DPQM Toets 2
,Nederlandse politiek en kwalitatieve methoden
Hoorcollege 1
Models of democracy
Consensus versus majoritarian democracy
The development of the Dutch political system.
Overview lecture 1
➔ History and development
➔ Social cleavages
➔ Lijphart’s model: consensus democracy
➔ Case-study: description, categorization and typologies
The linguistic religious border
The core elements of the Dutch system-making history. To point the linguistic and
religious borders. What happened in Europe: Roman domination across Europe
created a very important vision in Europe. The Romans created a sort of last highway
that has made the territory of the Netherlands: the North became more Protestants,
the South became more Roman. Roman highway and colonization created a dividing
line between north (Germanic) and south (Roman) between Dutch and French
speaking between Protestantism (Reformation) and the Catholicism (Rome).
The Rhine became northern frontier of the Roman Empire, after defeat in the
Teutoburg Forest, exposing people to the south to Roman law, culture and costumes,
while the north remained free of Roan rule. This created a divide that is relevant until
today. So, this river became the most northern frontier of the Roma Empire. This
dividing line costs the people to the South of this border to be exposed to the Roman
laws, etc, The North of this river was free. This division/cleavage is relevant until
today.
Political Demarcation
The third border: the political demarcation. The low countries struggle for
independence.
Dutch Revolt (opstand) (80 years’ war)
Spanish rule was always precarious in low countries. Many factors contributed to the
discontent and the revolt (economic factors, wars in other parts of the world, personal
rivalries, Calvinism, failures and brutalities of Spanish rules, foreign intervention,
mutinies of troops and many others. The Dutch themselves often point to actions of
national heroes, agency, but most of the time there were clear economic drivers,
structure, of their decisions.
The conflict between Lowlands Calvinism and Spanish Catholicism results in an
independent Republic.
Calvinism became an ideology of the Protestants, used against the Catholic church.
The Spanish rulers made a lot of mistakes. Core element of the battle: for religious
freedom. Catholic South were against the Protestants/Calvinism. It gave them a sort
,justification to do that. In the Netherlands we have a lot of people in the lower
classes, town leaders, that were attracted to this Calvinists thinking. The population
of 3 million was very fragmented, very local oriented, spitted by languages, with
protests etc.
Size and wealth of the middle class
The Netherlands and UK avoided absolutist rule that characterised the other major
European powers chiefly because of the presence of a large middle class, with a
vested interest in persevering independence from centralised authority and national
traditions of resistance dating from the English Civil War and the Dutch war for
independence from Spain.
Anti-absolutism became part of a sense of national identity and was linked to popular
anti-Catholicism. The officially protestant Dutch, in particular, had a culture of
centralized mercantile activity far removed from the militarism and excess associated
with the courts of Louis XIV and Frederick the Great. The Dutch was avoiding
absolutism.
Social structure of the local middle class, was important to beat the Spanish
Agencies: access of people and structure, the structural element that we should
highlight, is the argument how society is structured with different social classes,
economic differences etc. One of these explanations why the Netherlands had a lot
of revolts and why the Dutch were more successful in beating the Spanish, is the
argument that the structure of the Netherlands was different. Because of the
presence of the middle class in the Netherlands and keeping away from
centralization, but having a local organizing thing. These local were very good to beat
the Spanish and to keep local control and to determine the laws, regions and to gain
money. A structural/class argument, how this matters for politics, this fitted by the
Calvinistic culture. The middle class in the local situation was very important to gain
money, to beat the Spanish people. So, the Dutch were avoiding absolutism.
Revolution and cleavages: three important
revolutions created the situation in Europe
Historical revolutions have shaped the states.
These different revolutions shaped different
political parties (liberal parties, Christian parties
and social/communist parties).
➔ Reformation (liberalism): ended the
religious wars and establish national states, state
formation. In the Netherlands it is very much
unified nation. The Dutch nation as the people
have a loyalty to the Ditch system and the institutions.
➔ French Revolution (Christianity): which pitted the state against the church.
A battle, not won by one side. There is still a battle between religious groups
and the legislation/state.
➔ Industrial Revolution (socialism/communism): The main areas goes to the
cities: rural agricultural versus industrial interests. You could argue that the
fight of farmers, farming communities, is related to this cleavage. And the
cleavage workers versus owners. The struggle of the agricultural groups
against the more industrial cities.
, Critical juncture Critical issues Cleavage Party family
Reformation: the Consolidation of Periphery versus Conservative,
1648 settlement territorial state, the ate building ethnic, linguistic
right to set currencies centre and regionalist
and levy taxes parties
National Control over mass Church versus Christian
Revolution education, mass secular state democratic,
media, civil life conservative and
(marriage, family liberal parties
affairs) and law and
order
Industrial Protection versus Rural/agricultural Farmers parties,
Revolution modernization and versus communist,
free market urban/industrial socialist and
enterprise versus interests social democratic
workers rights and parties
state control Workers versus
capital owners
Multiple cleavages that create multi-dimensional political landscape
Parties are still dominated, related to these three different revolutions. The Dutch
political system has three or four cleavages, multiple cleavages. And more parties
that are mobilised.
In Europe four classic cleavages structured the political space, that belongs to the
ideas of a cultural (religion) and a social economic one (the classes):
➔ Centre/periphery
➔ Religious or not
➔ Rural versus urban
➔ Owner versus worker
The Netherlands was a two cleavage country
The religious and class cleavage was really dominant in the political class system in
the Netherlands. The class position was very huge, and the religious domination was
also important. You would be able to 95 percent to predict the voting results. When
you was Catholic, you voted on a Catholic party, etc. The Netherlands had two
cleavages: the 1) religious one and the 2) economic dimension and the social class
position.
➔ Religious cleavage: denominations and their parties. Like the Catholic
Parties, the Orthodox Protestants and the Dutch Reformed Church.
➔ Social class/left right socio=economic cleavage: the working class, like the
Labour Party PvdA and the middle class, VVD liberals and PVV
Every country has their own class conflict
Every country has a class conflict: every country has liberal and socialist parties.
Socialist reject capitalism, liberalism sees a lot in this whole idea of capitalism.
Kieskompas: not only about left/right, but also conservative/progressive
