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Chapter 3

The disempowerment of the people

"The logic of the reintroduction of a selective right to vote is obvious: as the gap between rich and poor widens, and the education of the poorest groups deteriorates, there will come a time when liberal democracy will be forced to confront such a proposal." – Meindert Fennema

The famous Dutch comedian Wim Kan used to tell the story of how he had once looked up the word `democracy' in the dictionary. Democracy, he found, means that whatever the people want, that is what will indeed come to pass. From then on he would read the newspaper every morning in a state of astonishment at the idea that what was reported there was apparently what he wanted to happen.
Wim Kan has been dead for many years, but his joke is just as relevant as when he first told it. Although the Tweede Kamer, (the lower, directly-represented house of the Dutch Parliament) is officially populated by representatives of the people, and although the people have, at least once every four years, the chance to alter its composition, democracy appears to be in decline in the Netherlands as much as elsewhere. Anxious talk of the growing gap between citizen and politics has become commonplace. Where did this gap come from? What can be done about it? And what role can political parties play in this process?
Political parties have always been the exponents of particular ideologies and opinions, and at the same time the most important intermediaries between government and citizen. Increasingly, however, they appear to be losing both of these functions and evolving instead into a sort of glorified employment bureau for political careerists. They can no longer for the most part be looked at to provide any kind of long term perspective, whilst they seem also to have lost any sense of the real value of their relationship with the citizen. They appear, moreover, neither to exercise nor to seek any real influence on vital social developments.
The result is that fewer people feel the urge to join a political party and the vicious circle turns and turns. The less political parties are rooted in society and the less attention they pay to social abuses, the less they address themselves to the problems of ordinary people; and the less that they do that, the fewer people interest themselves in the ballot box. Bill Clinton's Democratic Party, Tony Blair's New Labour, Wim Kok's PvdA, have all adopted the same strategy of moving towards the centre in order to please the middle class and thus to win power. Traditional supporters are disregarded, and so lose faith in the democratic process. At every election fewer and fewer bother to vote, and from each lower turnout the political parties take affirmation of the correctness of their political strategy. How otherwise are we to understand that, on the eve of the election in the autumn of 1996 Bill Clinton had the nerve to propose a `welfare reform' of unprecedented proportions: states were to be allowed to end social security payments to young, unmarried mothers. The time during which unemployed people could claim benefits would be limited. All financial support for immigrants who had been in the country for less than five years would stop. Emergency financial aid and food stamps for ex-prisoners and drug addicts would also come to an end. And people below the poverty line, of whom 6,500,000 are above the age of retirement, would have their entitlement to food stamps reduced. Not so electoral astute, one might suppose, unless Clinton expected more support from the middle class and the rich than from people who have traditionally given the Democratic Party its power base.
America, of course, has always had a relatively weak tradition of social solidarity, but the same pattern can be seen in recent European elections. In Britain, the two major parties spent the 1997 campaign vying with each other for who could produce the most vicious attacks on the poor. The most draconian cuts in the welfare budget, and as to who could best pander to the prejudices of the well-to-do; while a month later France witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a "Socialist" party attacking a conservative Prime Minister for the alleged generosity of his social spending plans.

The Americanisation of Politics

In the autumn of 1995 I had the honour to be invited to deliver a speech to a meeting of the Young Democrats, the youth organisation of D66 (Democrats 66, the `progressive' liberals, smallest of the three parties of the Purple Coalition). Although I was flattered by the invitation (I don't often get the chance to speak to an audience none of whose members has ever voted for the Socialist Party), I was also somewhat surprised. Now that D66 were for the first time in years participating in government, one would think that they would be able to find more interesting speakers than the parliamentary chair of a small opposition party. However, after consulting the organisers I discovered that the Democrats' ministers diaries were too full to allow space for a meeting with their own young supporters.
By coincidence the cabinet had, only a day earlier, taken its long-awaited decision concerning the Betuwelijn, an environment damaging and economically unnecessary rail freight line between Rotterdam and Germany. My naturally suspicious mind led me to ask myself whether it would not be reasonable to point out, during my speech, the possible connection between that decision and the reluctance of D66 ministers to address the meeting. The cabinet's decision to give the go-ahead to the construction of the Betuwelijn had made the biggest-ever dent in D66's carefully nurtured green image, and nothing was more certain than that the Young Democrats would have been appalled by it.
There is no party in Holland that has, in recent times, shown more concern for the democratic standards of society in general and of the political system in particular than D66. Criticism of dysfunctional democracy is to some extent the party's reason to exist. At the same time, however, D66 is the party that illustrates most clearly precisely what is wrong with political parties both in the Netherlands and further afield.
Traditionally, political parties have played a crucial role in the democratic process. It is political parties that produce an analysis of society on the basis of which they develop a vision of the future. The ideology a party propagates gives the voter an idea as to what is likely to happen if that party wins the right to participate in government. Moreover, political parties offer citizens the possibility of taking part in the decision-making process: by means of their party's internal democratic structures members can find their way on to the list of candidates for elections at the local, regional or national level. From that point on it is, of course, up to the electorate to decide whether that person and his or her party are suitable for office.
It is a noteworthy feature of D66 that it has never had any real ideology, that it has in fact prided itself on being the first non-ideological political party, an organisation which proceeds entirely on the basis of pragmatism. Yet what does pragmatism mean other than an acceptance that the status quo is the sole reality imaginable and that one must base one's politics on this perspective? And where can such a perspective find its critical thrust? What frame of reference can a party constructed on this basis apply?
It is significant that D66 has never issued a statement of principles, though it does of course have an ideology, the prevailing ideology known as liberalism. From its name – as is also the case, for example, with Britain's Liberal Democrats, Germany's Free Democrats and Ireland's Progressive Democrats – it seems to follow that the party is `democratic'. To which one can only reply that with the exception of a few parties of the extreme right, most of them happily very small, the same can be said of all western European political parties. D66 also sees itself above all as the authorities' common-sense adviser, but once again it is certainly not the only group to claim such a role. In the 1980s it liked to present itself as a `green' alternative'. Yet when it came to a vote on gas-drilling on the island Ameland and on the construction of a motorway across the Amelisweerd nature reserve – votes which were taken during the tenure of a D66 minister of Transport and Water – that image came to a swift and sudden end. The only constant feature of D66 is the demand for constitutional and administrative reform, a demand that has won little applause either inside or outside politics.
D66 is typical of a political current, which can be clearly seen in a number of countries in Europe and beyond. German Free Democrats, British Liberal Democrats, Irish Progressive Democrats, Italian Radicals, Australian Democrats, all sing the same tune. In response to the decline of participatory democracy they demand constitutional and governmental reforms. Ignoring the fact that the decline itself is not merely a product of particular constitutional arrangements, but the result of a complex of economic and social changes. Changes that are now being accelerated by the global ideology which every one of these self-styled democrats refuses to question and, indeed, generally enthusiastically supports: the ideology of neoliberalism.
D66 became the first party in Holland to reflect the first major aspect of the Americanisation of politics, the playing-down of ideology and even policies in favour of an emphasis on the personality of its leaders. It was even asserted by D66 leader Hans van Mierlo that this focus on personality at the expense of opinion, on image rather than substance, would actually reduce the gap between politics and the citizen and strengthen the relationship between elected and electorate. The opposite has of course been the case.
In February 1990, the leading Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad published an article entitled "The Netherlands, A One-Party State". The kernel of its argument was that all of the big political parties were growing more and more alike and that in fact nothing of any substance any longer divided them. The truth of this argument, which might equally be applied to almost any country in the developed world, was brought home by the scant differences evident in the manifestos placed before the people in the Dutch general election of 1994.
This was without doubt the most American-style election our country had ever seen. Because of the absence of substantial policy division, in order to show that an election was indeed taking place the parties were forced to search for small remaining differences of emphasis and tone and exaggerate them out of all proportion. In addition, great emphasis was placed on the characters of the various leaders. This style has since caught on, as the British and French general elections of 1997 demonstrate. The latter however, also shows what a serious party of the left with widespread electoral support can achieve by way of forcing the other parties to focus, at least for part of the time, on important issues.
Parties that drop politics in favour of personality and serious debate for childish invective can always count on the loyal co-operation of the media. For reasons the press pay more attention to promises contained in the current election manifesto than they do to the question of whether the outgoing government has honoured those which its constituent parties made the last time round. It is why the PvdA could continue to claim to be a protector of the weak. Despite the fact that the then Christian Democrat-PvdA coalition had put through considerably more measures to the detriment of ordinary people's interests than had previous coalitions of Liberal and Christian Democrat, and more than the PvdA, in the election of 1989, had admitted it was likely to do.
In fact, rather than focussing attention on either its policies or its record, the PvdA gambled on the trustworthy and `presidential' emanations of Wim Kok, with the other major parties similarly relying on the personalities of their leading figures to attract the voters. By pushing the mediagenic Van Mierlo to the fore, D66 won the biggest share of the vote in its history and thus the Purple Coalition of Labour and two liberal parties was born.
It is, I feel, also significant, that D66 has achieved this feat despite having an extremely small membership. Even after considerable shrinkage, the Christian Democrat CDA retains around 95,000 members. Our own Socialist Party has recently passed 20,000. D66, on the other hand, has only 15,000. According to a 1995 survey conducted by the University of Groningen, only 3% of the Dutch population are members of a political party, and of these only one in every ten is active. What this means is that, no more than 30,000 people are involved in party politics. Thus limiting input into the system and therefore the range of ideas on offer to the electorate and leading inexorably to the development of a system of patronage, preference and graft such as already exists in, for example, Belgium and Italy.
As parties throughout Europe cease to make any real attempt to involve the people in the process of ideological development, preferring instead to base their activities on superficially attractive leaders, `sound-bite' policy statements and slavish adherence to the whimsical movements of opinion polls, this phenomenon advances on all fronts. The result is that everywhere the political caste looks increasingly to its own interests and less and less to those of the electorate. The gap between voter and politician, between citizen and government, grows ever wider, threatening to discredit the democratic process itself.

No politics without ideals

The drain of members from the major political parties is often blamed on the general decline of collective institutions and on growing individualism. These certainly have played a role. However, it appears to me at least as important that intelligent, critical citizens can no longer find any good reason to join these parties, which have come to be completely dominated by career politicians and professional cadre, people who have little affinity with their founding ideals. Many of the `angry young men' of the New Left who joined the PvdA in the 1970s, shaking it from its torpor, changed during the 1980s to become its new governors. D66, the party that always used to direct its anger towards the lack of real democracy in Dutch politics, has become a pillar of the establishment.
In the 1980s the political debate, under the influence of so-called `no-nonsense thinking', narrowed until for lay people it became an unintelligible discussion between number fetishists. If politics in the 1960s was primarily about principles, and in the '70s attention shifted to ends and means, then during the '80s this gave way to a discussion that focussed on `efficiency'. Even this idea was narrowed to a point where it meant only an efficiency that could be measured in terms of price, profit and loss.
This shift can be seen in the priorities the political élite set for itself. In his study Politics as the Art of Balance, the political scientist A van Hoogerwerf had the following to say about this development:

To Dutch ministers, secretaries of state, leading Members of Parliament, prominent functionaries and advisers on the national level the following question was posed: "What personal qualities do you think a person needs if he or she is to perform well the type of function which you yourselves fulfil?" Most named an ability to deal with people (78%), good understanding and intellectual skills (60%), a stable personality (58%), substantial knowledge of the job (49%), trustworthiness (16%) and good health (11%). In the `no-nonsense' climate of the '80s and '90s, certain other qualities were rarely mentioned: a social and human vision; zeal and idealism; a dedication to the job and its purposes rather than to one's own career.

Without an analysis informed by fundamental guiding values, without a consistent vision of what a democratic society should look like or ideas as to how it could be different and better, any political party will in the end lose its purpose, its very reason to exist. Under these circumstances parties degenerate into cynical clubs for job-hunters in which the turbo-charged language of sharp-suited public relations managers and advertising boys takes the place of ideological debate. Pandering to the media and to fashionable delusions, impressive-sounding claptrap and `image building' win out with increasing frequency over serious analysis and a consistent position. Little wonder that Van Hoogerwerf's study went on to show that nine out of ten citizens agreed with the statement that politicians promise more than in practice they can achieve.
These developments have, of course, had a profound effect on the quality of parliamentary debate. In legislatures throughout Europe members are bound hand and foot by the instructions of the governments or leading opposition parties as whose supporters they have been elected. The idea of parliaments as controllers of the executive appears to have died. In the same way as the ordinary citizen is effectively being excluded from the decision-making process, so rank-and-file members of parliament are being transformed into cannon fodder for their parties' leaders. Thy are kept in line by the knowledge that they can only aspire to positions of real power if they keep their heads down and their noses clean, raising their hands only when the leadership issues an instruction that they should do so.

The empty shell of `administrative renewal'

In a democracy it is the least that can be expected of politicians that they make themselves clear, express themselves intelligibly and always attempt to give the citizens a good understanding of their proposals and aims. Unfortunately the habit of communicating in euphemisms has now reached epidemic proportions. New measures whose baleful effects are clear and which are obviously the results of the imposition of a restrictive financial dictate are sold to the public by means of a torrent of deliberately misleading terms. The destruction of social security systems is called `modernisation', the abolition of established rights such as overtime and weekend pay premiums is passed off as `flexibilisation', the introduction of the market economy into health care is explained in terms of `increasing people's individual responsibility'. In Britain, everyone from a passenger stranded by an inefficient and recently-privatised rail system to a claimant applying for the pitiful benefit levels available in that country is a `customer', and there are no longer unemployed people, only `job seekers'.
The secret behind all of these euphemisms is that in each case a term is chosen which suggests something no reasonable person could be against: who doesn't want to be seen as modern and flexible, and who is not proud to accept responsibility for him- or herself? And isn't the customer always right? The effect, however, is that the citizens, who day in day out must experience for themselves the harmful effects of the real measures behind these euphemisms, begin of course to understand just how they are being deceived. The result is cynicism about the whole political process.
It is not only the Socialist Party that sees the malfunctioning of democracy in Holland as a problem. The Purple Coalition partners have also looked into the matter, coming up with a solution they call `administrative renewal'. Not surprisingly, this proposal originated with D66. At last it appears that room will be found for the referendum, an unprecedented procedure for our country. The type of referendum suggested, however, and which the purple cabinet has now agreed upon, the so-called `corrective legislative referendum', looks an extremely weak infusion when set beside the brew that the advocates of administrative renewal had in mind.
Firstly, there will be no general right of initiative. Whether the Netherlands should give up a large part of her sovereignty is a question that cannot be placed before the people simply on their demand, for instance. If it is up to the purple cabinet, this will be a matter only for a `corrective' referendum through which the citizens will be given the opportunity to pronounce retrospectively on a piece of legislation already accepted by parliament. The barriers erected are moreover so high, that it seems doubtful whether any referendum will ever be held. A minimum of 600,000 signatures must be collected at town halls for a petition for a referendum to be valid, and the most important political issues, such as infrastructure projects, are excluded as possible subjects. Yet it is in precisely such matters as the construction of the Betuwelijn, the high speed train line and the extension of Schiphol airport that we have seen demonstrated how great the divide between politics and the citizen can be.
Another subject Wim Kok's cabinet would like to put back on to the agenda is Holland's system of proportional representation. What is being talked about is a reform that would shift the system in the direction of district-based representation, under which the country would be divided into five regions from each of which fifteen people would be elected. The resulting 75 deputies would come together with a further 75 elected under the current national-based rules to form a Tweede Kamer of 150 seats. This would of course have negative consequences for small parties and therefore for politics as a whole, as minority parties are often rightly described as `the salt in the porridge of politics'. But an equally important objection is this: in common with the proposal for corrective referenda, the plan aims to increase the involvement of the ordinary citizen in politics. This should never, however, be the overriding aim of any constitutional reform, for the following reason.
Elections are held for the purpose of choosing the people's representatives for local, provincial and national assemblies in the most democratic fashion possible. The most democratic system of elections is undoubtedly based on proportional representation. Referenda are, furthermore, not designed to reduce the distance between government and citizen, but to improve the quality of governmental decisions by letting the authorities know whether or not their measures are grounded in solid popular support. The introduction of the referendum and the changing of the electoral system will in themselves neither improve the quality nor enhance the legitimacy of public administration, nor will they reduce the much-discussed gap between government and citizen.
The government of the Netherlands, taking its lead from similar moves in the United Kingdom, Belgium and elsewhere, has also declared itself in favour of giving more power to local authorities. Under the guise of promoting `made-to-measure' care and adaptability, more and more problems are being handed over to city and town councils. Again, the pretence is that by these means the gap between citizen and politics will be narrowed. In fact, all it means is that the gap between the level of services provided in some towns and others, and even in different districts of the same town, for example for disabled people, is growing ever greater. Two separate evaluation reports have shown this to be the case, yet the government continues to talk of decentralisation as something which should be extended, even to something as fundamental as rent subsidies. It is, of course, a noticeable feature of all of these decentralisation programmes that they do nothing to provide the money needed to address the problems involved.
In a democratically constituted state the administration's legitimacy derives from the fact that it was elected by the enfranchised voters. Yet in ever-increasing numbers, people do not vote. In the case, for example, of local and European elections less than 50% of the eligible electorate chooses to exercise its right to vote. In other countries matters are sometimes even worse. In the same elections in the United Kingdom, turn-outs are routinely below 40%, whilst in a 1996 European by election caused by the death of the sitting Labour member for Merseyside (the Liverpool area), only 11% of the electorate bothered to turn up. Despite a landslide win, the victorious New Labourite received the support of just seven out of every hundred of the local citizens. In America, where registering to vote is the responsibility of the citizen and entirely voluntary, as many as 20% fail to enrol. Yet even the turnout rates of `registered voters' in the bewildering variety of elections which characterise the US system (everyone, as they say, from dogcatcher to president has to submit to the judgement of the people) are often extraordinary low. The phenomenon is truly international. Even in Belgium, where voting is compulsory, over a tenth of the electorate regularly risks a fine rather than queue at the polls for something which, though their grandparents may have fought for their right to do it, they no longer feel has any relevance to their lives. Perhaps most striking of all, is the high rate of abstention in the numerous countries, of the Eastern Bloc and elsewhere, where parliamentary democracy is a new phenomenon. While we in the west were led to believe, during the cold war, that the right to vote would be the fulfilment of a cherished dream.
Of course, there are those in politics who take the view that this is no bad thing, that boring political debate and low electoral turnouts indicate a populace contented with its lot. This, however, is nothing but wishful thinking. The reality is that for many, politics has become synonymous with indolence, inertia, self-interest and corruption, rather than being seen as any kind of instrument of change.
Falling turnouts are, however, not uniform. In every country, region, city and town it is clear that the rate of participation in elections has fallen far more amongst the poorest sections of society than amongst the better off. This phenomenon is generally a matter of indifference to politicians, but it has brought at least a few, if only on the eve of an election, to the conclusion that here is a problem that demands to be addressed. Yet, as is so often the case with good intentions, they remain just that: good intentions. Few political parties, either in the Netherlands or abroad, make any serious efforts to attract the votes of the poor. And if their activists are seen at all in poorer districts it will invariably be at the moment, once every four or five years, when they are needed, rather than in the long periods between elections when lasting support can be won.
Politicians may complain that most people show too little interest in politics, but the complaint of many ordinary citizens is that politics takes too little interest in them. The consequence of this is that a large number of people who until recently saw politics as an instrument for bringing about a better future, are now turning their backs on it. They no longer allow themselves to be taken in by election promises and impressive television ads. The turnout when compared to particular layers of the population is increasingly proportionate to level of education and income. In the Netherlands, and still more so in countries like the United Kingdom where socio-economic divisions are measurably wider, we are in effect returning to a franchise which depends upon social standing, income and wealth.
That would, in itself, be bad enough, but there are at least two further developments that pose a threat to democracy: European integration and the transfer of national competence to the un-elected European Commission and the Council of Ministers; and the growing impotence of politics itself. Amongst the unchallengable truths of the neoliberal consensus is the idea that everything which can be left to the market should be. The state has moved from being trend-setter to trend-follower. The concept of `more market, less government' has even invaded areas which, not so long ago, everyone agreed should be controlled by the democratically-elected authorities, a process which continues relentlessly to erode the power and credibility of the state. At the same time, the inherent effect of the market itself is to create new and wider inequalities.
Taken as a whole this is a sombre picture, especially as it affects the future of democracy, and one that can only benefit the far right. If we who remain attached to democracy do not take urgent action, if the process of European integration is not toned down, and if the domination of neoliberal thought and the philosophy of the market is not broken, then democracy might well have had its day.

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“Enough” Contents:

• Index
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The wondrous rebirth of liberalism
• Chapter 2 The death of social democracy
• Chapter 3 The disempowerment of the people
• Chapter 4 Poverty in the midst of plenty
• Chapter 5 The assault of the market
• Chapter 6 The unbearable lightness of commerce
• Chapter 7 A question of civilisation
• Chapter 8 The United States of Europe
• Chapter 9 The spectre of the world market
• Chapter 10 The inevitability of an alternative
• Preface to the 2006 - updated edition
• Chapter 11 Ten years later, in the Netherlands
• Chapter 12 2006: Another world is possible
• Chapter 13 New optimism