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This contribution addresses post-war manifestations of Euroscepticism in Germany and the Netherlands. The two countries are selected as relevant cases to study in historical-comparative perspective, because of the many similarities as far as European integration policies is concerned, but the different ways in which Euroscepticism took shape in their political arenas. This partly resulted from historical experiences, particularly the processing of the war trauma after 1945, but also because of differences in the political systems and practices of the two countries. The article’s focus is on political parties and their programmes from 1950 till the most recent elections in 2021. Looking at the national party level, the authors observe differences in intensity and duration regarding support of the European Union and its predecessors, with Dutch Eurosceptic parties in a generally more critical role than their German counterparts. In that sense, the recent rise of the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) constitutes a trend break in this historical development.

This article examines what explains the performance of Dutch local party branches in the recruitment of candidates for municipal councils. Fielding a list of candidates is the most basic function of political parties. In the Netherlands, party branches are under pressure from the low number of party members. To analyse how branches fulfil their role in recruitment, we employ our own survey of the secretaries of party branches held in the run-up to the 2018 municipal election. We find that party membership drives the successful fulfilment of the recruitment function but that, more than the absolute number of members, the crucial factors are how these party members cooperate, the number of active members and the development of this number.

In de politicologische literatuur over partijorganisaties zijn lokale politieke partijen steeds afwezig geweest. Landelijke partijen kennen immers een betrekkelijk complexe, uitgewerkte partijstructuur met een nationale partijorganisatie die ook provinciale, regionale en lokale partijafdelingen omvat – waarbij aangetekend moet worden dat landelijke partijen in dit opzicht veel van elkaar kunnen verschillen, zeker in internationaal-vergelijkend opzicht. Lokale partijen zijn daarentegen veel eenvoudiger van structuur, vooral omdat ze per definitie alleen lokaal actief zijn en dus alleen een lokale partijorganisatie kennen. Ook waren ze lange tijd relatief zwak georganiseerd. De herziening van de Kieswet in 1989 bracht hierin verandering, althans formeel. De aan de verkiezingen deelnemende partijen zijn sindsdien verplicht te kiezen voor de rechtsvorm van een vereniging met volledige rechtsbevoegdheid, als zij althans onder hun eigen naam op het stembiljet vermeld willen worden. Wat dat in de praktijk heeft betekend voor de structuur van de lokale partijorganisaties, is echter niet bekend. Om die reden stellen we ons in dit artikel de vraag centraal hoe lokale partijen zijn georganiseerd. Hoe hebben partijen hun interne functioneren geregeld en over welke personele en financiële middelen beschikken zij?

It is widely assumed that political parties need to have members in order to fulfil their functions in a representative democracy (drawing up platforms, candidate nomination and electoral mobilization) and in terms of their legitimacy. However, the theoretical literature on party models – the evolution from the mass party to the catch-all party, the electoral-professional party and/or the cartel party – suggests an increasing marginalization of members within the party organization. In the business-firm party model, members no longer have any role whatsoever. The next phase in this development seems to be a party without members. This article analyses the contextual (societal, communicational and institutional) factors favouring the rise and endurance of the memberless party as well as the strategic conditions for doing without formal membership (such as maximizing the centralization of internal decision-making, promoting party unity and enhancing electoral effectiveness). The functioning of two no-member parties – the Freedom Party in the Netherlands and the Lega dei Ticinesi in Switzerland – will be discussed in the empirical part of this article.

The year 2017 was a period of contradictionary development in terms of political stability in the Netherlands. On te one hand, the Mark Rutte II cabinet, the longest serving cabinet since the Second World War, was the first since 1998 to complete the entire term. On the other hand, the highly volatile 2017 national elections yielded the most fractionalized parliament in Dutch history. The ensuing cabinet formation was the longest on to date.

Since 1992 the EU has incorporated a concept previously exclusive to states: citizenship. In embracing supranational citizenship the EU entered terra incognita, creating a concept resembling, but essential different to traditional citizenship. This book provides an in-depth historical, political and constitutional analysis of the first 25 years of EU citizenship.

olitical parties need some form of collective identity, probably even more than most other social groups, because they are extremely open organizations which have very little control over who joins them; because most party activism is voluntary; and because parties are very heterogeneous social groups with widely differing goals between office-seekers (professional politicians) and policy-seekers (rank and file) (Wiesendahl). In order to generate active political support, to overarch the different policy goals between the party wings and to unite the party under something that all members and supporters have in common, parties need a collective identity. Traditional bases of identity are interests, ideologies, or charismatic leaders.But today, in individualized, secularized, and globalized societies, classes and milieus are either disintegrating or lacking in common interest and political parties are forced to adapt to social change. That raises a lot of questions: Are political parties still tied to the original identity of the time of their creation, as Panebianco suggested, or can identity be re-constructed successfully? Does the process of adaption to social change necessarily lead to "identity crises" (Christian Junge), particularly for traditional catch-all parties? What are or would be the consequences of failed identity re-construction for the party and for the political system?These questions are linked to several dimensions of the section "Politics and Identity", such as identity politics, identity conflicts, the influence of social change and shifting political behaviour on collective identities, and the relation of collective identity of political parties and the persistence of political systems.Papers with different approaches to these questions are invited: either quantitative or qualitative empirical studies of party members' identification in times of identity change; comparative or single case studies of parties in the process of identity re-construction; or studies of historical examples of (un)successful attempts to change a party's identity.

Some agricultural or rural protest groups in the Western world evolved into political parties - often of a populist nature - whereas others did not. This book is the first to explore under which conditions this happens, and to what extent current populist parties have agricultural or rural ties and related agendas. Well-known authors with a background in rural studies or in political sciences describe and analyse the situation in a number of Western countries (the United Kingdom, France, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, Australia, Finland). The contributions in this book show that the accessibility and responsiveness of the political system and the institutionalized agrarian interest groups, as well as the existing political landscape, are influencing the decisions of rural protest groups to found a political party. However, nowadays the chances of these parties being successful are small due to the declining share of the agricultural sector within European societies. Although there will always be grounds for agrarian protest, it seems safe to say that the heyday of agrarian populism is over.

Political parties in the Netherlands

Electoral systems at the national level and candidate selection methods at the party level are connected, maybe not causally but they do influence each other. More precisely, the electoral system constrains and conditions the parties' menu of choices concerning candidate selection. Moreover, in light of this relationship, when a country reforms its electoral system, there will be consequences for the parties' candidate selection methods. This article outlines the possible connection between electoral systems and candidate selection. It elaborates the main dimensions for analyzing candidate selection methods, focusing on inclusiveness and decentralization, delineates their variation across representative democracies and describes their determinants. The current situation regarding candidate selection within the Dutch political parties receives special attention, as do the possible ramifications on Dutch politics in light of shifts in candidate selection that might come about as a result of alternative electoral reforms. The Netherlands is currently debating several possible electoral reforms. Other than maintaining its present electoral system, the three possible reforms all include increasing aspects of more candidate-centered electoral systems. If any of these three is adopted, the resulting shifts in candidate selection will impact party unity on a scale from moderate to significant.

Volgens velen verkeren de politieke partijen sinds de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw in een crisis. Hun ideologisch profiel zou zijn verbleekt, zij zouden het verlengstuk van het openbaar bestuur zijn geworden en het contact met de samenleving hebben verloren, getuige de dalende opkomst bij de verkiezingen en het vrijwel continu afnemende ledental. De partijen — en dan in het bijzonder de grotere — zijn één pot nat geworden, aldus hun critici. Zoals ruim honderd jaar geleden hun ontstaan kwestieus was, zo is nu hun voortbestaan niet geheel vanzelfsprekend meer — althans niet in hun huidige organisatievorm. Tegelijk valt het op dat in de afgelopen tien à vijftien jaar het aantal wetenschappelijke partijgeschiedenissen en biografieën van vooraanstaande politici behoorlijk is toegenomen. Het is verleidelijk om tussen beide verschijnselen een verband te zien, maar de schijn bedriegt. Vrijwel nergens in deze meestal academische studies komt de vraag aan bod waarom een bepaalde politieke partij of de partijen in het algemeen in het vorige decennium in het ongerede zijn geraakt — al was het maar omdat de meeste partijen die door historici in de jaren negentig onder de loep zijn genomen allang van het toneel zijn verdwenen, zoals de Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP), de Antirevolutionaire Partij (ARP), de Katholieke Volkspartij (KVP) en de Communistische Partij van Nederland (CPN). In de regel houdt de academische geschiedschrijving er niet van om zich met een al te recent verleden in te laten — laten we zeggen: de afgelopen twintig jaar, de periode vanaf het begin van de jaren tachtig. Historici laten zoiets — enkele uitzonderingen daargelaten — liever over aan politicologen en journalisten, en daarmee laten zij het afweten bij de verklaring van de huidige partijencrisis., For a long time time, the historiography of the Dutch political parties was used by different groups in their struggle for political and social emancipation; groups such as labourers, Protestant ‘small folk’ and Catholics. This approach, in which society is vertically segregated in pillars, was deeply hagiographic and one-sided in nature. In order to inspire their supporters, any achievements gained were set against the background of the higher ideals that these liberating movements strove to realise. The need for, and with it the right to exist of, this pillarised approach towards historiography diminished as these groups gradually became fully emancipated after World War II. During the 1970s and 1980s, this was largely replaced by a modern, more objective and scientific approach of the political party. A historiographical survey is presented in this article showing the results of this scientific historiography during the last fifteen to twenty years (taking as its starting point the inventory in P. Luykx and N. Bootsma, (eds.), De laatste tijd. Geschiedschrijving over Nederland in de 20e eeuw, Utrecht, 1987).

This article will focus on a project in the Netherlands, where the web sites of political parties are being archived by the DNPP (documentation centre for Dutch political parties). First, however, several important international initiatives will be briefly described. Then we will focus on the growing importance of web sites for political parties. After that, the Dutch project (called Archipol) will be dealt with. The article ends with a discussion of the significance of archived web sites for political scientists

Political parties in the Netherlands

Das niederlandische Parteiensystem wurde von Klassenkampf und Kulturkampf gepragt. Am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts entstanden evangelische, katholische und sozialistische Massenparteien, eng verbunden mit Gewerkschaften, Frauen- und Mannervereinen, Hochschulen und Schulverbanden, Zeitungen usw. – kurz: eigenen gesellschaftlichen Milieus oder Saulen (zuilen). Die Eliten der Massenparteien und Massenorganisationen trafen sich regelmasig. So entwickelte sich in den Niederlanden eine Konkordanzdemokratie – wenn nicht eine Konkordanzoligarchie, weil die Bevolkerung recht wenig Einfluss auf die Kompromisse zwischen den politischen Eliten nehmen konnte.

The Dutch General Elections of May 1998 were particularly notable for the beginning of the use of the World Wide Web in Dutch election campaigns. Just like American and British political parties, the Dutch parties conducted their campaign not only in the streets and on TV but also in cyberspace. Nearly all of them established an election site where a range of information concerning the party’s candidates, manifesto and campaign could be obtained. Although most of these sites had already been set up, the Internet really gained momentum in Dutch politics during the election campaign. This was highlighted by the introduction of all kinds of non-partisan election sites. The impact of these websites on the election results was not very significant, but still they constitute a new element in the political process.

In the last 15 years, the Netherlands has witnessed the enormous growth of independent local parties and of their electoral support. In order to assess the success of independent locals in the Netherlands, this paper explores how independent local parties distinguish themselves ideologically, organisationally, and operationally. It presents the results of two online surveys of 1,800 independent and other local parties in the Netherlands. Compared to local party branches, independent local parties are more successful in performing the organisational, programmatic and nomination function of political parties. They are spearheading the change to a modern cadre party with politicians and a small number of active volunteers taking care of the party's rootedness in society. Furthermore, they enrich local politics with new political dividing lines, smoothing the entry of new demands, themes, and issues onto the political agenda. Finally, they are proving to be more resourceful in recruiting citizens to stand as candidates for municipal councillorship.

Membership in political parties is declining in The Netherlands, as it is in the rest of Europe. Between 1978 and 2010 membership dropped by a third, from about 450,000 to about 300,000, or 2.5% of the electorate; in 2007 alone, 29,000 people left their party, whereas only 21,000 joined. This is having the effect of weakening civil society, as is manifest in declining turnouts in elections, a growing distrust of government and political leaders, and a general sense among citizens of alienation from the political process. To understand the phenomenon of declining party membership, we fielded a web survey among ex-members, members, potential members, and non-members/voters of eight Dutch political parties. This allows us to compare the motives for joining or leaving various parties among people with different distances to these parties. The presentation of our findings are primarily organized around a set of recommendations by the Dutch Council for Public Policy for how to revive political parties, but in the discussion we draw as well on two more comprehensive models that also give rise to recommendations: the general incentives model for political participation (Seyd & Whiteley, 2002) and the civic voluntarism model (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995).

The Extreme Right in the Netherlands has always been relatively weak; there was neither a strong ideological right-wing tradition nor a solid social base. Moreover, the Extreme Right has always been fragmented and divided. Historically, three varieties can be distinguished: theocratic Protestantism ('Very Old Right'), neo-fascism or national socialism ('Old Right') and ethnocentric nationalism ('New Right'). The third variety, since 1984 represented by the Centre Democrats, has gained some ground in recent years. Though reliable data are still scarce, it seems plausible that the party has attracted not only ideologically motivated extremists but also 'protest voters', mainly in older urban working class areas.

In CNS 10, Barney Dickson analyzed the first Party Congress of Holland's Green Left. The present account of Green Left and their rivals The Greens by Gerrit Voerman (who directs the Documentation Center on the Dutch Political Parties at the University of Gronngen) deals with the origins and development of the green political movement in the Netherlands, and the respective roles of Green Left and The Greens, focusing on the alliances that make up the former and the related weakness of the latter.

On 5 June 1991 the Communist Party of the Netherlands dissolved itself, having decided to merge with the Pacifist‐Socialist Party and the Political Party of the Radicals. This was not a repercussion of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe associated with perestroika, but the result of the party's evolution since the late 1970s, when it turned its back on an orthodox Stalinist past. After 1980 the party renounced, in turn, its Leninist heritage. An analysis of the delegates to the CPN's congresses shows how this reflected a fundamental shift in the party's social composition. Its dissolution and merger with the PSP and PPR in the Green Left was a logical conclusion to these developments.

This article will focus on a project in the Netherlands, where the web sites of political parties are being archived by the DNPP (documentation centre for Dutch political parties). First, however, several important international initiatives will be briefly described. Then we will focus on the growing importance of web sites for political parties. After that, the Dutch project (called Archipol) will be dealt with. The article ends with a discussion of the significance of archived web sites for political scientists