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Questions:
  • Labour v. Socialist: is Labour social-democrat and the Socialist a "left party"?
  • CDA and ChristenUnie: similar question.
  • What's the deal with Fortuyn and EenNL? What is "Fortuynism"?
  • VVD and Wilders: why the split.
  • VVD, Wilders, D66: what does "liberal" mean in the Netherlands?


Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Oct 13th, 2006 at 07:11:27 AM EST
Brief answers for now. I hope to provide more thorough ones in the upcoming two diaries.

Labour vs Socialist: Labour was the traditional blue collar, socialist party, whereas the SP was the radical, fringe left, originally Maoist(!). SP is still more to the left of Labour, but has seen through the past few years a slow shift towards Labour, losing the more radical points. Not to mention it has some really good ideas on several topics (I think).

CDA and ChristenUnie are somewhat alike: ChristenUnie is the more orthodox, and conservative version but with different ideas on economy, environment etcetera. There is interesting parallel between the SP and ChristenUnie: both parties are largely carried by their sympathetic frontman.

Fortuynism is the common Dutch term for the heritage of Pim Fortuyn's ideas. Fortuyn's former party is dead, and is polled for years now on zero projected seats. EenNL is the reincarnation of two former Fortuynists, Marco Pastors and Joost Eerdmans who are both outspoken on the immigration debate. Pastors is a populist, Eerdmans is more of an academic. Sallient detail: rumours have it that Rita Verdonk has had talks with EenNL.

Wilders broke from the VVD when the party decided negotiation for accessions of Turkey should begin, somewhere 2004. There had been previous disputes, but Turkey was the breaking point. One more conservative, if not extreme, voice on the right. Most of his ideas are brazenly aclash with the constitution. As you see, EenNL, Fortuyn's party and Wilders have splintered the hard right to pieces. None of the three parties have been projects with many seats.

Liberal: in the European liberal version, both economically as philosophically. Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_Netherlands

by Nomad on Fri Oct 13th, 2006 at 12:29:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Labour v. Socialist: Sort of, yes. Labour is social-democratic, and the Socialist Party is socialist. The socialists are a bit more socially conservative IMO, otherwise they are a typical left party.

The ChristenUnie people are more deeply religious. Sometimes they have suprisingly liberal positions. The CDA also incorporates the Catholics, and the Christenunie is formed out of a number of smaller, less mainstream protestant churches.

EenNL is sort of a split of the Fortuyn party. Fortuynism is the politics of the murdered Pim Fortuyn. It's a kind of patriotic populism with a libertine twist. Sort of like Sullivanism.

The VVD was being too middle of the road for Wilder's tastes under the leadership of Jozias van Aartsen, which is why he went away. He may also have daydreamed about making a similar kind of breakthrough as Fortuyn managed, but he doesn't have the required charisma. The VVD has since veered right and back left again. Currently, they're still a bit more right-wing than they were under Van Aartsen, but also more modern.

A liberal in the Netherlands is someone in the general tradition of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and John Rawls (in Dutch history Thorbecke is the most important liberal, certainly from the VVD viewpoint). There are a lot of different viewpoints expressed in that tradition. Generally, liberals are modernist in the sense of believing in progress, areligious, and most believe in the free market. Liberal doesn't have the left-wing connotation that it has in the US (don't know how it is in the UK), nor the libertarian connotation of neo-liberalism (although both liberal parties are pro-market, only a wing of the VVD is really neoliberal).

Specifically, the D66 party came out of the progressive movement of the '60s (as the name indicates), and the VVD is a continuation of one of the oldest political parties, after several splits and recombinations. The VVD is something like the party of business and the middle class. D66 is on life support. There is a new party called LibDem, but I don't know if they made it.

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Fri Oct 13th, 2006 at 01:09:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
UK Liberalism was influenced by Adam Smith (particularly in the nineteenth century) and more by John Stuart Mill. 'Economic' liberalism seems to be making a bit of a comeback in the Liberal Democrats but the predominant school of thought during the past century has been the New Liberalism (sometimes called social liberalism) introduced by the early twentieth century Liberal governments.

The Liberal party and its Whig predecessor, opposed royal absolutism and promoted the gradual reform of the political system, which eventually led to democracy. Under its great nineteenth century leader. W.E. Gladstone, the party slogan was 'peace, retrenchment and reform' - by which was meant no imperial adventures (such as in Afghanistan), low public expenditure (although the election promise to abolish income tax did not bring Gladstone victory when he tried it) and reform (votes for the working class).

The old programme was rather eclipsed by the start of the construction of the welfare state. Later stages of this programme were implemented by Labour governments, but a lot of the ideas came from Liberals like William Beveridge.

The more right wing strains of British Liberalism drifted off and joined the Conservative Party between 1886 and about 1950.

British liberals regard the Labour Party as the competition and the Conservatives as the opposition, but try not to be characterised as centrists.

by Gary J on Fri Oct 13th, 2006 at 04:15:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
There's a good descriptor.

Personally, I think the VVD is gradually becoming more neoliberal, and I also suspect Rutte is a neoliberal trying to hide he is.

Interesting that there are two different answers to Migeru's questions and they are both correct...

by Nomad on Sat Oct 14th, 2006 at 05:46:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Dutch politics is like an elephant, I guess :-)

I don't know about Rutte, I think he's going to be pragmatic. Sometimes he says something that sounds neoliberal, but he also uses populist left-wing rhetoric. So it's kind of hard to say who the real Rutte is, but he sees himself as being on the left wing of the VVD. Under Verdonk the VVD would really have had a classic Thatcherite neoliberal agenda, so that's what I meant by saying they veered right and then a bit back to the center again.

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Sat Oct 14th, 2006 at 07:32:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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