The Netherlands: Populism versus Pillarization

Abstract

Until recent times, populism was not a significant political phenomenon in the Netherlands. That all changed in February 2002, when Pim Fortuyn founded a populist movement that became the country’s second largest parliamentary party just three months later. Following its leader’s violent death and its entry into coalition government, however, the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) rapidly disintegrated. This chapter will examine the swift and spectacular rise of Fortuyn’s movement in terms of (a) the structural conditions within which it emerged and (b) the agency of the LPF and its leader. In particular, the chapter aims to provide answers to the following questions: (1) can existing theories about the emergence of new parties explain the LPF’s sudden success? (2) how can we account for the equally rapid decline of the movement? (3) has Dutch populism disappeared or does it survive as a sleeping volcano that could erupt again at short notice?