While there is a case to say that the two parties I’ve put in the category “liberal” could have been placed in another, I think it’s important distinction to make. As such, liberalism is a key feature of Dutch society, where an emphasis on tolerance and freedom has long been the norm — only in the recent decade has this image begun to waver and fray around the edges. The two liberal parties — the VVD and D66, represent two variants of traditional liberalism in terms of personal and economic freedom. The VVD has a more right-wing streak, whereas D66 is more to the left, but both sit in the same group in the European parliament (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe).
VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie – People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy)
The VVD was founded in 1946 after a merger of the Partij van de Vrijheid or PvdV (Party of Freedom, not to be confused with Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom) with a number of dissents from the VDB (Free-Thinking Democratic Union), which merged with the Social Democratic Labourers Party (SDAP) to form the PvdA. They were led by Pieter Oud and referred to as the Oud-committee, and their objection was that the PvdA was becoming too much of a social democrat party for their liking.
While the VVD debuted with a very respectable seven seats in its first Tweede Kamer elections (1948) and steadily increased their representation throughout the 1950s, it found itself stuck at around 16 or 17 seats for much of the 1960s. The breakthrough came in the early 70s, as the 31-year-old Hans Wiegel (still a dominant figure today) led the party to win 22 seats in 1972 and further increase this to 28 in 1977. The party has found itself oscillating wildly between government and opposition since then, making huge gains in 1982 (36 seats) and 1998 (38 seats), but suffering regular slumps as well, polling only 22 seats in 1989 and 2006.
The VVD’s key principles have always focused on the rights of in the individual, which has meant support for issues such as same-sex marriage and the legalisation of abortion, coupled with promotion of free-market economics and personal responsibility. However, in recent years the VVD has swung to the right on a host of issues, most prominently immigration and law and order after some internal tussles between the moderates and right-wingers within the party. This resulted in a showdown for the leadership with Mark Rutte as the moderates candidate, and Rita Verdonk as the right-wing candidate. Rutte was victorious and Verdonk was later expelled from the parliamentary party after continued criticism of his leadership. She remained in parliament, resigning her membership of the VVD in order to begin her own political party.
Most of the VVD’s voters live in the west — specifically, the provinces of Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland, with a few smaller strongholds scattered across the country. (Click here to see map)
The VVD’s leader is Mark Rutte, and its head office is in Den Haag.
D66 (Democraten ’66 – Democrats ’99)
D66 takes its name from the year it was founded: 1966. The two key founders were journalist Hans van Mierlo, who became party leader, and Amsterdam councillor and VVD member Hans Gruijten. The new party was particularly interested in making the political system more democratic, but soon adopted a progressive policy platform. Over the years, it has come to be known as the party most dedicated to democratic reforms such as referenda, elected mayors, and an elected Prime Minister. Beyond that, it advocates environmental sustainability, and the rights of the individual while still retaining a sense of solidarity with others.
At the 1967 election, D66 won 7 seats, and has been in governing coalitions for 16 of its 44 years in existence. Initially, van Mierlo sought to merge D66 with the PvdA and the PPR (Party of Progressive Radicals, which would later become part of GroenLinks) to create a broad progressive movement. This attempt failed and van Mierlo eventually resigned from the leadership in 1973. His successor was Jan Terlouw, who had to deal with disastrous results at the 1974 council elections, and a general feeling within the party that it was on the verge of collapse. Terlouw decided to re-frame D66 as a liberal party and this was initially successful, resulting in 17 seats at the 1981 elections and a position in the CDA-led government. However, this coalition collapsed within a year and D66 was punished, sinking to 6 seats in parliament.
In 1986, van Mierlo returned to the leadership. D66 campaigned on progressive issues such as the emancipation of women, protection of the environment and the development of the individual. This resulted in good gains at the ’86 and ’89 elections, but did not see D66 leave the opposition benches. In 1994 however, D66 recorded their best ever result at the national level, winning 24 seats in the Tweede Kamer and joined forces with Pvda and VVD to create the “purple” coalition, Paars. Van Mierlo became a Minister and Els Borst took over the party leadership. This seemed to be the party’s last hurrah, as it plummeted to 14 seats at the 1998 elections (but remained in Paars), and after taking part in the unpopular Balkenende III government, reached rock-bottom with just 3 seats in 2006. Since then, the leadership of Alexander Pechtold has restored faith in the party, and in 2010 it tripled its representation in the Tweede Kamer to 10 seats.
Most of D66′s support is heavily concentrated in the cities; in particular, student cities. (Click here to see map)
D66′s leader is Alexander Pechtold, and its head office is in Den Haag.
Thanks for the post, now I feel almost complete in my knowledge of the parties in the Netherlands.
Isn’t it true the D66 advocated for getting rid of P.R. in favor of first past the post voting like in the US? I personally think that would be a disaster, as I very much envy PR, at least when it comes to the House of Rep elections, which seems far more fair in the Netherlands.
In the past, D66 has indeed advocated changing the electoral system to one based on geographically-based districts. I’m not sure what their reasoning was, but I imagine it was intended to bring politicians and voters closer together. As you and I know, living in countries with single-member electorates, this is nonsense. In any case, such a system would spell the end of D66 as a viable force in politics. They would not stand a chance of winning a seat in a first-past-the-post system, so I imagine they would have opted for a PR system where the country was divided into a number of multi-member electorates. While this would be feasible, D66 would still lose seats as a result. The fact is that the Netherlands is small enough for the current system to work well. It only takes a few hours to travel from north to south, or east to west. The USA and Australia have single-member electorates which are far larger in (land) size than the Netherlands!
Interestingly, in their 2010 election manifesto D66 says that they want to reform the current electoral system, but do not give any indication of their preferred model. I think someone has done the maths and realised that it would be best to slowly phase out that idea.
I did some reading, and you’re right. Apparently they advocate for a PR system used in Germany, which I don’t know about or how well that would be used in the Netherlands, but it did seem odd this alternative party was at one time advocating for measures and reforms that would essentially end it. I liked what they said on direct democracy, though I don’t know if that’s a concrete platform of theirs and not just something they say. It does generally seem like a party I’d like.
Would you say Dutch are more “free market” in their economic views, or more socially democratic? Or a mix? Or neither? Just curious.
Generally, D66 do push for their democratic reforms and feel very strongly about them. The problem for them is that most of the other parties aren’t as fussed, particularly on issues like referenda and elected mayors. Hence, these reforms tend to slide down the agenda.
The German system is MMP, (mixed member proportional), which means that you have two votes: one cast for a local candidate in a geographic electorate, and one for a candidate on a national list. How this helps smaller parties is that if they are not elected in a geographic electorate, they still have a chance at winning a seat on the national level. Half the parliament’s MPs are locally-elected ones, the other half are elected at the national level.
As for the free market vs. social democracy question, I think the only real answer is that it’s a mixture of the two. Depending on which parties are in power, it will lean one way or the other. However, over the last couple of decades there has been a trend toward the free market because the PvdA, the largest left-wing party, has been shedding some of its more socialist roots. Having said all that, the Netherlands is still more of a social democracy than almost any other country in the world.
It’s probably worth mentioning that “socialism” isn’t quite the dirty word in most of Europe that it is in places like the US and Australia. In fact, it’s more of a shorthand to describe a social democrat or someone else from a traditional left-wing party. Hence, the Party of European Socialists (a group in the EU parliament) consists mostly of social democrat parties, not the more radical socialists who are mostly to be found in the European United Left / Nordic Green Left group.
The European Union parliament is a fascinating place. I should probably write a post on that soon as well.
I’d like to hear more about the EU parliament! Sounds like a very interesting institution to say the least…
Heh, interesting information on Social Democracy. I have a question though, if the Pvda is no longer the major left-wing choice, are people just left with the GreenLeft and Socialist Party? I’m personally very left wing, but I like things that focus on the working class. Which of those, if either would appeal to that?
I really hope I’m not filling up your comments, but I’m really interested in your social democracy comment? Is the Netherlands then more socially democratic than places like Sweden? I assume Social Democracy was more or less the biggest in the Nordic countries. I assume countries like the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland were more “libertarian.”
Not at all! Better many comments than none! Especially when the comments aren’t spam!
The Netherlands is not as social democratic as the Scandinavian countries, true, and there’d be a good case to say it’s more libertarian, although the Scandinavian countries are also fairly libertarian in their social policies. I guess the problem is defining these terms is that they’re relative. While the Dutch definitely are more free market than the Scandinavians, there is still more government influence compared to many countries outside Europe.
Yes, for people who still consider themselves left-wing beyond a centre-left or moderate-left framework, your choice pretty much comes down to GroenLinks or the SP. If you’re interested in a party that still looks closely at class issues, than the SP would probably be the more likely candidate. A major difference between the two is that the SP is more nationalist in its approach, while GroenLinks is very internationalist. They are one of the most pro-EU parties in the Dutch parliament, whereas the SP are quite Eurosceptic.
Having said that, the SP have an English section on their website in which you might be interested: http://international.sp.nl/
As does D66: http://www.d66.nl/d66nl/item/a_brief_sketch_of_the_party
And the PvdA: http://www.english.pvda.nl/home
Bizarrely, I can’t seem to find one for GroenLinks; they only have a page where they translate their latest news items (i.e. messages from MPs) into English.
Well, thanks, and in that case, I’ll ask a few more questions.
First of all, I’d like to clarify when I said in another post that I’m not very “Green” I mean I don’t make what’s considered Green politics the forefront of my views and interest. I’m very much an environmentalist, and from what I can tell of GreenLeft, the things I agree with most are anti-nuclear power, internationalism and acceptance of immigrants. However, I admit I put the working class issues first, environmentally and otherwise, so I guess I’d go SP, but I have to read more. I do admit nationalism turns me off.
Anyway, as you say in this post, and I’m sure it’s correct, Liberalism and tolerance are traditions in Dutch society. Why is Geert Wilders getting so popular though? Are the Dutch just as susceptible to that anti-immigrant fear as Americans, is it because he was recently banned from the UK and could be charged with hate speech (I think) or are Muslims really invading the Netherlands? If you can’t tell, I’m personally of the camp that Geert Wilders sucks, and I’ve run into people here in the US who like him but actually know about most of his stances.
Also does GreenLeft and the Socialist Party have different approaches to class conflict and such, or is there only difference in things like nationalism and the EU? Is the Socialist Party also environmental?
Thanks again, I’m getting any interested in this stuff. It’s actually more interesting than the bland two party stuff found in most of the US.
Oh, and what gave me an impression that the Netherlands is more “libertarian” is I heard they eliminated public health care plans in favor of all private, just heavily regulated. I could be wrong on that though, and I don’t know how good Dutch care is compared to the other European countries.
Oops, meant don’t know. Just checked this site and saw my typo. Sorry.
Sorry for the late reply, and my apologies if this comes across as rushed; I’ve started a new job and will be moving house this weekend, so my life’s a bit hectic. If my reply doesn’t answer all your questions, please let me know.
Firstly, you heard correctly about the healthcare situation. The CDA / PvdA / CU government which lasted from 2006-2010 abolished public health care, forcing everyone to at least buy a basic healthcare policy from a private insurer. Those with low-incomes were given some financial compensation as a sort of subsidy. I don’t know much about the particulars of this decision, but you can bet it didn’t do the PvdA’s reputation any good. And there’s been a disturbing development on that front: should there be a CDA / PVV / VVD coalition (talks have started again — I’ll explain why in a post next week), this subsidy will be removed as well. Not sure whether there’s still a safety net for the poor, but it doesn’t sounds like it.
Recent estimates suggest that about 1 million residents of the Netherlands cite Islam as their religion. This is out of a population of 16.5 million, of which over 80% are still “white” Dutch. So no, I don’t believe the Muslims are invading. In fact, quite a few of the Muslims in the Netherlands originally come from Indonesia, which used to be a Dutch colony. And if you look through history, in the 17th century the Netherlands was the first European country to sign a treaty (in this case, free commerce) with a non-Christian country — namely, Morocco. In other words, links between the Netherlands and Islamic countries go back centuries.
In the last few decades there has been an increase in immigration from Turkey and Morocco in particular, and the reason that some people might be feeling “swamped” or “threatened” is that most of these immigrants move to the major cities in the west of the country (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag, Utrecht) and tend to end up in socially-disadvantaged neighbourhoods with high rates of crime. On the other hand, the immigrants who came to the Netherlands in the 60s and 70s did so thanks to a government drive to find cheap labour. However, the government didn’t think these “guest workers” would stay, and when they did, there were no programs to help them integrate into Dutch society. This resulted in the creation of “immigrant ghettos” and a sense of isolation. I’ll have to discuss this in greater detail another day, but I’m sure you can see that it’s a much more complicated issue that Wilders presents it as being.
Speaking of which, Wilders is indeed awaiting trial for hate speech in the Netherlands. It will be interesting to see how it goes, because if found guilty he could be imprisoned for up to two years, and this would result in him losing his seat in parliament. I’ll certainly post about it on this blog closer to the court date.
Finally, about the environment vs class issues discussion: the interesting thing about GroenLinks is that there’s still internal tension between those who see environmental issues as being top priority, and those who focus more on social issues, including class. You can more or less divide the four parties which merged to form GL into two equal groups on this: the former CPN (Communists) and PSP (Pacifist-Socialists) members are the “left” part of the party, while the former PPR (Progressive Radicals) and EVP (Evangelists) members are the “green” wing. The Socialist Party still scores fairly well on environmental issues, just not as well as GroenLinks.
Oh no worries, I’m not going to demand a certain response on someone elses website and try to interfere with someone elses life. I appreciate the fact you give my questions the time of day anyway. Answer these whenever you can and how you see fit.
About dutch health care, not to make this a european version of Sicko or anything, but what was your experience with it? Was it good? Or did you use it before the reforms?
When I hear of private health care, I think of the US, which has the worst health care in the west when it comes to availability and care. Apparently the Netherlands doesn’t, as it was ranked first in a study that ranked my country last: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65M0SU20100623 But since it goes into no detail, I have no idea how accurate it is. I’m just wondering because I’m kind of curious about health care systems around the world. I also happen to feel bad if anyone lost insurance in the new system. I have unfortunate experience in losing health insurance, it’s not fun. Are people going bankrupt from health care there, or is that still uniquely American?
“In fact, quite a few of the Muslims in the Netherlands originally come from Indonesia, which used to be a Dutch colony”
Oh, never knew that. So the Indonesia has ties to the Netherlands, and Geert Wilders is part Indonesian isn’t he? I don’t know why but I assumed the muslim immigrants were mostly Arab and Turkish.
Thanks for those details on dutch immigration, though makes me feel bad for the immigrants, kind of reminds me of the border towns over in Arizona. Also reminds me how people claim Mexicans are trying to make California apart of Mexico, it’s nonsense so I guess that kind of nonsense is universal. Do you have any experience with Geert Wilders followers or I guess I mean to ask, what’s been your experience why people began voting for that Party of Freedom?
Is the Socialist Party for nuclear energy? That’s a big issue for me these days since we see a push for it now around the world, and I’m pretty much against it now after I did real research on it.
And I admit, from what I read about GreenLeft, it does sound like a party I could get along with. I like how it proposes a basic income, something I don’t hear much of at all in the US or elsewhere. I also like how it shows in the Netherlands that groups like Communist and Christians actually got along to find a common goal, when those two groups were killing each other elsewhere in the world. Are the communist and such parts of the party still around or have they been done away with? I admit, when I read the Communist Party merged with it, it got more appealing. I hope that doesn’t cast me in some irrational radical light. Also, what wing of the party are you apart of. The Green part or Left part? Hope that’s not too personal.
You’ve mentioned the Nationalist vs Internationalist in the Left in the Netherlands, kind of reminds me of Leftist here, but I’m wondering, beyond that, what’s the general foreign policy of GreenLeft and the Socialist Party. I’ve noticed the Party of European Socialist and the European Green Party seem fairly pro EU, but the United Left/Nordic Green Left isn’t so. Why is that?
Also, do you have any experience with the far right religious groups in the Netherlands, you mentioned the black stockings I think? And now I think I wrote too much, answer whenever you can, I don’t wish to bother you.
That’s very interesting on the healthcare issue of Netherlands. How do physicians (and other Medicial professionals) feel about the abolition of public healthcare in the Netherlands, if you know? The removal of the subsidy sounds pretty disturbing actually, will Netherlands join South Africa and the United States as the only nations in the industrialized world not to have universal healthcare? That’d be a shame…to say the least.
@ TFian – I haven’t actually heard about much opposition from medical professionals, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. However, the initial health care system applied mainly to those on low incomes, people with disabilities, senior citizens, etc. Now that’s being watered down too from what I can see, although I imagine there will be a minimal safety net of sorts somewhere. Either way, it is a movement towards the US model, which isn’t a good thing, of course.
@ ProgressiveAudio – I don’t think the situation is so dire that people are going bankrupt from not being able to pay medical bills, as private health care insurance is fairly cheap in comparison to other countries. All in all, though, I didn’t use the health service that much, so I’m not a good judge on its standards, but I rarely heard of any problems.
The Socialist Party is against nuclear energy. There’s a sharp left-right divide on this in parliament.
I haven’t any contact with PVV or SGP voters — the SGP supporters (and the CU to a lesser extent) live in highly-religious communities and don’t interact that much with the rest of the world. They’re not necessarily rude or anything, but live their own lives and like it that way. Think Amish, but with (most) modern technology. PVV voters are mostly in Rotterdam and the province of Limburg and I suspect they are driven by xenophobia and distrust of the “establishment”. Limburg is notorious for its neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups which have been known to cooperate with their German brethren across the border. In the case of Rotterdam, it’s probably straight out fear as the city has a fairly high ethnic population.
It’s an interesting question you ask, do I identify with the “green” or “left” part of my party? I’ve thought about it for a while and it’s not easy to say, because I find the terms interchangeable to an extent. Even though I strongly feel that ecological sustainability is crucial and closely tied in with social justice, I’m not an environmental expert and don’t pretend to be. While I feel less out of my depth arguing about social justice and human rights issues, I’m not an expert on those matters either … I think that if I look at the four pillars of the Green movement (ecological wisdom / social justice / grassroots democracy / peace and non-violence), I am probably more in the “grassroots democracy” category as many of my strongest interests relate to elections and democratic structures. Is that “green” or “left”? Probably both.
I think it’s very interesting the Netherlands has such a religious movement, as the Netherlands was one of those countries I read on the news that is expected to be completely religious devoid in the future, apparently it’s one of 9 countries where religion will be extinct in the future. I don’t know how accurate that is if these black stocking people exist as they are.