Nermin Aydemir JTW Columnist printable version send your friend message to author add comment ()

Friday, 9 January 2009

Have you ever thought why people say the Netherlands; a plural name in defining a unified state and while the Dutch define their own country as “Nederland”, not as the Netherlands.   The answer is hidden in the history of demographical structure of this little country. The Netherlands has always been referred as a country of minorities. When people talk about minorities usually the Turkish or the Moroccan originated people come to mind. Nevertheless, minorities mean more than that in this society. The “original” Dutch society is actually not constructed by a homogenous group of people, sharing more or less the same basic characteristics of being a nation state. On the contrary, several religious, linguistic, and social cleavages divided the Dutch in distinct pillars by the beginning of the foundation of the country. Dutch people succeeded to overcome these differences and resisted against the Spanish occupation in the 15^th century altogether. The Republic of Seven Provinces was founded after the invasion. Although the distinct pillars continued to exist on the mass level, elites succeeded to govern thorough high level of cooperation on the top.  This model is named the “consociational democracy” and the outstanding Dutch politician Lijphard is the one, who made this model prominent in the academic field. The Netherlands is accepted as the peaceful Ireland and it is even seen as a country which could not exist in theory!  Nevertheless, successful consociational democracies dissolve themselves in time. There is a need for strong elite cooperation for the existence of such a system but pillars disappear at the mass level as things go well between elites. Pillars in the Dutch society became more and more blurred under in time. Moreover, these segments were largely shaped by religious differences and secularization process made divisions between these groups more and more ambiguous. However, the political system stands there with no change. Even if it sounds good to have consensus on almost all issues on the decision making level, it also brings serious drawbacks. High level of cooperation in decision making strengthens the stability to a considerable extent. However, public loses its interest in politics since it has a very little capability of impact on policies. Things are largely shaped by the consensus between elites, particularly by the three big parties in the Dutch political spectrum. Whoever people vote, the outcome is almost always the same. There is not a real opposition in the Dutch political scene but there are people who oppose the way they are governed. Such conditions create a fertile ground for extreme leaders indeed. Pim Fortuijn was neither a surprise nor a coincidence in this atmosphere. His movement took ground since the country was extremely ready for it. On the other hand, the appearance of the radical leaders in other consensus democracies such as Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium show the dissolving of the consensus democracies.