Governance and politics of the Netherlands

Book abstract:

This book is aimed at an audience of both Dutch and non-Dutch speaking people who have an interest in but no prior knowledge of governance and politics in the Netherlands. Whilst the rest of Europe struggles to give voice to its minority ethnic communities the Netherlands have created a system of Government dependent on the coalescence of it's minority groups. The opening chapter discusses the historical and constitutional development of the country and introduces the main players and institutions in the governance and politics of the Netherlands. The next chapter explores the role of social and religious minorities in the development of a social system and a political style of consensus democracy. The subsequent chapters go on to examine the role of individual players and institutions and their contribution to Government. Chapters three to six explore citizens, the parties, the core executive and Parliament. The bureaucracy, organised interests and the judiciary are covered in chapter seven, and sub national and supranational (i.e. European) governments in chapter eight. The interaction of all these players and the product from that are discussed in the context of two policy areas - socio-economic policy in chapter nine and foreign policy in chapter ten. The final chapter summarises the main conclusions of the earlier chapters and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the Dutch system of governance and assesses its future prospects.
The work will interest students and academics in the fields of European Studies and Comparative Politics.