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Electoral Stability and Electoral Change: The Case of Dutch Catholics*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Herman Bakvis
Herman Bakvis
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , September 1981 , pp. 519 - 555
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Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1981

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References

1 “Deviant case analysis” involves comparing two groups that differ in outcome (dependent variable) and attempts to find differences in conditions between them (independent variable[s]). One of the groups consists of the deviant case proper, which in this case is the Dutch Catholic bloc, and the other the “normal” cases, that is Catholic blocs in other societies. Lijphart, Arend, “The Comparable Cases Strategy in Comparative Research,” Comparative Political Studies 8 (1975), 160–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smelser, Neil, “The Methodology of Comparative Analysis,” in Warwick, P. and Osherson, S. (eds.), Comparative Research Methods (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 56Google Scholar; Molnar, G., “Deviant Case Analysis in Social Science,” Politics 2(1967), 1–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Lijphart, Arend, “Religious vs. Linguistic vs. Class Voting: The ‘Crucial Experiment’ of Comparing Belgium, Canada, South Africa and Switzerland,” American Political Science Review 73 (1979), 442–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Converse, Philip E., “Some Priority Variables in Comparative Electoral Research,” in Rose, Richard (ed.), Electoral Behavior: A Comparative Handbook (New York: Free Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Rose, R. and Urwin, D., “Social Cohesion, Political Parties and Strains in Regimes,” Comparative Political Studies 2 (1969), 7–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S., “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments: An Introduction,” in Rokkan, Lipset (eds.). Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press, 1967), 50–51Google Scholar; Irvine, W. P. and Gold, H., “Do Frozen Cleavages Ever Go Stale? The Bases of the Canadian and Australian Party Systems,” British Journal of Political Science 10 (1980), 187–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Liepelt, Klaus, “The Infra-Structure of Party Support in Germany and Austria,” in Dogan, M. and Rose, R. (eds.), European Politics (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), 183–202Google Scholar; Sartori, G., Parties and Party Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 147ffGoogle Scholar; Miller, W. E. and Stouthard, P., “Confessional Attachment and Electoral Behavior in the Netherlands,” European Journal of Political Research 3 (1975), 219–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Houska, J., “The Organizational Connection: Elites, Masses, and Elections in Austria and the Netherlands” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1979), 14Google Scholar.

3 The feats and means of cooperation between the leaders of the major parties in governing the country have been well documented in Lijphart's classic study The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (3rd ed.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

4 The precise estimate of the percentage Catholics voting for the Catholic party varies somewhat. See Appendix for details.

5 For data on Belgium see Keith Hill, “Belgium: Political Change in a Segmented Society,” in Rose (ed.), Electoral Behavior, 61, 81. Hill notes that the only reliable data available are from a 1968 survey which indicates that about 58 per cent of Belgians are “practising” Catholics. For Italy, see Lawrence Hazelrigg, “Religious and Class Bases of Political Conflict in Italy,” American Journal of Sociology 75 (1970), 502Google Scholar. He estimates that less than one-half the population could be classified as either moderate or strict Catholic. For the Netherlands see Wolinetz, Steven, “Party Re-Alignment in the Netherlands” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1973), 97Google Scholar. It is worth noting that 89 per cent of Dutch Catholics fell into the “regular mass attendance” category in 1956.

6 Annuaire Statique de la Suisse 1965 (Bâle: Bureau Fédérale de Statique, 1965), 41Google Scholar; Mackie, T. and Rose, R., The International Almanac of Electoral History (London: Macmillan, 1974), 157Google Scholar.

7 Morsey, R., Die Deutsche Zentrumspartei 1917–1823 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1966), 11–24Google Scholar; Laponce, Jean, The Protection of Minorities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), 154–55Google Scholar.

8 Campbell, Angus et al., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960), esp. chap. 6Google Scholar.

9 See for example Butler, D. and Stokes, D., Political Change in Britain (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), 17–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Converse, P., “Of Time and Partisan Stability,” Comparative Political Studies 2 (1969), 141–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Thijn, E. van, “Kritische Kanttekeningen bij een Trek naar Rechts,” Sociologische Gids 10 (1963), 239Google Scholar; Wolinetz, “Party Re-Alignment in the Netherlands,” 85, 111. Wolinetz states that both “party and subcultural identifications were strong factors in the Netherlands” (“Party Re-Alignment in the Netherlands,” 111, fn. 1). It could be that Wolinetz is referring to different subpopulations, some having strong party identifications, other subcultural identifications. I would argue, however, that at the individual level it is not possible to have both. Furthermore, if party identification is seen as a function of subcultural identification then this would considerably reduce the status of the former as an independent variable. At best it can only be seen as an intervening variable. For further discussion of the problem, see Robertson, R., “Surrogates for Party Identification in the Rational Choice Framework,” in Budge, I. et al. (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond (London: Wiley, 1976), 365–82Google Scholar.

11 Wolinetz, “Party Re-Alignment in the Netherlands,” 90.

12 Campbell, A. and Valen, H., “Party Identification in Norway and the U.S.,” Public Opinion Quarterly 25 (1961), 57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Shively, W. P., “Party Identification, Party Choice, and Voting Stability: The Weimar Case,” American Political Science Review 66 (1972), 1203–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Ibid., 1214.

15 Ibid., 1222.

16 I am following Lijphart and Ronald Rogowski in the use of the term “pillar.” According to Rogowski, “In any highly stratified society, a faction that contains members of every stratum in rough proportion to their respective fractions of the total population of the society will be called a pillar” (Rogowski, R., Rational Legitimacy: A Theory of Political Support [Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1974], 102Google Scholar; see also Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, 16–23). For an overview of the “depillarization” theme in the Netherlands and elsewhere see Lorwin, Val, “Segmented Pluralism: Ideological Cleavages and Political Cohesion in the Smaller European Democracies,” Comparative Politics 3 (1971), 163ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, 16–18; Lorwin, “Segmented Pluralism,” 141–44; Roth, Guenther, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany: A Study in Working-Class Isolation and National Integration (Totowa: Bedminster. 1963), 11–12Google Scholar.

18 For example, Liepelt, “The Infra-Structure of Party Support in Germany and Austria,” 185ff. The market factor is implicit in Lorwin's “Segmented Pluralism,” but he does not tackle the point directly. Rogowski, Rational Legitimacy, does deal with this factor but on a much higher and more abstract level using the rational choice framework.

19 “Segmented Pluralism,” Table 2, 154.

20 Ellemers, J., “The Revolt of the Netherlands: The Part Played by Religion in the Process of Nation-Building,” Social Compass 14 (1967), 93–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Thurlings, J. M. G., De wankele zuil: Nederlandse katholieken tussen assimilatie en pluralism (Deventer: Van Loghum Slaterus, 1978), 23–24Google Scholar.

22 This influence is referred to as the Calvinist penetration. The Dutch Church has always been much more literal and rigorous in its interpretation and application of rules: Dutch Catholics were much stricter in their Sunday observance and they had many more fasting days than did the Belgians for example. See Heek, F. van, Het geboorte-niveau der Nederlandse Rooms-Katholieken (Leiden: Stenfert Kroese, 1954), 126ffGoogle Scholar.

23 Ibid., 164; Laan, H., De Rooms-katholieke kerkorganisalie in Nederland (Utrecht: Bijleveld, 1967), 91Google Scholar. It should be noted that the Dutch Church has only had an ecclesiastical hierarchy since 1853. The previous one was withdrawn at the time of the reformation and in the interval the Dutch Church province was ruled directly from Rome.

24 In the Netherlands the ratio during the 1950s was 480 Catholics per priest compared with ratios of 1,000, 910, 727, 636 in West Germany, Austria, Italy, and Ireland respectively (Katholiek Sociaal-Kerkelijk Instituut [KASKI], “Katholicisme in West-Europa en de wereldkerk,” Memorandum No. 113, 1960, 18).

25 For details on the Pacification see Daalder, Hans, “The Netherlands: Opposition in a Segmented Society,” in Dahl, R. (ed.), Political Opposition in Western Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 200–01Google Scholar; Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, 111–12. For an excellent history of Dutch Catholicism in the period 1850–1953 see Rogier, L. J. and de Rooy, N., In vrijheid herboren: Katholiek Nederland, 1853–1953 (The Hague: Pax, 1953)Google Scholar.

26 For an overview of the freezing of party alignments see Wolinetz, “Party Re-Alignment in the Netherlands,” 17–28. Before 1918 a different electoral system based on multimember districts was in operation which provided a different set of incentives for electoral mobilization, to a large degree working to the disadvantage of the nascent Catholic party. Thus in the north and west where Catholics were in a minority, Catholics threw their support first behind the Liberals and later the Anti-Revolutionaries (Calvinists). This still indicates a high degree of control on the part of the clergy and Catholic political organizations. See H. Daalder, “The Netherlands,” 204; Verhoef, J., “Kiesstelsels en politieke samenwerking in Nederland, 1888–1917,” Acta Politico 6 (1971), 261–68Google Scholar.

27 Bakvis, Herman, Catholic Power in the Netherlands (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1981)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

28 For data documenting the extent of Catholic organizational penetration, and the accelerated growth of Catholic organizations in the interwar period, see Kruijt, J. and Goddijn, W., “Verzuiling en ontzuiling als sociologisch proces,” in den Hollander, A. et al. (eds.), Drift en koers: Een halve eeuw sociale verandering in Nederland (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1962), 242–43Google Scholar.

29 For example, the birth rate for Dutch Catholics is much higher than is the case in the neighbouring countries of Germany and Belgium. Shortly after the Second World War the boundary between Germany and Holland was slightly redrawn. As a result a parish which had previously been in German terrotory was now part of Holland and henceforth came under the influence of Dutch Catholic lay organizations. From 1949 to 1959 the birth rate among Catholics in this community rose from 19.5 per 1,000 to 25.0 per 1,000. The birth rate in the adjoining territory in Germany fell from 16.3 to 12.9 in the same period. Petersen, W., “Fertility Trends and Population Policy: Some Comments on the Van Heek-Hofstee Debate,” Sociologica Neerlandica (1967), 2–16Google Scholar.

30 For data on number of interfaith marriages, memberships, and so forth, see Goudsblom, J., Dutch Society (New York: Random House, 1967), 35–61Google Scholar, 112–20. The 1954 letter by the bishops was known as Het Mandement (Zeist, 1954).

31 Poeisz, J., “God's People on the Way,” in van, M.Plas, der and Suèr, H. (eds.), Those Dutch Catholics (London: Chapman, 1967), 89Google Scholar. As regards educational underdevelopment: in 1947 only 26 per cent of secondary school students were Catholic although Catholics constituted over 38 per cent of the population. De ontwikkeling van het onderwijs in Nederland (The Hague: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 1966), 306–07Google Scholar.

32 During the postwar period the Catholic proportion of the total population grew from 38.5 per cent (1947) to 40.4 per cent (1960); but it would have been higher if all Catholics had remained within the fold given their greater birth rate. Hemert, M. van, Kerkelijke gezindten (The Hague: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 1979), 18Google Scholar.

33 Hoefnagels, H., Een eeuw sociale problematiek (Alphen A/D Rijn: Samsom, 1974), 61–62Google Scholar.

34 Dieteren, R., De migratie in de mijnstreek 1900–1935 (Nijmegen: Centrale Drukkerij, 1962), 34ffGoogle Scholar.

35 Bouman, P., Anton Philips: De mens, de ondernemer (Utrecht: Prisma, 1966), 187Google Scholar.

36 Rogier and De Rooy, In vrijheid herboren, 469.

37 Windmuller, John, Labor Relations in the Netherlands (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), 144–62Google Scholar.

38 Kaski, , “De betekenis van het sociaal onderzoek van radio en televisie. Voorstel vooreen onderzoek ten behoeve van de KRO,” Memorandum No. 130 (1961), 18Google Scholar.

39 Thurlings, De wankele zuil, 145–50.

40 Beaufays, Jean, Les partis Catholiques en Belgique el aux Pays-Bas, 1918–1958 (Brussels: Bruyland, 1973), 420Google Scholar.

41 Daalder, “The Netherlands,” 224. On party recruitment see Lipschits, I., “De politieke partijen de selectie van candidaten,” Sociologische Gids 10 (1963), 273–81Google Scholar.

42 Rogowski, Rational Legitimacy, 106–11.

43 Beaufays, Les partis Catholiques, 602–03.

44 Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, 37–38.

45 For example, KASKI, “De politieke structuur van Utrecht in vergelijking met de religieuze en maatschappellijke structuur,” Rapport No. 90b.1, 1953.

46 Gadourek, I., A Dutch Community: Social Cultural Structure and Process in a Bulb-growing Region in the Netherlands (Leiden: Stenfert Kroese, 1956), 435Google Scholar.

47 Ibid., 392.

48 Contextual variables such as these have not been well discussed in the literature. The best single work is by Tingsten, Herbert, Political Behavior (Totowa: Bedminster, 1963)Google Scholar; also see Elkins, David J., “Regional Contexts of Political Participation: Some Illustrations from South India,” this Journal 5 (1972), 167–89Google Scholar.

49 See Goddijn, W., “Catholic Minorities and Social Integration,” Social Compass 7 (1960), 161–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Hall, Peter, “A Polycentric Metropolis: Randstad Holland,” Delta 10 (1967), 12–16Google Scholar; Bouman, Anton Philips, 187, 243.

51 There are no northern urban districts where Catholics constitute more than 60 per cent of the population.

52 de Vries, J., “Spiral and Miracle: The Dutch Economy Since 1920,” Delta 13 (1970), 15–28Google Scholar. In spite of the rise in consumerism, the rate of geographical mobility remained relatively constant. See Heide, H. ter and Eichperger, Ch., “De interne migratie,” in Heeren, H. and Praag, P. van (eds.), Van nu to nul: Bevolkingsgroei en bevclkingspolitiek in Nederland (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1974), 226Google Scholar.

53 Why the shift on the part of the bishops remains an open question. In many ways their reorientation is consistent with traditional ideology, for example, literal interpretation of papal edicts and isolation from politics. For details see Bakvis, Catholic Power in the Netherlands, chap. 4; also Coleman, John A., The Evolution of Dutch Catholicism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978)Google Scholar, passim.

54 J. van, J. Th.Berg, den and Molleman, H. A. A., Crisis in de Nederlandse poliliek (Alphen A/D Rijn: Samsom, 1975), 165–74Google Scholar. The year 1966 was not the first time that the Catholic party had either suddenly withdrawn parliamentary support or broken with Catholic labour. In 1934 the RKSP broke with the Catholic trade union federation, and in 1935 it caused the sudden collapse of a coalition cabinet in which it was participating. Oud, P. J., Honderdjaren: Een eeuw van staatkundige vormgeving in Nederland, 1840–1940, revised by Bosmans, J. (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1979), 270–73Google Scholar: Eekeren, W. van, “The Catholic People's Party in the Netherlands: A Study of the Party's Origin, Unity, Organization and Policies” (unpublished doctoral dissertation. Georgetown University, 1956), 241Google Scholar.

55 Rates of decline in other sectors (for example, those depicted in Figure 2) are very similar to the rates in Figure 3.

56 Van den Berg and Molleman, Crisis in de Nederlandse politiek, 79–80, 85–87; Wolinetz, “Party Re-Alignment in the Netherlands,” 122–26.

57 Zeegers, G. H., God in Nederland (Amsterdam: Van Ditmar, 1967), 216–17Google Scholar.

58 A detailed analysis of the patterns of dispersion of Dutch voters during this period has been done by Dittrich, K., “De gevolgen van de verandering in partijvoorkeur van de Nederlandse kiezers sinds 1966 voor KVP en PvdA” (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Leiden, 1975)Google Scholar; also Galen Irwin, , “The Netherlands,” in Merkl, Peter H. (ed.), Western European Party Systems (New York: Free Press, 1980), 171–74Google Scholar.

59 Bakvis, Catholic Power in the Netherlands, chap. 4.

60 Ibid.; Thurlings, De wankele zuil, 138–45.

61 “The PCF, the State, and the Revolution: An Analysis of Party Policies, Communications, and Popular Culture,” in Blackmerand, D. L. M.Tarrow, S. (eds.), Communism in Italy and France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 133–34Google Scholar.

62 Hill, “Belgium,” 100.

63 Blackbourn, David, Class, Religion and Local Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 108–10Google Scholar; Van Heek, Het geboorte niveau der Nederlandse Rooms-Katholieken, 81–85, 164–66.

64 Jacques Thomassen has argued that party identification among Dutch voters is generally lacking, noting that partisanship is less stable than vote preference; that is, respondents were more likely to change their partisanship than their vote. However, Thomassen does not provide a detailed breakdown of his findings for the different blocs such as the Calvinists. Also the timing of the arrival of new parties during the period 1966–1972 might mean that some voters indicated a switch to a new party without ever having had the opportunity of voting for it, perhaps explaining Thomassen's unusual findings. Analyzing the different blocs separately and taking into account the arrival of new parties might alter the results and make the notion of party identification plausible for at least certain groups in the Netherlands. Thomassen, “Party Identification as a Cross-National Concept: Its Meaning in the Netherlands,” in Budge et al. (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond, 63–80.

65 Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, passim.

66 For a brief but useful overview on this question see McRae, K. D., “Comment: Federation, Consociation, Corporatism—An Addendum to Arend Lijphart,” this Journal 12 (1979), 517–22.Google Scholar

67 Lijphart finds that in a 1964 survey less than 1 per cent of KVP voters were non-Catholic. The Politics of Accommodation, 31.

68 “Stembusgedrag en maatschappijstructuur,” Sociologische Gids 10 (1963), 233Google Scholar. Kusters does not indicate the criteria used in arriving at the actual number of voting-age Catholics.