From Pim Fortuyn to Geert Wilders: Ten Years of Polarisation in the Netherlands

The Dutch party system, known for its stability as a consequence of pillarization, has become very volatile since the turn of the century. The emergence of radical right-wing populist parties in 2002 (the LPF) and 2006 (the PVV) has fundamentally altered the structure of the Dutch political space. Party positions in the Netherlands are no longer primarily structured by the socio-economic dimension, but also increasingly by the cultural dimension. In addition to the changing dimensionality of the Dutch political space, established parties have changed their positions on both dimensions in reaction to the electoral success of the LPF and PVV. This paper documents both changes by measuring the positions of Dutch parties on the traditional socio-economic dimension and the new cultural dimension, using a confrontational method (Pellikaan et al 2003, 2007). The analyses in the paper show that Dutch politics has become increasingly polarized. While Dutch parties have not moved substantially on the socio-economic dimension, they have relocated on the cultural dimension and moved in the direction of either the monocultural and multicultural extreme of this dimension.