Geert Wilders and the Dutch Party for Freedom: A Turn Towards the Centre?

By

Justin Crewson

A Major Research Paper Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies through the Department of Political Science

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Windsor

Windsor, Ontario, Canada

2014

2014 Justin Crewson

Geert Wilders and the Dutch Party for Freedom: A Turn Towards the Centre?

by

Justin Crewson APPROVED BY:

______________________________________ W. Soderlund

Department of Political Science

______________________________________ J. Sutcliffe, Advisor

Department of Political Science

14 January 2014

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Authors Declaration of Originiality

I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this thesis and that no part of this thesis has been published or submitted for publication. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge, my thesis does not infringe upon anyones copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that any ideas, techniques, quotations, or any other material from the work of other people included in my thesis, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard referencing practices. Furthermore, to the extent that I have included copyrighted material that surpasses the bounds of fair dealing within the meaning of the Canada Copyright Act, I certify that I have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s) to include such material(s) in my thesis and have included copies of such copyright clearances to my appendix. I declare that this is a true copy of my thesis, including any final revisions, as approved by my thesis committee and the Graduate Studies office, and that this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or Institution.

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Abstract

The Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) is headed by Geert Wilders, and has participated in three national Dutch elections. It is currently the third largest party in the Netherlands, and is considered by most observers to be located on the far right of the ideological spectrum. With regards to this, this paper provides an evaluation of moderation theory and applies it to the case of the PVV. Moderation theory holds that extreme political parties will tend to moderate over time as a result of a desire to capture median voters. A content analysis of the PVVs blog will be used in order to determine whether language appearing on it has moderated over the three elections that the party has contested. It will be shown that there is no evidence of such moderation, and that moderation theory does not hold true in this instance.

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Aknowledgements Special thanks to my family and friends: Mom, Dad, Brittany, Alina, Jordan and Jonathan. Extra special thanks to Dr. Sutcliffe and Dr. Soderlund. Without your help this work would not have been able to be completed.

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Table of Contents

Authors Declaration of Originality Abstract Acknowledgements

iii iv v

Chapter

I. Introduction: Moderation Theory and Extreme Political Parties

1

II. Geert Wilders and the PVV

3

III. Literature Review: Radicalism, Populism and Moderation 19

IV.

Methods and Analysis: Directed Qualitative Content Analysis of Geert Wilders Blog

41

V. Conclusion: Evidence against Moderation Theory? 66

Bibliography Vita Auctoris

69 75

1

Chapter I

Introduction: Moderation Theory and Extreme Political Parties

The 2008 global financial crisis significantly altered the political landscape of Europe.

Though there has been a growing tide of anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment within Western

European countries for some time, 2008 represented a watershed moment for political parties

appealing to such feelings. Since the crisis the continent has observed the creation of formal alliances

between many of Europes far-right parties, predicated upon opposition to immigration and the

European Union.1 Such resentment can be traced to EU policies regarding immigration and

increasingly to economic policies enacted to combat the global recession.2 This paper will discern

that these parties are unique in that they have managed to distance themselves from the crude tactics

of their neo-Nazi predecessors, and are in many ways unique phenomena. As noted academic Paul

Taggart asserts, such parties have generally relied upon populism in order to appeal to voters, which

he warns is a dangerous trend for European democracy.3 Such danger lies in the fact that populism

counters debate informed by empirical observation, by playing upon uninformed emotional

responses.4 Taggart warns that populism is able to operate within existing politics while having the

effect of changing the behaviour of other mainstream political actors, which has led to widespread

frustration in Europe with the complexity of politics.5 In this manner, these parties are claimed by

many to represent a threat from within, and whose influence many argue must be curtailed.6

Given such concerns, there has been significant debate regarding how to best tackle such

threats. Countries like Greece have used legal measures to ban these parties, while countries such as

1 Gavin Hewitt, 2014: Europes Year of Decision, BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25547651 (Posted: December 30, 2013 Accessed: December 30, 2013). 2 Hewit, 2014: Europes Year of Decision, 3 The Observer, Beware this populism sweeping across Europe, The Guardian Online http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/29/europe-british-politicians-stand-up-anti-eu-populism (Posted: December 29, 2013 Accessed: December 29, 2013). 4 The Observer, Beware this populism sweeping across Europe,. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.

2

Belgium have relied on political means to outcast them.7 However, there are other countries such as

the Netherlands that have continually included these parties in politics. Adherents to such strategies

generally base them upon moderation theory. They argue that the inclusion of extremist parties into

electoral politics will serve to moderate them as a result of the need to contest elections and gain the

support of median voters.8 In recent years though, extreme political parties have achieved relative

political success in countries such as the Netherlands and France.9 This raises the question as to

whether moderation theory is valid, and whether political inclusion can actually lead to the

moderation of such parties.

It is this question that this paper attempts to address. The Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) has

experienced relatively significant electoral successes in the three national elections that it has

contested. Nevertheless, the party is still considered by many to be on the far-right of the political

spectrum. Thus, this paper will focus upon discerning whether its experience in mainstream politics

has served to moderate the party, or whether it has done the opposite and actually emboldened the

party. There is also the chance that it has had no effect upon it. In either case, this paper sets out to

advance research upon moderation theory, and to help determine whether it is a viable strategy in

which to moderate extreme political parties. This is crucial information as Europe is currently

confronted with the reality that many of these parties appear to be on the cusp of power. Moreover,

with EU parliamentary elections coming up in May 2014, many of these parties have formed

alliances which represents a clear electoral threat to the legislative effectiveness of more mainstream

political parties. As mentioned, they even threaten to change the political game, forcing mainstream

parties to adopt elements of their extreme agendas.

7 Joost Van Spanje and Wouter Van der Brug, Being Intolerant of the intolerant. The exclusion of Western European anti-immigration parties and its consequences for party choice, Acta Politica 44, no.4 (2009): 353-384. 8 Gunes Murat Tezcur, The Moderation Theory Revisited: The Case of Islamic Political Actors, Party Politics 16, no. 1 (2010): 69. 9 The Observer, Beware this populism sweeping across Europe,.

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Chapter II

Geert Wilders and the PVV

As mentioned, this paper focuses upon analyzing the change, or lack thereof, in the ideology

of the PVV over the course of the three national elections that it has contested. The PVV is headed

by its only official member, Geert Wilders, and was established in 2005. 10 It is most noted for

shocking many political observers by winning 24 of 150 seats in the 2010 Dutch national elections.11

Additionally the party has had various members in municipal and provincial councils, and four

members in the European Parliament.12 The 2010 election resulted in the PVV becoming the third

largest party in the Dutch national parliament, and was a vast improvement upon the nine seats the

party gained in the preceding election.13 In the aftermath of this election the PVV supported the

liberal VVD and the Christian Democratic Party (CDA) allowing for the formation of a razor-thin

majority-right coalition government.14 However, due to disagreements over austerity policy, the

PVV withdrew support of this government in the spring of 2012, leading to a new round of elections

on September 12 2012.15 Compared to the previous election the PVV had a poor showing, winning

only 15 seats.16 Regardless, this result maintained the PVV in a tie with the far-left Socialist Party as

the third largest political party in the Netherlands.17

10 Ilse Rooyackers and Maykel Verkuyten, Mobilizing Support for the Extreme Right: A Discourse Analysis of Minority Leadership, British Journal of Social Psychology 51, (2012): 134. 11 Barry Rubin, The Netherlands, the Middle East, and the 2010 Parliamentary Elections, Middle East Review of International Affairs 14, no. 3 (September, 2010): 65. 12 Koen Vossen, Classifying Wilders: The Ideological Development of Geert Wilders and His Party for Freedom, Politics 31, no. 3 (2011): 179. 13 Rubin, 65. 14 Ibid. 15 Country Forecast, Netherlands: Update, Country Forecast (May, 2012): 1. 16 Janes Intelligence Weekly, Centre-right wins Dutch poll making centrist grand coalition likely, Janes Intelligence Weekly 4, no. 38 (Sept. 19, 2012): 1. 17 Unnamed Author, Sept. 2012, 2.

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Figure 1: PVV Seat Allocations in the House of Representatives by Election:

Despite having had as many as 24 members in parliament, Wilders has maintained tight

control over the PVV in terms of selecting and training candidates, preparing political strategy and

articulating the partys platform and ideology.18 Since 2005 the party has become known for

displaying a fierce opposition to Islamic culture.19 This is demonstrated in Wilders frequent

references to Islam as a backward and fascist religion.20 As a Member of Parliament, Wilders has

lobbied for a ban on immigration from Islamic countries, a prohibition on the building of new

Mosques, the closing of Islamic schools, and the legal prohibition of the Quran.21 However, Wilders

most well-known anti-Islamic action was the release of a seventeen-minute film in 2008 called

Fitna.22 Fitna juxtaposes images of September 11 and other terrorist acts with verses from the Quran

in order to project Wilders assertion that the text is no different than Mein Kampf.23

Wilders anti-Islamic message has increasingly been intertwined with anti-establishment

and Eurosceptic rhetoric.24 With regards to this, Wilders increasingly considers one of his primary

enemies to be a progressive elite, which he believes to be made up of most political parties, nearly

all politicians, large parts of the media, the courts, the universities and the bureaucracy of the

18 Sarah De Lange and David Art, Fortuyn versus Wilders: An Agency-Based Approach to Radical Right Party Building, West European Politics 34, no. 6 (November, 2011): 1232. 19 Rooyackers and Verkuyten, 134. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Liz Fekete, The Muslim Conspiracy Theory and the Oslo Massacre, Race and Class 53, no. 3 (2011): 36. 23 Fekete, 36. 24 Koen Vossen, Populism in the Netherlands after Fortuyn: Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders Compared, Perspectives on European Politics and Society 11, no. 1 (April, 2010): 27.

Election Year Percentage of Overall Vote Number of Seats Won

2006 5.9% 9 of 150

2010 15.5% 24 of 150

2012 10% 15 of 150

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Netherlands.25 Central to his arguments are his reservations with what he considers to be the doctrine

of cultural relativism, which he claims is supported by the Netherlands progressive elite.26 Cultural

relativism is considered to entail the belief that all cultures are equal in their own right, which

Wilders claims has allowed for the rise of a violent, expansionist and fascist Islamic culture in

Western countries.27 In this manner, the establishment is portrayed as the enemy within by

Wilders, as he claims that it is committed to a policy of multiculturalism that is destroying the

Netherlands.28 In recent years Wilders has also focused on making Euroscepticism a central tenant of

his political strategy, with opposition to EU-supported austerity measures, as well as resistance to

bailing out other EU member states being of particular note.29 Indeed, it was his opposition to

proposed budget savings measures that forced the downfall of the centre-right Rutte coalition

government in April 2012.30 This resulted in the election on September 12 2012, in which the PVV

gained 15 seats.31 The big winner of this election was Ruttes center-right VVD, which captured 41

seats, followed by the center-left Labour Party with 39 seats.32 Tied with the PVV for third was the

far-left Socialist Party (SP), which was the only other major Eurosceptic party in the election.33

According to analysts, this result paved the way towards a grand, centrist coalition [] rejecting the

main Eurosceptic parties and reaffirming the Netherlands commitment to the EU.34 Nevertheless,

while this coalition still exists there are increasing levels of Euroscepticism in the Netherlands. These

have led to a recent surge in support for the PVV.

25 Vossen 2010, 27. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Bas Heijne, The Netherlands: Prosperity and Populism, World Policy Journal 28, no. 2 (Summer, 2011): 32. 29 Country Forecast, Netherlands: Update, 1. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Janes Intelligence Weekly, Centre-right wins Dutch poll making centrist grand coalition likely, 2. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid.

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Figure 2: Party Seat Projections for the House of Representatives Throughout the 2012 Campaign35

Figure 3: September 2012 Election Outcomes in the House of Representatives

There is little formal academic research on the ideology of Geert Wilders and the PVV.36

Vossen argues that this is likely due to the recent emergence of the PVV as a meaningful political

entity, and because of Geert Wilders unique ideological development.37 Nonetheless, scholars

generally classify the party as populist in terms of its political strategy and locate it on the far,

extreme or radical right of the political ideological spectrum.38 Additionally, analysts generally

classify the PVV as belonging to a group of populist radical right (PRR) parties that have grown

throughout Europe in recent decades.39 Scholars such as Mudde claim that this grouping includes the

35 Maurice De Honde, Ontwikkeling Politieke Voorkeur in 2012, www.peil.nl (Accessed: September 26, 2012). 36 Vossen 2011, 180. 37 Ibid. 38 Heijne, 31. 39 Cas Mudde, Whos Afraid of the European Radical Right? Dissent 58, no. 4 (Fall, 2011): 7.

Party Percentage of Overall Vote Number of Seats Won

Centre-Right VVD 26.6% 41 of 150

Centre-Left PvdA 24.8% 39 of 150

Far-Right PVV 10.1% 15 of 150

Far-Left SP 9.7% 15 of 150

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French National Front (FN), the German Republicans (REP), the Flemish Bloc in Belgium (VB), the

Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) and the Swiss Peoples Party (SVP).40 This phenomenon will be

covered in greater detail in the literature review, nevertheless many scholars see the PVV as having

followed many of the policies and practices developed by these other populist radical right parties.41

Vossen claims that despite Wilders contemporary self portrayal as an outsider politician, he

might be better characterized as a professional politician, who has worked in the Dutch House of

Parliament most of his adult life.42 In 1990, at the age of 27, Wilders entered politics as a

speechwriter and assistant for the parliamentary group of the Liberal party, the VVD.43 After years of

climbing the ranks of the party, Wilders became a member of the VVD parliamentary group in

1998.44 According to Vossen, Wilders quickly came to portray himself as a whistle-blower, the

most notable action in support of this image being his presentation of a report to parliament in 1999

on Islamic terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.45 In an interview

regarding the report Wilders is quoted as claiming:

The extremism in the Middle East is a threat to the stability of Europe and the Netherlands. It will even be the most urgent problem of the next ten years since this extremism will also come to the Netherlands as a result of immigration. This is already happening but everybody is silent about this.46

By 2000 many Dutch political commentators considered Wilders to be a viable candidate for the

leadership of the VVD.47 Nonetheless, in 2004 Wilders left the VVD after a conflict with the

parliamentary leader over the issue of admitting Turkey into the EU.48 Following this Wilders

became an independent Member of Parliament, and quickly began forming a new right-wing party,

beginning what Vossen considers to be the neoconservative phase of Wilders ideological

40 Mudde 2011, 7. 41 Ibid, 7-8. 42 Vossen, 180-181. 43 Ibid, 181. 44 Ibid. 45 Vossen 2011, 181. 46 Ibid, 181-182. 47 Ibid, 182. 48 Stijn Van Kessel, Explaining the Electoral Performance of Populist Parties: The Netherlands as a Case Study, Perspectives on European Politics and Society 12, no. 1 (April, 2011): 75.

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development.49 During this period Wilders contacted chairman of the Edmund Burke foundation,

Bart Jan Spruyt, and the two toured Israel and the United States meeting with leading conservative

figures and think tanks.50 During this time Vossen asserts that Wilders rhetoric changed to that of

a fierce supporter of the American war on terror and all its policy measures, such as the opening of

Guantanamo Bay and the military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.51 At this time Wilders also

began advocating for radical measures against those he perceived to threaten Dutch security.52 This

included identifying the whole Dutch elite as one homogenous and self-serving progressive caste

which had hijacked democracy through a policy of subsiding progressive indoctrination and

demonizing all dissenters.53 Finally, during this period Wilders also developed a much fiercer

animosity towards Islam and Muslims.54 As Vossen claims, Following neoconservatives such as

Daniel Pipes and Norman Podhoretz () Wilders began identifying Islam as a totalitarian ideology,

which after communism and fascism posed the third greatest threat to Western modernity.55

It is important to note that Wilders was not the first political figure to support such radical

ideals in the Netherlands. The Dutch Peoples Union (NVU), was a neo-fascist political party in the

country in the 1970s, and was made up of a significant number of former Nazi collaborators and

sympathizers.56 Despite a relatively consistent level of support for the NVU, the party never

garnered more than marginal levels of electoral support.57 In the 1980s and 1990s, the Centre Party

(CP) and the Centre Democrats (CD) succeeded the NVU.58 However, these parties never gained

more than three members in parliament.59 According to Dorussan, established political parties in the

49 Vossen 2011, 182. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid, 183. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid, 183. 56 Han Dorussan, Pim Fortuyn and the New Far Right in the Netherlands, Representation 40, no.2 (2004) : 135. 57 Dorussan, 135. 58 Dorussan, 35. 59 Ibid.

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Netherlands unanimously condemned such actors.60 Voting for these extremist parties was generally

associated with collaboration with the Nazis during the Second World War.61

This trend continued until the spring election of 2002.62 The List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), which

had only been created three months earlier, managed to win 26 seats in the national parliament

making it the second largest party in the country.63 The leader of the LPF, Pim Fortuyn, entered

politics on a platform emphasizing opposition to immigration, support for law and order, and the

defense of 'typical' Dutch or Western values.64 Only nine days prior to the 2002 national election

Dutch citizens were shocked to hear that Fortuyn had been assassinated.65 Many commentators

viewed the subsequent success of the LPF to be caused by a temporary emotional reaction by the

Dutch electorate to Fortuyns assassination.66 Contrastingly, others considered it just another

example of the rise of the radical right in Europe.67 Hosteyn et al. claim that there is empirical

evidence to support the assertion that a majority of voters recognized the rightness of the LPFs

primary issues, and in turn supported it regardless of the murder.68

Nonetheless, the collapse of the ruling coalition that resulted from the 2002 election, caused

another election to be held in 2003. Without the presence of Fortuyn, the LPF secured only eight

seats.69 Following this, the LPF suffered from severe internal dissent, and eventually disbanded.70

For many though, the LPF served as an inspiration for the radical right in the Netherlands. Dorussan

asserts that the party could be identified as radical right on immigration and law and order issues,

however it was much more left on economic and other social issues.71 In fact, Pim Fortuyn was

60 Dorussan, 35. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid, 131. 63 Joop Van Holsteyn, Galen Irwin and Josje Ridder, In the Eye of the Beholder: The Perception of the List Pim Fortuyn and the Parliamentary Elections of May 2002, Acta Politica 38 (2003): 70. 64 Dorussan, 131. 65 Holsteyn et al., 69. 66 Ibid, 70. 67 Dorussan, 131. 68 Holsteyn et al., 69. 69 Ibid, 70. 70 Ibid. 71 Dorussan, 138-139.

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known to be an open homosexual,72 and was legitimized through his role as a respected sociology

professor.73 Regardless, it was the LPFs anti-immigrant and pro-law and order rhetoric that made

many consider it to be a precursor to parties such as the PVV.74 The LPF became known for

supporting anti-immigrant measures that were later mimicked by the PVV.75 For instance, Fortuyn

often referred to Islam as a backward culture, and routinely warned of the alleged dangers of

Muslim immigration.76 One example of this was the LPFs request for a parliamentary debate on

religious symbolism in the public service, which they justified by arguing:

My faction worries about the gradual Islamization of the Dutch society. Some of our fundamental values are undermined: the equal treatment of men and women, of homosexuals and heterosexuals, and last but not least the separation of church and state. The LPF faction thinks that the Dutch citizen has a right to a neutral state. The right, derived from modernity, is one of our basic citizenship rights.77

Such sentiment was arguably the inspiration for Wilders 2005 motion to Dutch parliament that the

burqa be banned in all public spaces.78 He argued that the burqa was a symbol of gender inequality,

which was diametrically opposed to Dutch cultural values.79

Wilders Turn to the Radical Right

Vossen and Mudde note that since 2006, and largely influenced by the LPF, Wilders has

made a clear turn from neoconservative values, towards those of the populist radical right.80 Vossen

considers this development to have began in 2006, and to be marked by:

on the one hand a strong resistance against immigration and supranational cooperation because both would threaten national identity, and on the other hand a populist framing of politics as a moral conflict between the corrupt

72 John Gee, The Political Uses of Islamophobia in Europe, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 30, no. 9 (Dec., 2011): 34. (34-35) 73 Dorussan, 138-139. 74 Ibid. 75 Doutje Lettinga and Sawitri Saharso, The political debates on the veil in France and the Netherlands: Reflecting national integration models? Comparative European Politics 10, no. 3 (2012): 323-324. 76 Gee, 34. 77 Lettinga and Saharso, 323-324. 78 Ibid, 324-325. 79 Ibid. 80 Vossen, 184.

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elite and the virtuous people and the aspiration to build a polity in which the voice of the virtuous people would prevail.81

Vossen claims that this sentiment was articulated in Wilders interviews and speeches where he

expressed a much more radical form of Islamophobia, based on conspiracy theories predicting

the coming Islamification of Europe.82 Gee contends that such pronouncements have been

significantly more radical than those of the LPF.83 According to Mudde, Wilders aggressive

Islamophobia has become similar to that of the FN in France, the FPO in Austria and other PRR

parties in Europe.84 However, for tactical reasons Wilders has often been careful to eschew contact

with many of these parties.85 As Gee points out, in this regard Wilders has also followed Fortuyns

lead.86 As a case in point, the LPF was careful to disassociate itself with many other parties of the

radical right, which had been discredited by being seen as carrying Nazi baggage.87 However, in

recent years this has changed, which will be discussed later.

Aside from Wilders distaste for Muslims, he has also capitalized upon more generalized

discontent with immigration.88 Lindeboom claims that such general disgruntlement with immigration

has contributed strongly to the electoral performance of the PVV, with the 2010 election result being

of particular note.89 Evidence of this is the fact that Wilders has recently been directing his attacks on

other groups such as Polish, Bulgarian and Romanian workers.90 The PVV also directed criticism

towards immigrants from the Dutch Antilles.91 An example of this turn can be seen in proposals in

the PVVs 2010 election program to close the Dutch labour market to Eastern Europeans, and to

81 Vossen, 85. 82 Ibid. 83 Gee, 35. 84 Mudde 2011, 8. 85 Ibid. 86 Gee, 34-35. 87 Ibid, 34. 88 Gert-Jan Lindeboom, Public Priorities in Governments Hands: Corresponding Policy Agendas in the Netherlands? Acta Politica 47, no. 4 (2012): 458-459. 89 Lindeboom, 459. 90 Vossen 2011, 185. 91 Ibid.

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sell the Antilles.92 Wilders has also incorporated a stronger form of nationalism into his views, and

a stronger dislike of supranational collaboration.93 Demonstrative of this have been the PVVs calls

for increased national pride in schools.94 Moreover, in May 2009 Wilders was reported as demanding

government measures that would aid in the dismemberment of Belgium, in order that the Dutch

speaking Flanders region could be incorporated into the Netherlands.95

In regards to the September 2012 election, the PVV increasingly positioned itself in

opposition to the EU.96 Such Euroscepticism is well documented in PRR parties across Europe.97

Indeed, traces of this position within the PVV can be identified as early as May 2005, when The

Economist reported that Geert Wilders had created a Eurosceptical party.98 However, what is

important to note is that at this time, the Eurosceptical stance that the PVV held was primarily

directed against the inclusion of Turkey (a Muslim country) into the EU.99 Moreover, it was

specifically concerned with the effects that the EU had on Dutch culture, as it pertains to Islamic

immigration.100 Such concerns were displayed in June 2005, when Wilders served as one of the most

influential actors in the campaign against the European Unions Constitutional Treaty.101 This treaty,

which would have created a single unified constitution for the EU, was eventually rejected in a

national referendum on 1 June 2005.102

As has already been mentioned, Wilders has largely come to be known for concentrating

upon cultural and immigration issues, albeit while intertwining them with other subjects. An example

of this is Wilders opposition to cuts in pension coverage in the Netherlands, suggesting instead that 92 Vossen 2011, 185. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 The Brussels Journal, Wilders Hopes for Flemish Independence, www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3919 (Accessed: August 1, 2012). 96 Timothy Garton, The Crisis of Europe: How the Union Came Together and Why Its Falling Apart, Foreign Affairs 91, no. 5 (Sept./Oct., 2012): 6. 97 Sofia Vasilopoulou, Varieties of Euroscepticism: The Case of the European Extreme Right, Journal of Contemporary European Research 5, no. 1 (2009): 3. 98 The Economist, The New Dutch Model? The Economist (March 31, 2005): 10. (10-11) 99 The Economist, The New Dutch Model?, 11. 100 Ibid. 101 De Lange and Art, 1235. 102 Ibid, 1235.

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immigration programs be cut.103 Aside from this, Geert Wilders has made an effort to broaden his

election platform in recent years. One of the main methods that he has used to achieve this has been

the use of increasing levels of anti-EU sentiment.104 This is evidenced by the transformation of

Wilders stance against the admittance of Turkey into the EU in 2005 into a more general call against

EU enlargement by early 2010.105 Such efforts were intensified so that by June 2011, the PVV

opposed the EU on many issues, the most notable of which was the financial support of bankrupt

Greece.106 It is interesting to note that by May 2011, Wilders Euroscepticism had been steered away

from cultural issues per se, and towards the effects that EU provisions would have upon Dutch social

programs.107 In the September 2012 election Wilders continued this focus upon Euroscepticism,

attempting to capitalize upon anti-EU sentiment throughout Europe and the Netherlands.108 This was

caused by a number of factors the most significant of which was opposition to EU-supported

austerity measures and the aforementioned financial support of Greece.109 Notably, the PVV became

one of the first non-marginal parties in Europe to call for a withdrawal from the European Union

and currency.110 Worthy of note is the fact that while sceptical of the EU, neither the Austrian FPO

nor the Belgian (VB) have gone so far as to call for the exit of their respective countries from the

EU.111 Regardless, the PVV campaigned hard on such Euroscepticism, demonstrated by tactics such

as the creation of an online petition, which led with the opener: Join our protest against the

103 DutchNews.nl, FNV will not talk pensions with Wilders, www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/10/fnv_will_not_talk_pensions_wit.php (Accessed: August 1, 2012). 104 The Economist, Wild Things: The Far Right Promises to do Disturbingly Well on June 9th, The Economist (Feb. 25, 2010): 1. 105 The Economist, Wild Things: The Far Right Promises to do Disturbingly Well on June 9th, 1. 106 The Economist, With irresponsibility comes power, The Economist (June 13, 2011): 2. 107 The Economist, Keeping government hands off their benefits, The Economist (May 27, 2011): 23. (23-25) 108 Cas Mudde, The Dutch Elections and the Eurosceptic Paradox, www.extremisproject.org/2012/09/the-dutch-elections-and-the-eurosceptic-paradox (Accessed: September 2, 2012). 109 Mudde, The Dutch Elections and the Eurosceptic Paradox. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid.

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profiteering eurocrats.112 Visitors are invited to digitally sign a petition opposing the salaries of

European commissioners and other EU bureaucrats.113

Regardless, it is important to mention that there are some programmatic differences that

many argue separate the PVV from other PRR parties in Europe.114 Foremost, traditionally Wilders

has sought his primary political allies in Israel and the United States, not in Europe.115 This focus on

the US and Israel is quite uncommon amongst PRR parties, and is useful in distancing the PVV from

Nazism, which is an especially sensitive topic in the Netherlands.116 Close inspection of the PVV

indicates that Wilders pro-Israeli stance is far from solely an attempt to distance himself from

Nazism. As Gee points out, Wilders is strongly supportive of Zionism of a far-right variety.117 This

is evidenced by Wilders frequent visits to Israel, the most notable of which was his December 2008

participation in the Facing Jihad conference in Jerusalem.118 This conference was held by National

Union Knesset member Aryeh Eldad, whose party favours the expulsion of all Palestinians from

Israeli-controlled territory.119 This is a position advanced by Wilders as well.120

Wilders is also extremely pro-US, which can be attested to by his praise of US foreign policy,

and his September 11 2010 speech at ground zero in New York.121 In this speech he extended

support for the US and denounced the building of a mosque in the area.122 Notably, former US

presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was also in attendance. 123 Wilders can also be linked

financially to American and Israeli conservative groups. Unlike other Dutch political parties, the

PVV is self-funded, therefore it does not have to meet the same disclosure requirements as other 112 Party for Freedom, Join our protest against the profiteering eurocrats, www.stopeuprofiteers.com (Accessed: August 1, 2012). 113 Party for Freedom, Join our protest against the profiteering eurocrats. 114 Vossen, 186. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid. 117 Gee, 34. 118 Ibid, 35. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid. 121 Geert Wilders, NYC Speech Geert Wilders, Geert Wilders Weblog www.geertwilders.nl/index.php/component/content/article/80-geertwildersnl/1712-nyc-speech-geert-wilders (Posted: September 11, 2010, Accessed: August 1, 2012). 122 Wilders, NYC Speech Geert Wilders. 123 Ibid.

15

parties.124 Nevertheless, in September 2012 Reuters reported that notable American conservative

thinkers such as Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz had acknowledged that they paid for expenses and

visits by Wilders.125 Furthermore, they also admitted making contributions to Wilders fundraising

efforts.126 Despite such backing there are indications that the PVV is not always in line with the

interests of its supporters. An example of this is the PVVs recent stance against ritual slaughter,

which was originally meant to pester Muslims, and appease animal rights activists.127 In this manner

Cohen argues that Wilders has been one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel.128 Yet he

claims that the Dutch government arrived at an agreement to allow Muslims to sedate animals before

performing ritual slaughter, while neglecting Jews who are bound by their religion to perform ritual

slaughter on conscious animals.129 Nevertheless, the PVV continued to support the measures. As

Cohen claims:

Wilders realized that opposing Islam and supporting Israel wasnt going to muster sufficient votes; accordingly, he seized upon the traditional conservative rejection of the European Union as the centerpiece of his platform, extending his reach to people who did not share his opinion of Israel as a privileged ally in the war on Islamism.130

PVV opposition to ritual slaughter, and the events that were described above all occurred just prior to

the September 2012 election.131 This demonstrates an instance in which Cohen asserts that the PVV

moved towards the centre of the ideological spectrum in order to draw more mainstream voters.132

Despite this, the PVV has remained relatively pro-Israel which serves to distinguish them from many

PRR parties in Europe.

124 Anthony Deutsch and Mark Hosenball, Exclusive: U.S. groups helped fund Dutch anti-Islam politician Wilders. www.reuters.com (Posted: September 10 2012, Accessed: September 20, 2012). 125 Deutsch and Hosenball. 126 Ibid. 127 Ben Cohen, Europes Assault on Jewish Ritual: Is Judaism Just Collateral Damage, or the Target Once Again? Commentary 134, no. 4 (November, 2012): 17. 128 Cohen, 18. 129 Cohen, 18. 130 Ibid, 19. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid.

16

Moreover, Wilders libertarian views on ethical issues are also quite unique for PRR parties.

He supports the right to abortion, euthanasia and embryo selection, while the party also presents

itself as a defender of women and gays in the face of the advance of an intolerant and backward

Islam.133 Nevertheless, academics such as Wolin warn that one should not be fooled by Wilders

frequent appeals on behalf of seemingly liberal values such as freedom of speech, gay rights and

womens rights.134 He argues that the PVVs previously mentioned objection to immigration and

Islamic culture departs from the idea of universal equality, which is the foundational precept of the

rule of law, in favour of the idea of ethnic and racial hierarchy.135 Gee agrees with this stance as he

considers it highly problematic to label an entire culture based on the actions of a small minority of

extremist Muslims.136 He claims, similar expressions of hostility toward Jewish, Asian or Black

people would not be accepted.137 Mudde refers to the reasoning behind such claims as nativism,

which he describes as an ideology that holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members

of the native group and that non-native elements are fundamentally threatening to the homogenous

nation-state.138 Thus, it is these nationalist, anti-immigrant, and populist traits that many assert

connect the PVV to other PRR parties and place it on the far reaches of the political spectrum.139

The proceeding analysis uses Wilders and the PVV as a case study in investigating the

common assertion made by researchers that political inclusion serves to moderate radical political

parties. 140 Anthony Downs seminal work on party ideology titled, An Economic Theory of

Democracy, is the primary influence for this hypothesis.141 In this work Downs argues that ideology

essentially serves as a political tool that parties use to combat the uncertainties involved in the

133 Vosen, 187. 134 Richard Wolin, Ghosts of a Tortured Past: Europes Right Turn. Dissent 58, no. 1 (Winter, 2011): 62. 135 Wolin, 65. 136 Gee, 34. 137 Ibid. 138 Wolin, 65. 139 Ibid. 140 Jillian Schwedler, Can Islamists Become Moderates? Rethinking the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis, World Politics 63, no. 2 (April, 2011): 348. 141 Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957).

17

struggle for political office.142 His argument rests on the basic theory that political parties are

primarily interested in securing political office, as opposed to promoting a better or an ideal

society per se.143 In line with this theory, he asserts that in multi-party systems such as the

Netherlands, parties on opposite sides of the political spectrum are likely to be farther apart

ideologically than in two party systems.144 Nevertheless, in order to gain power, parties on the left

and right of the political spectrum are more likely to work together in order to gain power for their

side of the spectrum.145 Thus, Downs argues that, Since it is very difficult to attract enough support

with narrowly targeted extremist or sectarian appeals, over time the competition for votes will force

extremist parties to jettison radical positions and adopt broader, more centrist platforms capable of

attracting support outside their original core constituency.146 In addition to Downs arguments, two

other theories have contributed to the moderation hypothesis.

A second theory relates to party institutional structure, and is largely based on the work of

German sociologist Robert Michels.147 Michels found that when highly controversial parties decide

to participate in elections, they find themselves forced to set up formal, bureaucratic organizations

capable of mounting public campaigns, raising and disbursing funds, and developing policies.148 He

claims that this draws energy and resources away from traditional radical activities, which serves to

moderate the party.149 This paper will also consider what Berman and others refer to as pothole

theory.150 This is essentially the proposition that extremist parties become more moderate as a result

of being concerned with the daily functions of government upon inclusion into a democratic

system.151 Thus, all three theories are similar in that they argue that the inclusion of radical parties in

142 A. Downs 1957, 96. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid, 163. 145 Ibid. 146 Sheri Berman, Taming Extremist Parties: Lessons From Europe, Journal of Democracy 19, no. 1 (January, 2008): 6. 147 Robert Michels, A Sociological Study if the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (New York.: Free Press, 1962): 333-341. 148 Michels, 333-341. 149 Ibid. 150 Ibid. 151 Michels, 334-341.

18

democratic systems serves to bring them towards the center in terms of the extremity of their

ideology, issues and policy. This paper will focus on testing these assertions as they pertain to Geert

Wilders and the PVV, through analysis of Geert Wilders official blog.152 Directed content analysis

will be used in order to test the hypothesis that extreme parties will tend to moderate as a result of

contesting political elections and participating in parliamentary politics.

152 Geert Wilders, Geert Wilders Weblog www.geertwilders.nl (Accessed: August 1, 2012).

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Chapter III

Literature Review: Radicalism, Populism and Moderation

Vossen asserts that Dutch journalists, scientists and fellow politicians alike seem to agree

that Wilders and his PVV are best qualified (to at least some degree) as populists.153 Populism is an

inexact term though, and there is much discussion as to exactly what it entails.154 Albertazzi and

McDonnell argue that historically populism has been employed in a loose, inconsistent and

undefined manner, as a way of denoting appeals to the people, demagogy and catch-all

politics.155 They further define populism as pitting a virtuous and homogenous people against a set

of elites and dangerous others who are depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the

sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice.156 Albertazzi and McDonnell

argue that populism can mend itself to any ideology, left or right.157 What these two academics see

as critical is the fact that populists always appear to be fighting to reclaim the peoples

sovereignty, be it from politicians, the elite or immigrants.158 Similarly, Vossen claims that most

academics generally consider populism to be built on the perception of current politics as being a

conflict between two homogenous and antagonistic groups, a virtuous people and a malicious elite

and on the aspiration to build a polity in which the will of the virtuous people prevails.159 This has

come to be termed the discursive definition of populism.160 As mentioned above, this definition

depicts populism as being a Manichaean discourse that identifies Good with a unified will of the

people and Evil with a conspiring elite.161 As Hawkins claims, these Manichaean aspects of

populism are central to it as a discourse, since it attempts to assign everything a moral dimension 153 Vossen 2010, 26. 154 Ibid, 24. 155 Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell, Introduction: The Sceptre and the Spectre, In Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy, ed. Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell (New York: Palgrave, 2002): 2. 156 Albertazzi and McDonnell 2002, 2. 157 Ibid. 158 Ibid. 159 Vossen 2010, 24. 160 Kirk A. Hawkins, Is Chavez Populist? Measuring Populist Discourse in Comparative Perspective, Comparative Political Studies 42, no. 8 (August, 2009): 1042. 161 Hawkins, 1042.

20

and interprets it as part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil. 162 Roger Eatwell

acknowledges this tendency to be one of the central pillars of populism.163 Testament to this is the

noted tendency for populists to dichotomize issues into black and white.164 He argues that this

explains populist parties preference for referendums on subjects, as opposed to parliamentary forms

of democracy.165 According to Eatwell, this indicates the majoritarian character of populism.166

Like Albertazzi and McDonnell, Eatwell argues that populism is best seen in Europe as a

political style rather than a specific body of thought.167 As will be touched upon, the term populism

is often used synonymously with the phrases extreme-right or radical right, which Eatwell

claims can be misleading.168 In support of this, he points out that there is populism of not only the

right, but the left as well, since it is a language and style that can also be used by groups which

genuinely support a radical redistribution of income and power within society.169 Hanz-Georg

Betzs assertions are similar to Eatwells as he describes populism as a form of political rhetoric that

is designed to tap feelings of resentment, and exploit them politically.170 Like Eatwell, Betz

considers populism to be largely a political strategy, whose political rhetoric is the evocation of

latent grievances and the appeal to emotions provoked by them, rather than an ideology per se.171 In

order to stress this difference it is important to first define exactly what constitutes an ideology.

Hainsworth defines political ideologies as bodies of interconnected ideas or systems of thought that

constitute the basis for political action, reflection and debate.172 In light of this definition, populism

is something different from ideology that is difficult to discern because parties such as the PVV have 162 Hawkins, 1043. 163 Roger Eatwell, The New Extreme Right Challenge, In Western Democracies and the New Extreme Right Challenge, ed. Roger Eatwell and Cas Mudde (New York: Routledge, 2004): 12. 164 Eatwell, 12-13. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid. 167 Ibid, 12. 168 Eatwell, 12. 169 Eatwell, 12. 170 Hanz-Georg Betz, Conditions Favouring the Success and Failure of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Contemporary Democracies, In Democracies and the Populist Challenge, ed. Yves Meny and Yves Surel (New York: Palgrave, 2002): 198. 171 Betz, 198. 172 Paul Hainsworth, The Extreme Right In Western Europe (New York: Routledge, 2008): 67.

21

been keen to use anti-establishment populism as a manner of expressing their ideology.173

Taggart refers to this form of populism as new populism, and acknowledges that while it is not

necessarily an ideology in itself, it has tended to be used in Europe by far-right parties.174 He claims

that:

new populism is a contemporary form of populism that emerged, primarily though not exclusively in Western Europe, in the last part of the twentieth century. It is a populism that has been advocated by a number of parties on the far-right of the political spectrum as a reaction against the political dominance and the agenda of certain key parties of government in their party systems, and which is usually associated with particular political leaders.175

The Right and the Radical-Right

Historically, left/right ideological polarity arose from the seating arrangement of the first

French General Assembly, where the supporters of the political ideas inspired by the enlightenment

were seated on the left, while those who backed the ancien regime were seated at the right side of the

president of the Assembly.176 According to Cole, the term right is used to describe styles of

thought having emerged as a response to the left dating back to the values of 1789: egalitarianism,

brotherhood and fraternity.177 With regards to this, oriented to the new and the modern has come

to be associated with the left and conservative with the right.178 This is far from an exact

classification though. For instance, supporters of nuclear energy, a modern solution to energy

problems, are generally considered to be on the right.179 Meanwhile, those who wish to preserve

nature are often placed on the left of the political spectrum.180 Regardless, over the years the right

has become synonymous with conservatism.181 As Shannon famously points out, conservatism as a

173 Hainsworth, 69. 174 Paul Taggart, Populism (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000): 20. 175 Taggart, 2 176 H. F. Bienfait and W. E. A. Van Beek, Right and Left As Political Categories: An Exercise in Not-So-Primitive Classification Anthropos 96 (2001): 169-170. 177 Cole, 205. 178 Ibid, 170. 179 Ibid. 180 Ibid. 181 Ibid.

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term is approximately 170 years old, and came into usage after the Great Reform Act of 1832 in

Great Britain.182 It referred to opposition to reform, and has since become associated with wishes to

preserve present or past values rather than to create or adopt new ones.183 Moreover, historically

conservative parties in Europe have generally stood for loyalty to the monarchy, and the traditional

way of doing things.184 The right of the political spectrum has also become associated with the

ideological presence of authoritarianism.185 Authoritarianism is the belief that infringements of

authority should be punished severely, and that there should be a focus on a law and order agenda.186

Indeed, as argued by Layton-Henry, such authoritarianism is characteristic of many ideologies of the

right.187

In regards to this, Mudde asserts that the PVV is part of a grouping of radical right political

parties that have enjoyed electoral success in Europe since the 1980s partly through the use of

populist discourse and its incorporation with authoritarian elements.188 As Zaslove confirms, such

parties have participated in coalition governments in Austria, Switzerland and Italy, and have

supported center-right coalition governments in Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands.189 Mudde

refers to such parties collectively as the populist radical right.190 The other parties that Mudde

considers to make up this grouping include the French National Front (FN), the German Republicans

(REP), the Flemish Block in Belgium (VB), the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) and the Swiss

Peoples Party (SVP).191 Muddes label populist radical right recognizes the fact that these parties,

as previously mentioned, use populism as one of their primary political tools. As Zaslove remarks,

182 Jasper B. Shannon, Conservatism, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 344 (Nov., 1962): 13-24. 183 Shannon, 14. 184 Ibid. 185 Mudde 2010, 1174. 186 Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 23. 187 Zig Layton-Henry, Conservatism and Conservative Politics, Introduction In Zig Layton-Henry (ed.) Conservative Politics in Western Europe (New York: St. Martens Press, 2007): 1. 188 Mudde 2011, 8. 189 Andrej Zaslove, The Populist Radical Right in Government: The Structure and Agency of Success and Failure, Comparative European Politics 10, no. 4 (2012): 421. 190 Ibid. 191 Ibid, 7.

23

thanks to Muddes contributions, The PRR is now accepted as a party family that combines nativist

nationalism, authoritarianism and populism. The PRR also combines charismatic and populist

leadership, and a number of these parties combine these features with a well-organized political

party.192

Mudde stops short of using the term extreme to describe such parties, as many scholars

specify that extreme-right generally refers to the desire for the overthrow of democratic

institutions, and the instalment of a totalitarian based system of governance.193 As Hartleb observes,

the fact that parties such as the PVV approve of the democratic system serves to separate them from

the extreme-right.194 Moreover, extreme-right is considered by many scholars to infer a connection

or affinity with postwar neofascist organizations.195 This distinction can be made most clear when

one looks at the Greek party, Golden Dawn. Golden Dawn came to prominence in Greece following

the global economic crisis in 2008, and is classified by most scholars as an extreme neo-fascist

party.196 This is largely due to the partys use of Nazi-like symbolism, links to neo-fascist groups and

various anti-Semitic statements.197 Meindert Fennema makes a similar argument in claiming that the

categorization extreme-right is a misleading term for parties such as the PVV, as most of them do

not call for the destruction of democratic institutions.198 In order to rectify this, many scholars

combine the terms radical-right and populist to denote that these parties are both populist in

style, and located on the far right of the political spectrum ideologically.199 While populism has

generally been acknowledged by most scholars to be a defining component of these political parties,

their ideological components have been less clear. Instead, some scholars refer to these parties as

192 Zaslove 2012, 423. 193 Hainsworth, 19. 194 Florian Hartleb, After their establishment: right-wing populist parties in Europe, European View 10 (2011): 267. 195 Hainsworth, 19. 196 Alexandra Koronaiou and Alexandros Sakellariou, Reflections on Golden Dawn, community organizing and nationalist solidarity: helping (only) Greeks, Community Development Journal 48, no. 2 (April, 2013): 336. 197 Koronaiou and Sakellariou, 335. 198 Meindert Fennema, Populist Parties of the Right, In Movements of Exclusion: Radical Right-Wing Populism in the Western World, ed. Jens Rydgren (New York: Nova Science, 2005): 1. 199 Hainsworth, 22.

24

anti-immigration parties200 or simply populist parties.201 Regardless, most scholars generally

agree these parties are best classified as sitting on the right reaches of the political ideological

spectrum.202

As mentioned, while there is much agreement that populist parties such as the PVV can

generally be situated on the right of the ideological spectrum, many scholars consider such parties to

be misclassified as extreme-right due to a lack of connection to historical fascism. With regards to

this, Nolte argues that fascism can be described as a phenomenon that can be limited to between the

years 1920 and 1945.203 Nolte proposes the following definition of fascism. Fascism [] is anti-

marxism which seeks to destroy the enemy by the evolvement of a radically opposed and yet related

ideology and by the use of almost identical and yet typically modified methods, always, however,

within the unyielding framework of national self-assertion and autonomy.204 Fennema makes

similar claims as she considers a fascist party to be an extreme-right party in a specific time period,

and with a specific party organization.205 Most notably she argues that fascism can be embodied in

the Fuhrer principle in Nazi Germany.206 In consideration of this, Fennema proposes [] to

define the term extreme-right as a concept that refers only to ideology and not to political practices.

Only on the level of ideology, does extreme-right equal fascism.207 Therefore, Fennema views the

primary difference between the two terms to be that fascism is always a certain type of mass

movement, while the extreme-right does not necessarily have to be a mass movement.208

Hainsworth argues that part of the cause for such debate over terminology is due to the fact

that many of the terms used to describe these parties are not labels readily accepted or espoused by

200 Fennema, 2. 201 Albertazzi and McDonnell 2002, 10-11. 202 Alexandra Cole, Old right or new right? The ideological positioning of parties of the far right, European Journal of Political Research 44 (2005): 203. 203 Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism: Action Francaise, Italian Fascism and National Socialism, (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1966) 27. 204 Nolte, 40. 205 Fennema, 4. 206 Fennema, 4. 207 Ibid. 208 Ibid.

25

the parties that they are considered to reference.209 Paxton argues that another cause of this is the

repugnancy that Hitlers form of fascism inspired in European society.210 He claims that out of

necessity fascism changed its stripes in an attempt to remain politically viable.211 He believes that

fascism has transformed into the movements that we now see as radical-right or extreme-

right.212 He warns that this is a worrisome situation as all that is needed is the lawless treatment of

national enemies for fascism to emerge.213 Similar to Paxton, Griffin asserts that fascism simply

changed its face in the post-war period.214 He claims, once fascism is teased free from its

contingent expression as a specific type of historical movement and regime, it can be conceptualized

[] as a particular politico-cultural project.215

Bar-On shares a similar analysis. 216 He claims that the intellectual roots for modern

extreme-right parties can be traced to the French Nouvelle Droite (ND).217 He describes the ND as

a cultural school of thought and a metapolitical movement that began in France, but had far-

reaching effects throughout Europe.218 Bar-On states that The ND helped to create a sophisticated

European-wide political culture of the revolutionary right in an anti-fascist age and nurtured the

politically correct discourse of extreme right-wing political parties.219 According to Bar-On,

ultranationalist Alain de Benoist was pivotal to this movement as he and forty other ultranationalists

with ties to neo-fascist organizations formed the Research and Study Group for European

Civilization (GRECE).220 GRECE serves as the principle think-tank for the ND.221 Bar-On observes

that one of the NDs primary contentions is that a right to difference exists that dictates that 209 Fennema, 4. 210 Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Random House, 2004): 172. 211 Paxton, 172-173. 212 Ibid. 213 Ibid. 214 Roger Griffin, Another Face? Another Mazeway? Reflections on the Newness and Rightness of the European New Right, In Tamir Bar-On, Where Have All the Fascists Gone (New York: Ashgate, 2007): i. 215 Griffin, i. 216 Tamir Bar-On, Transnationalism and the French Nouvelle Droite, Patterns of Prejudice 45, no. 3 (2011): 200. 217 Bar-On, 200. 218 Bar-On, 200. 219 Ibid. 220 Ibid, 203. 221 Ibid.

26

communities must constantly be nourished and promoted in order to allow all world cultures to

maintain their uniqueness and distinctiveness.222 Moreover, he asserts that the ND pushes for a right

to preserve cultural, regional and national identities, and that the best place to do so is within national

territories.223 This point is especially worthy of note as it mirrors the logic espoused by Wilders that

was mentioned earlier. It is these traits that many argue serve as the ideological connections to

historical fascism.

Andrej Zaslove supports Bar-Ons findings, as he claims that the ND has based much of its

ideology of exclusion upon cultural, as opposed to historically discredited racial differences.224

According to Zaslove the far-right proceeds on the line of argument that since there are no

biological distinctions between races, culture makes us distinctly human and gives us our

identity.225 He asserts that this concept is used as the philosophical justification for the opposition to

uncontrolled immigration,226 that is one of the primary programmatic issues which all of the

previously mentioned parties share.227 Thus, it can be seen from this that scholars such as Bar-On,

Eatwell, Paxton and Zaslove consider parties such as the PVV to share an ideological connection to

fascism and neo-fascism, and are generally more apt to classify these parties as extreme-right.

Academics such as Mudde do not deny the influence of such thought.228 However, they stipulate that

extremism requires the desired and expressed overthrow of the institutional arrangement for

arriving at political decisions which realizes the common good by making the people itself decide

issues through the election of individuals who are to assemble to carry out its will.229 Far from

being anti-democratic though, Mudde points out that many of these parties are majoritarian, and

222 Bar-On, 203. 223 Ibid, 207. 224 Andrej Zaslove, Exclusion, Community, and a Populist Political Economy: The Radical Right as an Anti-Globalization Movement, Comparative European Politics 6 (2008): 179. 225 Ibid. 226 Ibid. 227 Fennema 1. 228 Cas Mudde, The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy, West European Politics 33, no. 6 (November, 2010): 1167-1186. 229 Mudde 2010, 1168.

27

opposed instead to the liberal basis of their respective democracies.230 Nevertheless, for ease of

clarity this paper will hitherto follow Muddes assertions and refer to this grouping of parties as the

populist radical right (PRR).

A Winning Formula for the PRR

In addition to anti-immigrant, and particularly anti-Muslim sentiment, increasingly parties of

the PRR have also used Euroscepticism to create a winning formula,231 though the nature and form

of such scepticism has varied over time.232 In 1998 Paul Taggart noted that since the signing of the

Maastricht Treaty in 1992, there had been a significant rise in levels of Euroscepticism in all EU

member nations.233 This included those countries most supportive of EU integration, such as France

and the Netherlands.234 He notes that PRR parties had been keen to latch onto this issue, as was

evidenced by the FN in Frances and the VB in Belgiums Eurosceptical tendencies.235 Nevertheless,

he was careful to point out that in none of these countries was Euroscepticism found to be the central

tenant of PRR party policy, but rather was secondary to cultural issues.236 Moreover, Taggart was

careful to use the word Eurosceptical to describe these parties policies, as he points out that not all

of them opposed the EU per se.237 With regards to the term Eurosceptical, he claims that it is used

because it is more inclusive as, All opponents of the EU are, at least, sceptical, but not all sceptics

are opponents.238

In the 1990s Taggart asserts that Euroscepticism generally revolved around the ratification

process of the Maastricht treaty. 239 Since the debate over the ratification of this treaty,

230 Mudde 2010, 1169. 231 Hartleb, 267. 232 Vasilopoulou, 3. 233 Paul Taggart, A Touchstone of Dissent: Euroscepticism in Contemporary Western European Party Systems, European Journal of Political Research 33 (1998): 363-364. 234 Taggart 1998, 364. 235 Ibid, 365. 236 Taggart 1998, 365-366. 237 Ibid, 366-367. 238 Ibid, 366. 239 Ibid, 366-367.

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Euroscepticism has continued to rise in relation to pivotal periods of EU expansion. 240 As

Halikiopoulou et al. attest, examples of this can be seen during the debates over the failed ratification

of the European Constitution and the protracted progress of the Lisbon Treaty.241 Since the

beginning of the 2008 global recession, the European financial crisis has led to another significant

increase in Euroscepticism, caused largely by discontent with EU-supported financial assistance

packages being given to Greece, and the imposition of EU-mandated austerity measures on member

nations.242

Taggart has observed that parties peripheral to their party systems are generally more

predisposed to incorporating Euroscepticism into their platforms.243 This is a tendency that has been

noted by a number of scholars, and is evidenced by the presence of increased levels of support for

Euroscepticism by both far-right and far-left parties across Europe.244 This was also the case in the

September 2012 Dutch election, where both the PVV and the far-left SP incorporated

Euroscepticism into their platforms.245 With regards to this, Taggart contends that the protest

nature of peripheral parties produces the need for them to distinguish themselves from more

mainstream elements, and that this leads them to be more prone to adopting Eurosceptic views.246

Scholars adhering to this logic maintain that all parties attempt to strategically manipulate the

European integration issue.247 Hooghe et al. argue that:

Parties that are successful in the existing structure of contestation have little incentive to rock the boat, while unsuccessful parties, that is, parties with weak electoral support or those that are locked out of government, have an interest in restructuring contestation. The same strategic logic that leads mainstream parties to assimilate the issues raised by European integration

240 Daphne Halikiopoulou, Kyriaki Nanou and Sofia Vasilopoulou, The Paradox of Nationalism: The Common Denominator of Radical Right and Radical Left Euroscepticism, European Journal of Political Research 51 (2012): 506. 241 Halikiopoulou et al., 506. 242 The Economist, Leftward Tilt: As Voters Lean Left, the Next Government May be Awkward Over the Euro, The Economist (August, 25, 2012): 1-2. 243 Taggart 1998, 372. 244 Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks and Carole Wilson, Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration Comparative Political Studies 35, no. 8 (October, 2002): 968. 245 The Economist, August 2012, 1. 246 Taggart 1998, 382. 247 Hooghe et al., 968.

29

into the Left/Right dimension of party competition leads peripheral parties to exploit European integration to shake up the party system.248

Similar to this line of reasoning, many academics claim that peripheral opposition to the

project of European integration also lies in the fact that the EU is a creation of the Centre-Right,

Centre, and to a lesser extent, the Centre-Left which has dominated European decision making for

the past half century.249 Therefore, such scholars not only view Euroscepticism as an inevitable

reaction to the EUs policies, but also see it as a rejection of the ideological foundation of the

organization.250 However, scholars such as Halikiopoulou et al. argue that there are other factors that

can explain this occurrence.251 They assert that the importance of nationalism in the peripheral

regions of the ideological spectrum helps to account for far-right and far-left parties tendency

towards Euroscepticism.252 Halikiopoulou et al. recognize that definitions of nationalism vary, but

argue the key promise of any nationalism is the right of the nation to act as independent, free and

sovereign.253 According to these scholars, PRR parties seek to portray the nation to be an organic

pre-modern community and defend its homogeneity by promoting differences and exclusivity.254

Therefore, since the EU is fundamentally heterogeneous in nature, these elements put the PRR

naturally at odds with the EU.255

Similarly, Halikiopoulou et al. also consider nationalist impulses to drive a degree of the far-

lefts Euroscepticism.256 They argue that these parties fundamental distrust of great powers causes

them to equate freedom from such countries with the emancipation of the popular classes.257 Thus,

the integrative nature of the EU is what is seen to be threatening by such parties.258 Additionally,

248 Hooghe et al., 968-969. 249 Ibid, 969-970. 250 Ibid, 969. 251 Halikiopoulou et al., 506. 252 Ibid, 504. 253 Ibid, 509. 254 Halikiopoulou et al., 510. 255 Ibid, 509-510. 256 Ibid, 512. 257 Ibid. 258 Ibid.

30

Conti and Memoli argue that the far-left is also often opposed to the largely economic basis of the

EU, and wants to see it transformed from a Common market into a social market economy.259

Notably, this highlights the differing nature of Euroscepticism.260 As Conti and Memoli point out,

PRR parties are much more apt than far-left parties to unconditionally oppose the EU.261 As was

mentioned, this is largely attributed to concerns over EU infringement of national sovereignty.262 In

light of such tendencies, Taggart and Szczerbiak make a distinction between hard and soft

Euroscepticism.263 They define hard Euroscepticism as outright rejection of the entire project of

European political and economic integration and opposition to their country joining or remaining

members of the EU.264 Contrastingly, soft Euroscepticism is described as qualified opposition or

disagreement on one or more policy areas associated with the project of European integration.265 In

lieu of these categorizations, in the months leading up to the 2012 election the PVV can be

categorized as hard Eurosceptics, since they called for a full Dutch withdrawal from the EU.266

Electoral Support for the PRR

Traditionally across Europe PRR voters have been disproportionately lower-class males.267

This holds true in the Netherlands, as males have consistently supported PRR parties more than

females, and have been largely from the working class.268 There has also been a tendency for

unemployed persons to be more likely to vote for PRR parties than other segments of the

259 Nicolo Conti and Vincenzo Memoli, The multi-faceted nature of party-based Euroscepticism, Acta Politica, 47, no. 2 (2012): 105. 260 Conti and Memoli, 105. 261 Ibid. 262 Ibid. 263 Paul Taggart and A. Szczerbiak, Parties, Positions and Europe: Euroscepticism in the EU Candidate States of Central and Eastern Europe, Opposing Europe, Sussex European Institutional Working Paper no. 46 (2001): 10. 264 Taggart and Szczerbiak, 10. 265 Ibid. 266 The Economist, August 2012, 2. 267 Mudde 2010, 1169. 268 Hainsworth, 91-99.

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population.269 First-time voters have also been shown to support PRR parties in disproportionate

numbers.270 In regards to the causes of such support, Mudde and Holsteyn claim that there are two

traditional hypotheses.271 These are known as the support thesis, and the protest thesis.272 The

support thesis argues that voters support radical-right parties because they consider their platforms to

best represent their ideas.273 As has been discussed, many consider populism to be one of the primary

methods employed by radical right parties in order to attract such support.274 As Betz claims, this

strategy is designed to mobilize people to act politically by appealing to grievances and

resentments.275 In relation to this, many PRR parties, including the PVV, have campaigned on anti-

immigration rhetoric.276 Geert Wilders has largely focused on Muslim immigrants, claiming that they

commit crimes, drain the social-welfare system, are a drag on the standard of living and are part of a

barbaric culture.277 According to Richard Wolin, in this manner PRR parties excel at playing on

the cultural and economic anxieties of average citizens, especially those of the lower middle classes

who have been unable to keep pace with the demands of a globalized, information-based economy

and whose employment prospects have grown correspondingly precarious.278 This line of thinking

essentially argues that the PVV and other PRR parties succeed in gaining the support of the losers

of modernity, who are threatened by rapid social change and lend their support to these parties out

of general discontent.279 The process that leads to the creation of such support has come to be known

as modernization theory, and considers support for radical right-wing movements to be a

269 Marcel Lubbers, Merove Gijsberts and Peer Scheepers, Extreme-right-wing Voting in Western Europe, European Journal of Political Research 41 (2002): 370. 270 Hainsworth, 101-102. 271 C. E. Mudde and J.J.M. Van Holsteyn, Over the Top: Dutch Right-Wing Extremist Parties in the Elections of 1994, Politics 14, no. 3 (1994): 131. 272 Mudde and Holsteyn, 131. 273 Ibid. 274 Betz, 198. 275 Ibid, 200. 276 Wouter Van Der Brug, Meindert Fennema and Jean Tillie, Why Some Anti-Immigrant Parties Fail and Others Suceed: A Two-Step Model of Aggregate Electoral Support, Comparative Political Studies 38, no. 5 (June, 2005): 537-538. 277 Heijne, 31. 278 Ibid. 279 Brug, Fennema and Tillie, 540.

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pathological normalcy.280 That is, [i]n all fast-growing modernizing countries, there are people

who cannot cope with rapid economic and cultural developments and who react to the pressures of

readjustment with rigidity and closed-mindedness.281 Supporters of this argument generally attach

such discontent to disgruntlement with globalization more generally. As Zaslove points out:

fear and skepticism towards economic liberalization, immigration, and European integration have been linked to the process of globalization. As with other parties that oppose globalization, the radical right does not speak to deaf ears. There is considerable evidence that a significant portion of Europeans are concerned and sceptical of economic liberalization, they are apprehensive about surrendering their national sovereignty, and they are concerned about immigration.282

In the Dutch case, Heijne argues that this process is further aided by the fact that the country

has developed a reputation for practicing an almost radical form of tolerance.283 He argues that while

this has undoubtedly aided the emancipation of immigrants, women and gays, it has undermined

national social cohesion.284 Heijne contends that this has created a vacuum that PRR politicians

such as Wilders have capitalized on.285 Moreover, he claims that this has allowed Wilders to largely

avoid economic solutions to the countrys ills, by using immigrants and European integration as

scapegoats for the countrys problems.286 Nevertheless, academics such as Heijne are careful to note

that while parties like the PVV succeed in capitalizing upon fears related to a perceived loss of social

identity, support for Wilders should not necessarily be associated with economic hardship.287 The

irony is, he argues, that the rise of Wilders and the PVV is evidence of the prosperity and economic

stability of the Dutch middle class.288 Testament to this is the fact that only a relatively prosperous

280 Michael Minkenberg, The West European Radical Right as a Collective Actor: Modeling the Impact of Cultural and Structural Variables on Party Formation and Movement Mobilization, Comparative European Politics 1 (2003): 150-151. 281 Minkenberg, 150-151. 282 Zaslove 2008, 181-182. 283 Heijne, 32. 284 Ibid. 285 Heijne, 31. 286 Ibid. 287 Heijne, 31-32. 288 Ibid, 32.

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electorate could afford to become obsessed with the Islamization of the Netherlands and the

bureaucratic wastefulness of the European Union.289

However, as Mudde points out, this only explains the demand side of support for the PVV

and other PRR parties.290 He argues that one must also consider the actions of mainstream parties,

and the effects that these have upon support for the PRR.291 As a case in point, he notes that the PRR

has only grown where mainstream parties ignore issues that large parts of the population care

about.292 Examples of these are crime, corruption, European integration and immigration.293 In light

of this, many argue that PRR voters do not vote for these parties as the support thesis suggests, but

support them in order to punish mainstream parties.294 This has become known as the protest

thesis.295 The protest thesis argues that voters use PRR parties to channel their discontent with more

mainstream parties.296 This suggests that these voters are not necessarily in favour of PRR parties,

nor do they support them, but that they use their vote to signal political discontent.297 Mudde and

Holsteyn argue that this helps to explain the relatively strong support for PRR parties in the first

rounds of parliamentary voting in many countries.298 They note that PRR parties often receive much

weaker support in subsequent rounds, when voters are hesitant to to waste their vote on a PRR

party.299

Taming PRR Parties

Regardless of the causes of support, William Downs claims that, Traditional conservative

parties throughout Europe face the reality that radical right-wing parties are winning representation

289 Heijne, 32. 290 Mudde 2011, 9. 291 Ibid. 292 Ibid. 293 Ibid. 294 Mudde and Holsteyn, 131. 295 Ibid. 296 Ibid. 297 Ibid, 132. 298 Ibid. 299 Ibid.

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across all levels of the polity: subnational councils, national legislatures, and the European

Parliament.300 W. Downs argues that mainstream parties have generally adopted five distinct

strategic reactions to the presence of PRR parties in legislatures. These have been to ignore, isolate,

co-opt, collaborate and impose legal restrictions.301 The strategies of ignoring, isolating and

imposing legal restrictions seek to deprive PRR parties of any legitimacy or importance that could be

gained by being the subject of attention.302 Starved of both power and publicity, the logic goes, the

pariahs allure would soon whither and fade.303 However, Downs warns that these are risky

strategies since the failure to address the sources of PRR party success can result in continued or

increased levels of support.304 In accordance with these findings, Spanje and Van der Brug find that

ignoring or excluding a PRR party has mixed effects on their level of support depending on the

context of the situation.305 In cases such as Belgium, they found that the Flemish Bloc actually

benefitted from exclusion, and the Northern League in Italy would have benefitted if it had been

excluded.306 Conversely, they found that the Progress Party in Denmark would have suffered

electorally had it been excluded.307 While the broader effects of exclusion are found to be mixed,

exclusion using electoral laws specifically have been found by many academics to be largely

ineffective. For example, Ezrow claims that there is little evidence to suggest that electoral law

(specifically the proportionality of the electoral system) exert an effect either directly or indirectly on

parties tendencies to propose extreme as opposed to moderate policy positions.308

300 William M. Downs, Pariahs in their Midst: Belgian and Norwegian Parties React to Extremist Threats, West European Politics 24, no. 3 (July, 2001): 23-42. 301 Downs 2001, 24. 302 Ibid, 26. 303 Ibid. 304 Ibid. 305 Spanje and Brug, 353-384. 306 Ibid, 375. 307 Ibid, 353. 308 Lawrence Ezrow, Parties Policy Programmes and the Dog that Didnt Bark: No Evidence that Proportional Systems Promote Extreme Party Positioning, British Journal of Political Science 38 (2008): 480.

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However, as mentioned, political inclusion itself has been argued to moderate radical

political parties. Tezcur asserts this is known as moderation theory.309 This line of thinking is present

in the works of Downs, Michels and Berman. Prior to testing these theories as they pertain to the

PVV, it is important to first specify what is meant by the term moderation. As Sanchez-Cuenca

asserts, moderation is best understood as another name for convergence to the position of the

median voter. 310 In light of this, she views moderation as being similar to a loosening of ideological

rigidity, which is best measured by a shift in a partys ideology towards the position of the median

voter in an electorate.311 Schwedler contends that moderation broadly refers to movement along a

continuum from radical to moderate, with the term moderate being tied to liberal notions of

tolerance, pluralism, and cooperation.312 In the literature though, there are generally considered to

be two types of political parties.313 The first are office seeking parties, which Downs claim never

seek office as a means of carrying out particular policies; their only goal is to reap the rewards of

gaining office per se.314 As was covered, by Downs logic, these parties are primarily interested in

maximizing the utility of gaining public office and are therefore more likely to move towards the

median voter.315 Office seeking parties are more likely to converge towards the median voter because

the possible electoral gains are more valuable to the party.316 The second type of parties are referred

to as policy seeking parties, which Sanchez-Cuenca considers to be primarily interested in policy

making, and value the creation of policies in themselves.317

For policy seeking parties there may be times when the party may want to be faithful to its

constitutive ideological principles, even if by doing so it forgoes the gains of a more preferred

309 Tezcur, 69. 310 I. Sanchez-Cuenca, Party Moderation and Politicians Ideological Rigidity, Party Politics 10, no. 3 (May, 2004): 327. 311 Sanchez-Cuenca, 327. 312 Schwedler, 352. 313 Ibid, 328. 314 A. Downs, 28. 315 Ibid, 96. 316 Sanchez-Cuenca, 329-330. 317 Ibid, 328.

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policy.318 Sanchez-Cuenca contends that this thinking is diametrically opposed to Downsian

logic, as it supposes that voters preferences are not exogenous.319 Rather, it considers voters

decisions to be a result of the very activities of the party.320 Thus, through this lens parties may think

that their ideologically driven policies are the cause for their popularity, and hope that the party will

attract progressively more votes without renouncing its basic ideological tenants.321 There is another

explanation for this tendency though, and that is the observation by Sanchez-Cuenca that there are

parties that seem to exist in order to defend certain principles, regardless of policy outcomes.322

This phenomenon is generally attributed to parties that derive expressive utility from defending

principles.323

In studying socialist parties in Europe during the twentieth century Michels produced what he

termed to be the iron law of oligarchy, which found that most political parties are controlled by a

small group of leaders who develop strategies with minimum input from the masses.324 In relation to

this, he argues that there tends to be two primary ways in which radical socialist parties moderate:

the pursuit of votes, and organizational survival.325 With regards to the former, he found that when

party elites participate in elections they quickly realize that espousing radical ideological policies

alienates large segments of the electorate.326 As a result, the party in question will seek to transform

into a vote-maximizing electoral party in order to remain politically viable.327 As Tezcur points out

though, this causal process is based on the assumption that vote-maximization entails developing

centrist political platforms rather than radical ones.328 As pertains to the latter, Michels also found

that political parties concern with organizational survival often serves to lessen their radical

318 Sanchez-Cuenca, 330. 319 Ibid. 320 Ibid. 321 Sanchez-Cuenca, 330. 322 Ibid. 323 Ibid. 324 Michels, 18. 325 Ibid, 333. 326 Ibid, 334. 327 Ibid. 328 Tezcur, 71.

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ideological commitment.329 This is a result of the tendency for electoral partic