HOW THE NETHERLANDS BECAME A HOTBED OF NEOLIBERALISM
In the 1980s, Dutch politics underwent a neoliberal turn overseen by the Christian Democrat Ruud Lubbers. It formed part of an international trend, famously spearheaded by Reagan and Thatcher. What was new, however, was the way Lubbers depoliticized his reforms and sold them to the public as ‘no-nonsense’ politics. When social democrats and trade unions came to embrace neoliberal reform in the mid-1990s, an elite consensus was forged.
In this path-breaking study, Merijn Oudenampsen traces the long shadow these developments cast over Dutch politics. Neoliberalism helped nurture the right-wing populism of Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders and inspired the austerity policies of the right-wing liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte. A bleak political template was created for the world.
About the Author
Merijn Oudenampsen is a political scientist, specialized in the study of political ideas. For his PhD, he studied the ideas behind the rise of right-wing populism in the Netherlands. It was published as The Rise of the Dutch New Right (Routledge, 2021) and won the Choice Outstanding Academic Titles Award. Together with the historian Bram Mellink he wrote the book Neoliberalisme: Een Nederlandse Geschiedenis, which traces the history of neoliberalism in the Netherlands all the way back to the 1930s. He writes a column for the Dutch weekly De Groene Amsterdammer and is based in Amsterdam.
What People Are Saying
"A master class in myth-busting, this book lays bare the triangulation and self-serving politicking that turned a social democracy into the Netherlands Inc." Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism
"In this careful and insightful book Oudenampsen shows that, in the Netherlands, the greatest trick neoliberalism ever pulled was convincing us that it doesn't exist. How does a deeply political ideology mask itself as technocratic, consensual, pragmatic, and inevitable? Here we find answers that wind through Dutch politics, government, and intellectual history, in which technocrats, economists, and social scientists take center-stage. No Nonsense is necessary reading for anyone interested in the forms, reach, and effects of Western neoliberalism." Stephanie L. Mudge, author of Leftism Revisited: Western Parties from Socialism to Neoliberalism
"Long viewed as a model of consensus and moderation, the Netherlands has in recent decades been rocked by waves of right-wing radicalism. In this highly engaging book, Merijn Oudenampsen makes that shift comprehensible by showing how neoliberalism took hold of Dutch politics and how it drove a decimation of the social safety net while expanding the privileges and subsidies enjoyed by corporations and asset owners. The definitive history of economic politics and policy in the Netherlands since the seventies, and a major contribution to neoliberalism literature." Martijn Konings, author of The Bailout State: Why Governments Rescue Banks, Not People
