On November 22nd, the Netherlands found itself at the centre of worldwide press coverage as a political earthquake struck its parliament. The Party for Freedom, led by populist ‘radical-right’ politician Geert Wilders (whom many caricature as the ‘Dutch Trump’), won 37 seats in the 150-seat Second Chamber. Hundreds of left-wing voters immediately gripped banners firmly in their fists and took to the streets of Utrecht and Amsterdam to protest his dramatic victory.
As the face of the party he helped found in 2006, Wilders has slowly established himself in the Dutch political scene. For two decades, he has seduced the electorate with his incendiary rhetoric, desperately seeking to curb immigration (mostly of Muslim Moroccans), leave the European Union, and “put the Dutch first.” It seems all too familiar. In this election victory, as in many other moments that punctuated European political history in the last decade, the populist radical-right vote and abstention rate have reached historic highs. This has profound implications for the political balance at the upcoming European elections in June 2024.
The recent Dutch election demonstrates a bifurcation that has been increasingly significant across liberal democracies. Will voters choose a man of the people like Wilders, who promises to “put the Dutch first,” or an elite cosmopolitan figure like Frans Timmermans, who frequents the Belgian capital? Wilders once told the son of a diplomat, “You speak seven languages, but not the language of the people.” But who are “the people?” Mainstream media outlets have encouraged us to blame old white men in the hinterland for the electoral successes of Wilders’ counterparts Donald Trump, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orban, and Marine Le Pen. Isn’t it high time that we develop a more nuanced sociological picture of the populist voters who have been decisive in reshaping party politics across the West?
Why is populism increasingly attractive?
Over the past decade, political discontent has been growing in response to mounting economic problems. Trust in the democratic process has begun to fray, and liberal democracies have exposed the frailty of their political landscape with changes in the morphology of their party space, notably in the rise of radical-right populist parties, which are often seen as a protest vote against the mainstream. These parties emerged after waves of radicalization that mobilised opposition to the political establishment and the wide centrist consensus. One would be hard-pressed to pinpoint a region in the world where populism has not been a salient point in political discourse during the last decade.
‘Populism’ has been widely debated as a concept in academic literature, but Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde’s definition helps clarify the crucial yet complex meaning of this phenomenon: it is “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will).” It usually comprises several factors, including a Manichean moral cosmology whereby there is a stark, morally laden classification between a homogenous good and a homogenous evil. There is a proclamation of the people as homogenous and virtuous, whilst the elite are portrayed as corrupt and self-serving. More often than not, however, populism has been called a ‘thin ideology’ insofar as it is about depicting the people, rather than espousing a coherent ideology that clearly defines what its adherents stand for.
On both sides of the Atlantic, populism marries the vertical and horizontal dimensions together by painting caricatures of ‘the elite’ who are insensitive to the economic struggles of the masses and are also culturally deracinated. Two theories especially promote our understanding of the root causes of populism: (1) the economic shock model—centred on economic grievances and globalisation, and (2) the cultural shock model. While it may seem easy to presuppose what a populist voter should look like after engaging with these models, insights into the Dutch election complicate the widely held sociological caricature of the populist voter.
The economic shock model is incomplete
The globalisation or economic insecurity thesis figures prominently in discussions of populism. Its central claim is that, as economies become increasingly interconnected, there have been exogenous changes to the labour market, such as globalisation, migration, and automation. Many developed countries have seen their economies decline in the last decade and the working class has especially experienced the full brunt of economic fallout. As those in the upper echelons of society have embraced globalisation for its panoply of benefits, many others have felt left out. This is where radical right populist movements enter the picture. Many political commentators and academics have thoroughly discussed how parties of the populist Right most successfully appeal to the fears of the ‘losers’ of globalisation and weaponise their rampant anxieties.
However, the economic shock model should not be taken in isolation. Many have lost track of the persistent interaction of economic and cultural grievances. Since 2017, however, a host of scholars have been intervening in this debate and attributing the rise of populism to cultural factors.
Pipa Norris and Ronald Inglehart notably take centre stage in investigating radical-right populism through their ‘Cultural Backlash Theory.’ They contend a reaction against the sweeping shift to progressive cultural values must also be taken into account to explain the rising popularity of the populist radical-right, on top of economic insecurity. In the case of Wilders, it is interesting to note that his party was polling at 12% in early October. However, after the Israel-Hamas war commenced and pro-Palestine protests swept the nation, support for his party skyrocketed. There is nothing that announces cultural change more than a sea of Palestinian flags across a cosmopolitan capital. Such an occurrence is a vivid reminder that foreign geopolitical conflicts can take precedence over local issues. For weeks, tens of thousands of people thronged the streets to show their support for Palestine and Hamas, and some were ready to engage in violence. It’s fair to surmise that these highly charged events prompted many Dutch voters to rally behind the poster child for the anti-Islam Right as they saw the rotten fruit of rapid cultural changes ferment under their very noses.
Shattering the image of the old, blue-collar, white, male, rural voter
Norris and Inglehart claim that this new cultural fissure is between populists (uneducated, provincial, old, mostly white men) and the well-educated, liberal, cosmopolitan elite. Many scholars also bolster this observation, claiming that reactionary right-wing populists are by and large uneducated, white men. This cleavage is also evident in common parlance. From the ivory tower of academia, we hear university students condescendingly describe populist voters as poor and ignorant old men.
However, political scientist Armin Schäfer recently revealed flaws in this mainstream observation. He illustrates that younger cohorts are more likely to vote for populist leaders than older ones. Even though millennials are portrayed as progressive, they have the highest probability of voting for populist leaders.
It is therefore urgent to reconsider the cultural backlash theory. There may indeed be a backlash that has been developing, but the demographics of such a phenomenon may be more diverse than expected. Protest voting and a propensity towards extremism are typically more ubiquitous among younger generations. The temptation to go to extremes—in response to resentment and distrust of institutional politics—is at a high level and winning over diverse segments of youth. Over 41% of 18-35 year old Europeans have actually been inching towards the Right and radical-right, while only 26% are moving to the Left. Only 40% of Europeans between the ages of 16 and 29 trust political actors, and young people believe less in the traditional Left/Right divide than older generations.
The political behaviour of young people enables us to understand political shifts and envisage the contours of the future democratic landscape. Nonetheless, the widespread assumption that young adults are inclined towards the progressive Left makes it difficult to admit the electoral anchoring of the populist radical-right among young voters. It boils down to invisibility: many of the young populist radical-right supporters don’t have a voice in the debate because they’re drop-outs or live in the countryside.
To challenge the presupposed demographic of the cultural backlash theory even further, in France, Éric Zemmour’s populist radical-right party Reconquête was set up by young, highly educated, and urban militants, known as Génération Z; and Le Pen gained credibility specifically among the younger generation. 42% of 18 to 24-year-olds maintain that Rassemblement National has the capacity to participate in government (38% of all French people). In Poland, about one-fifth of voters under 30 (compared to 1% of those over 60) chose the radical-right and supported Konfederacja’s leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke. According to the Italian polling institute Ixè, Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia was the most popular party among young people aged 18 to 34 in the 2022 elections, with almost 20% of young people voting for it.
Finally—and perhaps more strikingly—according to the most recent Ipsos data, Wilders’ party was able to draw in the greatest number of younger voters compared to other parties: 17% of voters in the 18-34 age range supported PVV, whereas it was at a mere 7% in previous elections. 10% of those with college degrees favoured PVV, revealing that, in total, more educated voters supported PVV than supported Democrats (66). Wilders did not only gain support in the rural heartland but also in numerous urban areas. As for gender, the male to female ratio was at 53:47. The PVV is also becoming increasingly attractive to immigrant-origin voters: it garnered the most support of any party among Dutch people with Caribbean roots.
The political earthquake that rocked the land of tulips also shattered an image that has been engraved in the Dutch imagination. The portrait of the angry, resentful, poorly educated, old, white, male populist has been replaced by a new ensemble of 2.4 million voters more varied than hitherto imagined. If the Dutch victory sent shock waves beyond its borders, it should also remind us that Europe’s populist radical-right seems to have the wind in its sails and that its voters are defying the clumsy caricatures constructed for them by the mainstream media.