Ranked sixth globally in the BAV Group’s 2020 “Best Countries” index and 11th in output per head, the Netherlands is renowned worldwide as a wealthy, stable, tolerant, and democratic success story.
Yet, as American political scientist Robert Dahl told Dutch colleagues after the Netherlands’ complex social and political structure was explained to him: “Theoretically your country cannot exist”.
As 13 million Dutch voters prepare to choose a new coalition government on March 17, Tom Louwerse discusses the new and essential fifth edition of Governance and Politics of the Netherlands (Red Globe Press, 2020) co-written with Rudy Andeweg and Galen Irwin.
He explains the modern history that prompted Dahl’s remark, the post-1960s “amazing transformation” of the Netherlands from “religious and boring” to “progressive and permissive” nation, and the onset of a domestic culture war over the last two decades.
Tom Louwerse is Associate Professor of Political Science at Leiden University, and formerly an Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin.
*The author's own book recommendation is Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries by Arend Lijphart (Yale University Press, 1999)
Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors.
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Tom Louwerse, "Governance and Politics of the Netherlands" (Red Globe Press, 2020) | New Books in European Politics podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
