On June 3, the right-wing populist Geert Wilders destroyed the government he helped create just 11 months ago. His Party for Freedom withdrew support.
Wilders’ coalition partners refused to sign his 10-point migration ultimatum – a document demanding military border controls, mass deportations and the suspension of all asylum applications. Shortly after, Prime Minister Dick Schoof was at the palace, tendering his resignation to Dutch King Willem-Alexander.
The Dutch collapse sheds light on a question that has haunted European democracies for many years: can populist movements be tamed by the responsibilities of office?
Wilders is unusual even by populist standards. Normal political parties are supported by a membership base. Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) has exactly one member: Geert Wilders himself.
This structure matters. In a normal party, party members might pressure their leader to compromise, deliver results, and govern responsibly. Wilders is accountable to no one. He can pivot, escalate, or withdraw at will – as he did in 2012, when he brought down the government he had previously supported with a confidence and supply arrangement.
For years, Dutch mainstream parties maintained an informal agreement to keep extremists out of power. But having won 37 seats – nearly a quarter of parliament – in the last election, it seemed questionable to exclude Wilders’ PVV from government.
The leader of the centre-right VVD party, Dilan Yeşilgöz, thus made a fateful choice. Her strategy was to give Wilders ministries, so that the pressure to deliver would force him to confront reality. The hope was that Wilders could be tamed by giving him responsibility.
Wilders left his mark on the coalition agreement. It promised the “strictest-ever” immigration policy. The PVV received four ministries, including asylum and migration.
Unfortunately, none of this new power moderated Wilders. Instead, he used his enormous influence not to implement policy but to demand even more control. The ten-point ultimatum on immigration, which triggered the government’s collapse, included measures already rejected as illegal during coalition negotiations.
One has to sympathise with Dick Schoof, the technocrat prime minister. The circumstances of the coalition government meant he was politically constrained from the start. Yes, Schoof managed the mechanics of government competently. But he had no political mandate, no political experience – and in Wilders, he had a party leader at his side for whom destroying this government made sense. It freed Wilders from the constraints of office while letting him blame others for the failure.
The Dutch experience is just the latest example of Europe’s difficulty with handling populist and extremist political parties. Austria pioneered the experiment when the Freedom Party entered government in 2000. It ended in a corruption scandal.
Italy then became Europe’s laboratory for populist governance. Matteo Salvini’s Lega party discovered that being in government meant being held responsible for government decisions – an uncomfortable position for a party built on protest. His response was to campaign against the very government he belonged to.
These failed experiments have shaped responses elsewhere. Germany’s mainstream parties watched the wreckage in Austria and Italy and maintained their firewall against the AfD. No amount of electoral success for the party has convinced them to risk a Dutch-style disaster.
Meanwhile, in France, Marine Le Pen has spent years trying to square an almost impossible circle: appearing respectable enough to govern while maintaining the outsider appeal that fuels her movement. It may carry her party into the Elysée Palace. Whether Le Pen can run for the presidency herself, however, remains in doubt, given ongoing legal proceedings over alleged misuse of EU funds.
The pattern with Europe’s populists is always the same. Their movements define themselves against “the system,” making it difficult for them to switch from opposition to government.
What makes the Dutch case different is the Netherlands’ political culture. The country once perfected consensus democracy through their “polder model.” The name comes from the polders – land reclaimed from the sea through elaborate systems of dikes and pumps.
For centuries, maintaining these defences required cooperation across all divisions. One stubborn landowner could flood entire communities. This shaped a culture in which compromise was not seen as weakness, but as necessary for survival.
This mentality became part of the Dutch political furniture. There were some shared values like respect for the law, a general willingness to compromise, and recognition that in a fractured political landscape, nobody gets everything they want. It was a pragmatic, consensus-driven style of democracy.
Wilders always rejected these premises. This left the mainstream parties facing an impossible dilemma. If they excluded Wilders, they would face accusations of ignoring the democratic will. But including him would bring chaos into the government. And that is what happened.
Still, Wilders may have overreached. Polls after the government’s collapse suggest the PVV dropping from 37 to around 30-32 seats. His former partners have sworn off future cooperation. As the NSC’s party leader, Nicolien van Vroonhoven, put it quite poetically, they “will not go to sea again with Mr Wilders.”
Yet Wilders has somehow achieved his strategic objectives. Yes, he proved himself unfit for government, likely ensuring future exclusion, enabling him to claim victimhood. And yes, he has forced another election focused on immigration. But most importantly to him, Wilders demonstrated the system’s inability to deliver tough and radical reforms – precisely what his voters believe.
Democracy has always been about channelling conflicts into compromises. But what happens when a party is no longer willing to compromise? And what when the main conflict is about democracy itself?
Perhaps the collapse of the Dutch coalition government offers some answers in this respect.
It is true that shutting out radical parties is not ideal from a democratic point of view. Yet it is probably better than the alternative, which would be Wilders-style chaos.
The real lesson is that democratic parties must offer voters real policy alternatives on issues that matter to voters, not just marginally more competent management. Failure to solve these issues will only strengthen political extremists.
When we visit the Netherlands later this month, we still mainly want to learn about Dutch success stories. But I also want to find out whether the Dutch ‘polder model’ still stands firm in the 21st century.
Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank. This article was first published HERE
The Dutch collapse sheds light on a question that has haunted European democracies for many years: can populist movements be tamed by the responsibilities of office?
Wilders is unusual even by populist standards. Normal political parties are supported by a membership base. Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) has exactly one member: Geert Wilders himself.
This structure matters. In a normal party, party members might pressure their leader to compromise, deliver results, and govern responsibly. Wilders is accountable to no one. He can pivot, escalate, or withdraw at will – as he did in 2012, when he brought down the government he had previously supported with a confidence and supply arrangement.
For years, Dutch mainstream parties maintained an informal agreement to keep extremists out of power. But having won 37 seats – nearly a quarter of parliament – in the last election, it seemed questionable to exclude Wilders’ PVV from government.
The leader of the centre-right VVD party, Dilan Yeşilgöz, thus made a fateful choice. Her strategy was to give Wilders ministries, so that the pressure to deliver would force him to confront reality. The hope was that Wilders could be tamed by giving him responsibility.
Wilders left his mark on the coalition agreement. It promised the “strictest-ever” immigration policy. The PVV received four ministries, including asylum and migration.
Unfortunately, none of this new power moderated Wilders. Instead, he used his enormous influence not to implement policy but to demand even more control. The ten-point ultimatum on immigration, which triggered the government’s collapse, included measures already rejected as illegal during coalition negotiations.
One has to sympathise with Dick Schoof, the technocrat prime minister. The circumstances of the coalition government meant he was politically constrained from the start. Yes, Schoof managed the mechanics of government competently. But he had no political mandate, no political experience – and in Wilders, he had a party leader at his side for whom destroying this government made sense. It freed Wilders from the constraints of office while letting him blame others for the failure.
The Dutch experience is just the latest example of Europe’s difficulty with handling populist and extremist political parties. Austria pioneered the experiment when the Freedom Party entered government in 2000. It ended in a corruption scandal.
Italy then became Europe’s laboratory for populist governance. Matteo Salvini’s Lega party discovered that being in government meant being held responsible for government decisions – an uncomfortable position for a party built on protest. His response was to campaign against the very government he belonged to.
These failed experiments have shaped responses elsewhere. Germany’s mainstream parties watched the wreckage in Austria and Italy and maintained their firewall against the AfD. No amount of electoral success for the party has convinced them to risk a Dutch-style disaster.
Meanwhile, in France, Marine Le Pen has spent years trying to square an almost impossible circle: appearing respectable enough to govern while maintaining the outsider appeal that fuels her movement. It may carry her party into the Elysée Palace. Whether Le Pen can run for the presidency herself, however, remains in doubt, given ongoing legal proceedings over alleged misuse of EU funds.
The pattern with Europe’s populists is always the same. Their movements define themselves against “the system,” making it difficult for them to switch from opposition to government.
What makes the Dutch case different is the Netherlands’ political culture. The country once perfected consensus democracy through their “polder model.” The name comes from the polders – land reclaimed from the sea through elaborate systems of dikes and pumps.
For centuries, maintaining these defences required cooperation across all divisions. One stubborn landowner could flood entire communities. This shaped a culture in which compromise was not seen as weakness, but as necessary for survival.
This mentality became part of the Dutch political furniture. There were some shared values like respect for the law, a general willingness to compromise, and recognition that in a fractured political landscape, nobody gets everything they want. It was a pragmatic, consensus-driven style of democracy.
Wilders always rejected these premises. This left the mainstream parties facing an impossible dilemma. If they excluded Wilders, they would face accusations of ignoring the democratic will. But including him would bring chaos into the government. And that is what happened.
Still, Wilders may have overreached. Polls after the government’s collapse suggest the PVV dropping from 37 to around 30-32 seats. His former partners have sworn off future cooperation. As the NSC’s party leader, Nicolien van Vroonhoven, put it quite poetically, they “will not go to sea again with Mr Wilders.”
Yet Wilders has somehow achieved his strategic objectives. Yes, he proved himself unfit for government, likely ensuring future exclusion, enabling him to claim victimhood. And yes, he has forced another election focused on immigration. But most importantly to him, Wilders demonstrated the system’s inability to deliver tough and radical reforms – precisely what his voters believe.
Democracy has always been about channelling conflicts into compromises. But what happens when a party is no longer willing to compromise? And what when the main conflict is about democracy itself?
Perhaps the collapse of the Dutch coalition government offers some answers in this respect.
It is true that shutting out radical parties is not ideal from a democratic point of view. Yet it is probably better than the alternative, which would be Wilders-style chaos.
The real lesson is that democratic parties must offer voters real policy alternatives on issues that matter to voters, not just marginally more competent management. Failure to solve these issues will only strengthen political extremists.
When we visit the Netherlands later this month, we still mainly want to learn about Dutch success stories. But I also want to find out whether the Dutch ‘polder model’ still stands firm in the 21st century.
Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank. This article was first published HERE
3 comments:
If only Merkel hadn't allowed a violent group of young men through her country into Holland, then Geert would never have been heard of.
Wilders may not be a great partner but all coalition of parties willing to defeat democracy by uniting the left and the right of center is also a problem.
The Germans the French and others beginning to understand that the people do not want the scale and style immigration being experienced and risking democracy to maintain the madness is driving people into the hands of what is described as the ultra right.
Perhaps the anti-populist parties and supporters need to look in the mirror and do some soul searching. There is a reason so many vote for these populist figures. The failure of the beloved technocrats to be in any sort touch with the people is the biggest problem of all.
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