Right-Wing Extremism in the Netherlands: Why it is still a marginal phenomenon

Paper presented at the Symposium Right-Wing Extremism in Europe Organized by the Academy for Politics and Current Affairs of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Munich
in cooperation with the European Centre for Research and Action on Racism and Antisemitism (C.E.R.A.), Paris at Berlin, 3 - 5 November 2000.

At present, right-wing extremism seems a really marginal phenomenon in the Netherlands. Only three or four political parties may belong to this political family, if we define it broadly as a combination of nationalism, racism and xenophobia. None of them is represented at the national parliament or even at a provincial parliament; and only two of them hold a seat in a municipal parliament. Together they count probably less than 1000 members, at present.
How to explain this? Is it the electoral system that prevents the rise of new parties, as in Britain? No: the Dutch system is extremely kind to newcomers; merely 0.7 of the popular vote suffices to win a seat in parliament. Are there no immigrants or refugees in the Netherlands? Yes there are; more than 40,000 refugees, and almost 40,000 legal immigrants (and an unknown number of illegal immigrants) arriving each year. I suggest we have to use a more historical approach to explain the relative failure of right-wing extremist organisations in this country. Therefore, I will present here the history of the Extreme Right in the Netherlands; and I will do so from three angles: organisational development, ideology and electoral support.

	Right-Wing Extremism in the Netherlands