The week brought moment after moment when you thought: it is as if the entire building in The Hague is tottering. Normally, national politics Europe likes to lecture. On Friday, the Council of Europe lectured national politics – and not about a few rules, but about democracy itself.
Ten months ago, the Rutte III cabinet promised to help the victims of the Allowances Affair. Monday noted the National Ombudsman that the government is unable to help most victims.
On Thursday, one of the best MPs, Bart Snels (GroenLinks), announced his departure – out of opposition to close cooperation with the PvdA, and out of aversion to the ‘destructive politics’ in the House.
You heard about the formation that a modest policy agenda is the most promising way to keep things going for the time being. After the difficult months, relations between the politicians involved are fragile, and confidence in the new cabinet is low, so on Wednesday you heard at the top of one of the negotiating parties: “We lack the strength to make many bold choices.”
And to top it off, there was Tuesday D66 leader Sigrid Kaag, who attended the criminal case against a man who threatened her with death, followed later in the week by a NOS-message about numerous death threats to Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
It confirmed that the abnormal is now normal: every well-known politician has to live with the prospect of angry compatriots turning their intimidation into action.
So democracy itself, the government, the House of Representatives, formative parties, party leaders: they all had their turn – and you wondered: who will finally break through this malaise?
Attempts were made – but unfortunately they only underlined the problem. so had Platform O, an interesting publication at the intersection of civil service and public administration, the announcement of a Success Story Festival.
“Anyone involved in the public sector”, was there, “is invited to submit true and especially beautifully told stories about small and large victories in government land.”
Well-intentioned of course, demonstrating that the government is more than the Allowance Affair, but you thought: if they encourage each other to be positive about themselves above all, they will do exactly what everyone in The Hague is already doing.
Because anyone who tried to fathom the malaise encountered the same behavioral pattern in most domains in The Hague: cheering for yourself and dealing with others.
And the interesting thing was: when you heard what kind of lyrics suspect the threat of politicians, they are often angry people who also want their excellent insights to be heard. And now you listen to me.
You could dismiss this as the behavior of frustrated muddle-heads, but anyone who read the Council of Europe’s recommendations for Dutch democracy actually encountered the same inconvenience. The Council wants the position of people’s representatives vis-à-vis the government to be strengthened with money for employees and the right to information. counterforce.
In short, MPs should be able to say: now you listen to us.
Only: from the criticism of the departed MP Snels, who was the initiator of the parliamentary investigation into the Allowance Affair, you could conclude that the parliament is not modest in imposing its views and analyses, on others.
For example, Snels denounced the desire to ‘damage politicians’, to put ‘civil servants in the dock’ and to call government officials ‘liar’ at the end of the day.
This is how The Hague works now: from each domain, requirements are set for other domains – with which everyone places the problem outside themselves. Childish unreasonableness, which also reveals something serious: the relations between the cabinet, the House, civil servants and citizens have been thrown off balance and need a new balance.
It also has to do with the changing sense of democracy in society. The fatigue about democratic habits is quite widespread. The slow search for balance in decision-making – an administrative tradition – loses out to the desire for speed – the short cut. Enough talk. No more numbers. Now I am.
The fragmentation is of course also an expression of this. Voters prefer not to identify with parties that have people with dissenting opinions or a different identity: in the safety of like-minded people it is easier to settle with others.
The paradox is that political scientists often point out that fragmentation is good for confidence in democracy. In itself logical: more people find a political home. But the disadvantage is also enormous: precisely in the last six months, with nineteen factions in the House, it has been shown that the same fragmentation stimulates a spectacle void: MPs, especially new ones, who have difficulty drawing attention to themselves – and therefore perform the strangest antics.
An additional handicap is that they operate during a period of media fatigue. The fear of corona is declining, so after 2020, with sky-high viewing and click rates, people are now consuming less news and information. Sjoerd Pennekamp of Stichting Kijkonderzoek sent me data showing that informative programs and talk shows had even fewer viewers last September than September 2019.
An uncomfortable reality for MPs: more competition in The Hague, less interest in the country. Solution: more antics.
It completes the circle, because with this eccentricity comes the sharpening of polarization in the national assembly hall. The NCTV noted in April that ‘negative forms of polarisation’ promote ‘social unrest’ and ‘radicalisation processes’, certainly also through the fight against corona.
So parliamentary debates in which crude language, heavy accusations and conspiracy theories go hand in hand have long ceased to be entertainment: they underline a loss of parliamentary civilization from which the entire democracy suffers.
A transition period like this, and the malaise in which the political-administrative community finds itself, can only come to an end if political leaders dare to risk their authority for it. Rutte is the first to be appointed for this. It just takes an alarmingly long time for him to assert himself at this point.
But in the end it is about more than the prime minister. The relationship between the House of Representatives and the Cabinet must be redefined. The relationship between the Chamber and officials. The working agreements of the Chamber itself. With three parliamentary inquiries ahead of them, people do make themselves very vulnerable if more departing MPs such as Snels determine that parliament is mainly out to ‘damage’ other politicians.
But the main thing is of course that the government can again be trusted by its citizens. And that at the head of that government is someone who wants to continuously radiate this awareness. He knows that the resulting breach of trust has not been healed with some nice promises.
Because thinking that you will leave this malaise behind with a few extra Success Stories Festivals ignores the depth of the issue. The Hague in its various capacities has now cheered enough for itself, and settled enough with others.
In this regard – as an exercise – a reversal would be a fascinating experiment for MPs, ministers and civil servants: obligatory cheering for citizens for about three years, and only dealing with themselves.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 16 October 2021
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of October 16, 2021