic stimulation formed the successful elements of the employment policies of the 1990s, although here too doubts can be cast on implementation. The reform process did not end with the transition to an activating welfare state. Over the last few decades the Netherlands has been witness to an endless series of reforms. These not only affected social security but also the public domain in a wider sense. It has constantly been doctored, dismantled, altered and renovated. The direction, the scope and the method of the reform policy have started to generate increasing opposition. Significant elements of the public domain have been under major financial pressure for a long time. Education is a fairly poignant example of this. For over twenty years this sector has been suffering from disinvestment. Some of these examples did not come to light for a long time, such as the gradual disappearance of highly qualified teachers in secondary education. Reforms in the public sector are, moreover, characterized by a counterproductive policy cycle. The government still has pretensions to manage the public sector. The development of policy and the formulation of rules and regulations are fundamental to the cycle. However, the accumulation of policies results in overload in large parts of the public sector. That is why public institutions are forced to make continuous adjustments to new rules repeatedly. Fortunately, society can cope with rather a lot of poor policy, and has become fairly policy-resistant. There remains too little attention being devoted to the implementation of policies. Whenever new policies are prepared, their implementation is not automatically considered an important assessment criterion for the viability of the new measures. Rarely are questions or problems from the shop floor of the public sector decisive in the formulation of policy. As a result the gap between policy reality and social reality continues to exist. The youth welfare sector is a notorious example of this gap. 10

11 Conceptual poverty has existed in the public sector for an extended period of time as far as management and responsibility are concerned. The Weberian model of administrative organization is no longer adequate, especially not in cases where the government carries out executive and service tasks itself, or is responsible for these remotely. New forms of management and responsibility have been derived from the private sector since the beginning of the 1990s. Reinventing government became the slogan, new public management the practice. The resultant model for the public sector provides for more management, comprehensive accountability procedures and more or less extensive forms of free market operation. Much less attention is devoted in this model to the role of the professionals or to public or a professional ethos as a guideline on which actions should be based. 15 The outcome of this reform policy is degradation of the public domain. Institutions are treated carelessly, and public confidence in them is diminished. Professionals are dissatisfied, and the public at large is tired of change. Their satisfaction with their own lives contrasts sharply with their aversion to politics. Public mistrust and discontent now stand out markedly against private satisfaction. Change, reform and adjustments have become central concepts in politics. The government, and the political parties of the centre, have on balance drawn too heavily on the willingness to change and have asked too much of the citizens. Research into public opinion trends shows that a significant majority of the population opts for stability and continuity of welfare-state arrangements, but at the same time fears that the government will continue making changes and adjustments. There is thus a painful contrast between citizens and policy elites. According to an apt metaphor introduced by Paul Schnabel, Director of the SCP, citizens want to move in the direction of Scandinavia, whereas the government is moving in the direction of the US. Over the last few decades the government has also drawn heavily on the willingness to change of professionals within the welfare state and on the potential for change of the institutions. Now there is a considerable overstretch. The professionals in education, the social services and care homes have been faced not only with sharp cut-back programmes but also with a sharp rise in social issues and problems that they come across on the front line: job-seekers who are difficult to place; increasing demand from the elderly needing help; unrestrained and poorly integrated youth from migrant environments at school. Measures taken by the authorities to reform the welfare state often have no relationship at all with the problems that occur daily on the shop floor. In addition, fashionable measures based on modern management ideas are imposed on the professionals. A clay layer consisting of consultants, controllers, policy officials and managers has been formed between political decision-makers and those implementing the decisions. Every action has to be accounted for in detail with the effect that many professionals now spend more time filling in forms than carrying out their public tasks. As a result, professionals on the one hand and policy makers and politicians on the other have become alienated from each other. The sociological dimension: electoral turmoil The modernization course followed by the different governments across the world, has placed different groups in the electorate under pressure. Their confidence is being further undermined by undercurrents that have been at work for a long time. It is not so much that there is a major shift taking place from left to right but rather that new issues and dividing lines are being translated into political preferences and voting behaviour: the search for security; the need for a local identity; uncertainty about the social and economic future; and decreasing confidence in mainstream politics and political parties. Major economic 11

12 changes associated with globalization and new technologies do not have the same effect on everybody but result in a redistribution of opportunities for participation and success. The level of education in particular, pre-determines individuals life-chances, their confidence in politics and public institutions and their expectations of the future. These trends do not always translate directly and immediately into voting behaviour but they do form the context in which political parties have to operate. In the Netherlands and other European countries, the process of economic and cultural modernization process results in a new social polarization between winners and losers, and thus provides the basis for the recent populist revolt. A research team from the universities of Zurich and Munich, led by Hans- Peter Kriesi, undertook a comparative analysis of six European countries, and reported that the current process of globalization has resulted in the emergence of a new structural conflict in West European countries, whereby those who profit from these processes are opposed to those who do not. The structural contrast between winners and the losers creates a new dividing line in politics and thus transforms the political playing field. The researchers regard those parties that are most successful in appealing to the interests and fears of the losers as the main driving force behind the current transformation of the West European party system. 16 The process of increasing economic (sectoral and international) competition, of increasing cultural competition (among other things linked to the massive immigration of groups from backgrounds that are fairly different to those of the European population) and of increasing political competition (between national states and supranational or international political actors) creates new groups of winners and losers. The groups of people most likely to win include entrepreneurs and well-educated employees in sectors that are open to international competition and cosmopolitan citizens. Those most likely to lose include entrepreneurs and well-educated employees in the traditionally protected sectors and poorly educated employees and citizens who strongly identify with their national community. The losers will support protectionist measures and stress the importance of national borders and independence, according to the expectations of Kriesi and his research team. The winners will rather be in favour of the opening of national borders and will support the process of international integration. They therefore call the new contrast between the winners and the losers of globalization the conflict between integration and demarcation, inclusion versus delimiting. Kriesi and his fellow researchers believe that in countries where the major parties follow a moderate course in favour of the winners, political fragmentation will probably increase, with the creation of parties on the periphery that focus on the losers: on the right there will be parties with a cultural-conservative programme and on the left there will be parties with an economic-protectionist programme. The convergence of major parties thus goes hand in hand with the emergence of new party formations. In view of the heterogeneity of the economic interests of the losers, it is obvious that the retention of their national identity and community will be used as a common denominator in their political mobilization. This analysis of Kriesi and his research team corresponds with previous findings of Cuperus about the background to the pan-european populist revolt 17 and the characterization of the Dutch situation offered by Van Kersbergen and Krouwel: On the one hand there are people who enjoy a reasonable degree of protection and are not uncertain or anxious. They regard the market as an opportunity to advance, experience the unification of Europe as a success, live not in the multicultural society but alongside it, have a strongly individualized lifestyle, have no desire for the neighbourhood to function as a centre for solidarity and social control, do not feel unsafe and can escape with ease from the deteriorated 12

13 public spaces and public services thanks to their individual prosperity. They are also usually well able to cope with bureaucracy and feel competent in their contacts with governments. For them the established political parties are the legitimate organizations through which the democratic process takes shape, but for their personal lives they are above all completely irrelevant. ( ) On the other hand there are those who are afraid of the future and feel threatened by the market, the European expansion, the ongoing immigration and the multicultural society, the collapse of the social infrastructure, the disappearing of the neighbourly help that used to be offered as a matter of course and the solidarity of working-class districts, the internationalization of the economy, the lack of safety in public spaces and the degradation of public services. They live in the multicultural society and they have seen the social bonds around them change drastically. The monoculture of the working-class districts with a high degree of social control has made way for the multicultural underprivileged area. This group of people have lost confidence in the traditional political parties because they do not see them as organizations that defend their interests but rather as part of the failing state apparatus. The government is regarded as the opponent or the enemy. In the eyes of the anxious and uncertain part of the electorate all their problems are directly linked to the arrival of foreigners. With the presence of foreigners globalization has assumed a concrete form and its threats (the disappearance of lowpaid work, the undermining of the national identity) can be personified. 18 The Belgian sociologist Mark Elchardus carried out similar research into these cleavage lines in Flanders. He talks of an underlying crisis of confidence in democracy that stems from social changes that have not been sufficiently dealt with. 19 The Friedrich Ebert Foundation recently commissioned research into new sociological dividing lines in Germany. This now controversial research into the willingness of the Germans to accept reform shows empirically which centrifugal forces affect society: All in all a picture emerges of a society split into three parts. The people in the top third have secure opportunities and perspectives. However, this third is split politically into left-liberal (critical, educated elite, engaged bourgeoisie) and liberal conservative (performance-oriented individualists, established high-performers) groups. In the middle of society uncertainty has been around for a long time. Depending on their own opportunities and the political alignments, the groups are receptive to change (satisfied social climbers) or more sceptical (threatened middle-class workers). In the bottom third (self-sufficient traditionalists, authority-oriented poorly qualified people) dissatisfaction with the social reality and with politics is increasing, as is the risk of social and political disconnection (socially-detached precariat). In all three sections, however, certain basic values such as social justice are particularly important. The (far from simple) strategic challenge lies in politically integrating the solidly united groups in the top third of society, the anxious middle-class workers and the accessible groups in the bottom third. The concept of the precariat has now taken a prominent place in the public debate. 20 To conclude: the current economic and cultural changes affect the citizens of the West European countries in very different ways. A new dividing line is emerging between two groups: those who embrace the future and those who fear the future, people who believe that the new world holds nothing good in store for them and who feel betrayed by the political elite. It should once again be emphasized that this concerns a cultural-political cleavage as well as a social-economic class divide. On the right this new dividing line creates a breeding ground for right-populist parties; on the left it provides a basis for more traditional or left-populist parties. The centre parties are faced with an existential issue as the dividing line between these groups runs right through their electorate. 21 This also applies to social democratic parties that are now threatened by a split between the political centre and the left. 13

14 To conclude Over the last few decades the policy elite politicians, civil servants, consultants and experts have focused strongly on reforms and adjustments to new economic, social and cultural realities via the reorganization of public policy systems: social security, education, health care. They have focused to a much lesser extent on the practical problems that occur in everyday life and on the shop floor. Politics has narrowed to a concern for policy; the recruitment of politicians has become increasingly restricted to well-educated public-sector employees. As a result there is a short-circuit between significant parts of the electorate and the policy elite. Political parties from the centre have so far not succeeded sufficiently in restoring the bond with their electorate. We would like to finish by offering the views of two intelligent foreign observers. According to the analysis of Wolfgang Munchau, columnist with the Financial Times, the Dutch election results of 22 November set a trend for Europe as a whole: The Dutch are leading a people s revolt. 22 European voters have had enough of the reforms that the centre-right is implementing. Europeans, according to Munchau, are uncertain about their future and are suffering from reform fatigue. Balkenende was the most active reformer of Europe and his centre-right coalition has now been punished in the elections. This represents a wider European trend: in all of Europe we are witnessing the decline of centre-right parties since they have started to embrace reforms. CDU s Angela Merkel achieved a poor election result with her campaign for radical reform. In Austria, Chancellor Schüssel ran into problems despite economic success. Social democrats won in Vienna by focusing on deep-rooted uncertainties in the electorate. The European mainland is marked by an anti-reform mood. In France too, Sarkozy is moderating his tone as regards free market economic reforms since the populist emergence of Segolène Royal. Prime Minister Juncker of Luxembourg once stated: We all know what needs to be done, but we do not know how to get re-elected once we have done it. But this representation of affairs is too positive, according to Munchau: politicians do not know what to do. Moreover: voters are not ungrateful but rather rational. If you are currently a poorly educated or averagely educated employee in Europe, the chance that you will be worse off in the short term because of reforms in social security is larger than the chance that you will benefit in the long term. I do not know of any politician on the European mainland who is capable of offering voters a comprehensive and clear vision of economic well-being and security in the 21st century. Another observer, Die Zeit s Werner Perger, offers the following analysis of the difficult position centre parties find themselves in: The traditional parties and the representatives of the political class are by and large becoming nervous, are reacting [..] anxiously, no longer dare to broach difficult political topics and fear nobody as much as they fear the voters. Europe s modernization parties have thus got themselves into a quandary: in the views of the neoliberals and conservatives they changed too little, in the views of the left-populists they changed too much, and in the views of the right-populists they were too generous as regards services provided to immigrants and asylum seekers. In this way the social democrats lost one European bastion after the other. It would be wise, however, to use the break for reforms aimed at regenerating and vitalizing democracy; however, helplessness still dominates. Experience has taught us that the parties do not learn from experience. On 23 November 2002 de Volkskrant ran the following headline: Voters send confusing message. On the basis of this message a cabinet was formed in February 2007, Balkenende IV, that consists of the parliamentary parties of the CDA, the PvdA and the CU. The big question is whether this new coalition will restore the broken equilibrium in Dutch politics. Will this new cabinet succeed in normalizing the political and social relationships and defusing the time bomb of populism? Will it succeed in restoring the confidence of the electorate in politics and public institutions? Will it be able to mobilize the centripetal forces and re-establish stability? In four years we will have the answer. 14