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Transcript of Research proposal v1.5
Success and Failure on the Populist Right: The Case of Wilders and Verdonk
Research Proposal
Matthijs van Tuijl
0850845
Master Thesis Political Behaviour and Communication
Leiden University
18-03-2011
Prof. Dr. Galen Irwin
Word count: 6666
‘I want to be Prime-Minister’1 was Rita Verdonk’s claim on October 18 2007, when
she founded her movement Trots op Nederland (TrotsNL, Proud of the Netherlands). At that
point in time that was not an unrealistic claim, with the opinion polls having her at 25 seats 2.
Geert Wilders with his Partij Voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Freedom Party), lost half of his support
in the polls to Verdonk when she announced her new party3. However, on June 9 2010, the
day of the Dutch General election, Wilders managed to secure 24 seats and Verdonk was
voted out completely by the people.4 How is it possible that Rita Verdonk could not win any
seats in the end and that Geert Wilders showed a significant growth?
That there was a potential for Verdonk to be successful was clear prior to the general
election in 2006, when she was involved in a fierce battle for the leadership of the Liberal
party (VVD) with now Prime-Minister Mark Rutte. She just lost, but did manage to get more
votes during that election than Rutte. With 620,555 votes, she got almost 100,000 votes more
than her party leader5. Verdonk was forced to leave the VVD after an internal dispute, with
the leadership contest, in practice, still going on after the elections. When she left, as figure 1
shows, she remained popular and was therefore for a while seen as a serious force within
Dutch politics. Geert Wilders, himself also a former VVD MP, having left the party a few
years earlier, enjoyed growing support after the elections until Verdonk founded her new
movement. At that point in time there were two new right wing parties looking for the favour
of the Dutch voter, only one was capable of claiming victory in the end.
Verdonk and Wilders have often been called populists, due to their approach to
politics (Lucardie 2007; Vossen 2010). While the reasons behind the political success of
populist parties have been studied in detail, focusing on elements as political leadership (or
charisma), protest voting and issue preferences (Eatwell 2005; Van der Burg and Mughan
2007), there is still no definite answer on how they manage to succeed and what elements are
most important. While there are many examples in Western Europe of populist parties
effectively claiming an influential position within their countries’ politics, the parties that do
not make it have received less attention.
What is interesting about the movements of Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders, as figure
1 shows, is that it was not just success or only failure. There were many ups and downs in
popularity in the years between elections. What happened during these years? Why did
1 ‘Verdonk wil in Torentje; ‘Trots op Nederland’ moet Fortuyn evenaren’ , De Telegraaf, October 18 20072 Nieuw Haags Peil, November 4, 20073 Nieuw Haags Peil, October 21, 20074 ‘Tweede Kamer 2010’, Kiesraad, June 9, 20105 ‘Proces-verbaal Tweede Kamer 2006’ , Kiesraad, November 27
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Verdonk not make it in the end while Wilders did will therefore be the puzzle of this thesis.
The findings of this study could contribute to a better understanding of the development of
populist parties in general. What explains the differences in electoral outcome for them? It
leads to the research question of this study.
What explains the success of the PVV and the failure of Trots op Nederland in the period
2006-2010?
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Parliamentary Opinion Polls 2006-2010
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Source Peil.nl
Figure 1.
1. Theory
In order to find an answer to the research question it is first necessary to look at what
these parties or movements actually are. It is claimed that Wilders and Verdonk are populists,
but what that is still remains somewhat ambiguous. Even though it is not the focus of this
study to define populism, it is important to know what we are actually dealing with. When
that definition is more clear, characteristics of the PVV and TON can be compared to that to
see if they fit the picture. If they can be qualified as populist parties, there is a possibility to
look at explanations for success and failure of populist parties and test these for Verdonk and
Wilders.
1.1. Populism
In Europe there is have been growing number of right wing populist parties entering the
arena and successfully claiming a position in national parliaments. According to some, the de-
alignment process that has taken place across Europe, has led to the rise of these new parties,
3
focusing more on party leaders and less on a fixed ideology (Dalton et al., 2002: 22, 31-32).
The FPÖ in Austria and the Danish People’s Party are just two examples of parties that even
managed to participate, in some form, in their countries’ government.
Populism is a concept that is not that easy to define in terms of when a party can be called
a populist party. It is a concept that has many features and is has developed over time. In his
study on populism, Paul Taggart (2000) describes this process and defines modern populism
as the New Populism, which has its roots in Western Europe. He sees it as a movement of
multiple parties across countries with some defining characteristics. First of all, it is reaction
to bureaucratised welfare states and corruption within the existing political parties. Secondly
these parties reconstruct politics around a key issue, either taxation, immigration and
nationalism or regionalism. Thirdly, they organise themselves differently from existing
parties, as a result of distrust of political institutions. Party membership is only active and
direct in the form of elected officials and personalised leadership is prevalent. Fourth, they
like to establish a link between the people and themselves and place themselves outside of the
centre of the political spectrum (Taggart, 2000: 75).
Canovan explains this link to the people more clearly by distinguishing between three
different types: the united people (as in a nation), our people (in an ethnic sense) and the
ordinary people (against the privileged) (Canovan, 1999: 5). These separate types make the
faces of populism more clear. It can focus on a certain ethnic group and be an excluding
factor or it can rebel against the elite and be the voice of the common man. The elite is seen as
corrupt and going against the general will. Cas Mudde considers that to be the centre piece of
populism, the restoration of the will of the people in a country. In that way, populism is a very
moralistic ‘ideology’ (Mudde, 2004: 543-544). In this view, the common man is no longer in
power, the elite is and that is de facto a bad thing. Populist parties are there to restore popular
control over a nation.
The important thing to realise from the New Populism of Taggart is that these parties are
effectively trying to find a niche in politics based on dissatisfaction with modern politics.
They see politics as no longer representing the people and try to re-establish that link with
them by focusing on issues that appeal to certain groups in society. As Taggart explains, the
people are here portrayed as an unity within a heartland. That heartland can best be seen as an
imaginary place that emphasises all the good and virtues aspects of life. It is however not all
inclusive. It is to a large extent based on nationalism of an ‘organic community’, excluding
certain groups in society (Taggart, 2000: 95, 97). Related to this is the creation of conspiracy
theories. The elite conspires together, no longer protects the heartland and there should be
4
something done about that. This is argued to be a major factor to mobilise support (Ibid.:
105).
Leadership is also a defining feature of populist parties. With populist parties you can
have two types of leadership. The more common is the type based on charisma, centred
around leaders with a large popular appeal. When, however, this is not present, it is argued
that in that case it tends to be authoritarian (Ibid.: 103). The result of this leadership is the
creation of a populist mood. The idea is that something needs to change fundamentally and
the country needs to be reshaped. This mood has the power to encourage otherwise non active
citizens to participate in politics and to get out and vote (Canovan, 1999: 6).
Interesting points are raised by Mudde in clarifying some basic elements of populism,
related to democracy and leadership. As he argues, when it comes to democracy, populist
parties want responsive government not necessarily direct democracy. They want the outcome
to be representative of the will of the people, but those people do not have to participate
directly, as long as they are heard. On the point of leadership, he says that the people want
their leaders to be in touch, but not be one of them (Mudde, 2004: 558-559). This marks some
interesting aspects of populist parties and can explain the apparent paradox of authoritarian
leadership and listening to the will of the people. That will needs to be represented by the
political leaders, but the people should not take over from them. Other scholars present a
somewhat different picture and argue that populist parties will demand more direct
democracy. Democracy should in that view be seen as an ideal that includes ‘referenda,
popular consultation and direct elections of office- holders (Keman and Krouwel, 2007: 25).
1.2. Wilders and Verdonk as Populists
In order to analyse the success and failure of populist parties in the case of Wilders and
Verdonk, it is important to establish what kind of characteristics they share with this populist
image just sketched. If they are populist leaders, then it is possible to test explanations of
success and failure of populism for them. If they differ from the ideal populist picture, then
this can be taken in account when conducting this study.
Koen Vossen, comparing Wilders and Verdonk in terms of populist tendencies, has
distinguished seven features of populism comparable to the points mentioned above (see table
1) . Some of them, the ‘folksy style’ and ‘voluntarist approach’, are somewhat similar to other
points. The folksy style more or less relates to how politicians act, being one of the people,
speaking with the same language. The voluntarist approach relates to politics not having to be
as complex, the peoples’ qualities are enough to govern (Vossen, 2010: 25). These two points
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clearly focus on the incompetent elite in comparison to the people. It again stresses the fact
that the political organisation has become filled with an unnecessary bureaucracy that needs to
be fixed. The voluntarist approach also moves away from a politician as a professional. The
common man should be represented and therefore there is no need for professionals.
(Vossen, 2010: 34)
Wilders
As shown in table 1, Vossen has some doubts about the basic idea of Geert Wilders as
a populist in the traditional way. He calls Wilders a half-hearted populist, mainly because he
is a professional politician and he is not glorifying the people to the extent that a true populist
would do. Instead Wilders also criticizes the people on occasions (Vossen, 2010: 30). The
interesting thing about this is that Wilders is a former MP for the VVD, as is Rita Verdonk,
but in contrast to her, he spent quite some more time there. He had been active for the
parliamentary party since 1990, working as a policy advisor. Known as a hard worker,
Wilders lived politics. This is illustrated by the fact that when he was forced to leave
parliament after the 2002 elections, he was devastated, having no alternative for politics
whatsoever (Fennema, 2010: 66). Wilders can therefore with reason be called a professional
politician and not so much a ‘common man’.
He does however not completely refrain from populist rhetoric. When he presented his
candidates for the 2011 elections for the provinces he emphasised the importance of the
citizens in contrast to the elite. He claimed he wanted to return Limburg to the people of
Limburg. According to him, politics in the Netherlands focuses too much on the elite in the
Hague, which needs to change 6. This phrase was later repeated by Prime Minister Mark
Rutte, who’s government relies on the support of the PVV. A leading opposition MP then
accused the PM of using ‘PVV rhetoric’7. This example shows that Wilders indeed from time 6 ‘PVV: Limburg terug naar Limburgers’, RTL Nieuws, December 10, 20107 ‘Rutte gebruikt PVV retoriek’, Trouw, March 5, 2011
6
to time uses this populist feature and can even be argued to successfully influence the
government with it.
What Wilders more clearly emphasises is his fight against the elite. He has managed
to create a link between progressive politics and the anti-establishment idea of populism. He
has created an image of the Dutch elite as a leftist elite with an inclination for cultural and
moral relativism (Vossen, 2010: 27 ). It might be this explicit definition of the elite that
explains how being a professional politician at the one hand but mixing that with some form
of populism at the other. It is just a certain part of the political spectrum that is completely on
the wrong path. Wilders wrote a ‘declaration of independence’, his starting point for his
movement. In it he explicitly mentions that elite let ‘this’ happen and now throw their hands
in the air and say there is nothing they can do about it anymore (Fennema, 2010: 103).
With this he focused on the cultural aspects. This also shows his focus on the
progressive elite, conspiring against society. He made a distinction between the Labour party
of Wouter Bos, which he thought to be pampering, and the VVD. The people that did not
want it to go completely wrong, should vote VVD (Ibid., 105). The exponent of this focus on
the cultural and moral relativism of the Dutch elite, is his own conspiracy theory about Islam
taking over Europe (Eurabia). As Vossen shows, Wilders actively spreads this image of
islamification, referring to many experts in the field. With this he is trying to give weight to
his claims and focus his campaign on the issue of immigration of Moslim immigrants
(Vossen, 2010: 27).
Vossen gives no definite answer on whether Wilders is a charismatic leader, calling it
difficult to measure in his case because of the closed nature of the party. However, the style of
leadership is more important in his case. Wilders is the only member of his party, trying to
control the internal decision making (Ibid.:28). This relates to the points made by Taggart on
authoritarian leadership. Wilders, whether charismatic or not, should then more be seen as an
authoritarian leader.
Paul Lucardie (2007), also shows the special position Wilders has put himself in. He
qualifies Wilders as a right-wing, semi- hearted liberal nationalist and populist (181). As well
as Vossen, he acknowledges that the behaviour of Wilders is not one of standard populism.
Wilders focuses on freedom, but it is limited and very inconsistent with respect to (Islamic)
religion. The populism, although by some seen as limited is according to Lucardie clearly
noticeable in his reference to the people and the corrupt elite (2007: 179-180).
Geert Wilders, although not being the ideal type, can therefore be characterised as a
populist politician. His anti-elite politics and the focus on Islam as the key issue around
7
immigration are clear indicators. Wilders is a professional politician and in that way linked to
the establishment, but still manages to create an image of being a person that wants to
distance himself from ‘the politics in the Hague’. Claiming to return the country to the people
is a good example of that. The leadership elements can also be found, although maybe not in
the classic charismatic way. Half-hearted or not, Wilders still scores very high on some
defining features.
Verdonk
Where Wilders is a somewhat more complicated story in terms of populism, Verdonk
seems all the more to fulfil the standard definition of a populist. As can be seen in table 1, she
scores on all the criteria that are outlined. Research on her speeches and interviews show a
clear distinction between the corrupt elite and the people as the virtuous element in society.
There is a distrust of the people caused by the elite (Vossen, 2010: 30). Note here that
Verdonk does not care for the elite being left or right wing, it is just the elite. Unlike Wilders
she tries to take on the entire establishment and does not even leave out her own former party.
She mentioned Mark Rutte as being too left wing and therefore also being out of touch with
the people. When founding her movement she did not want to take sides either and think in
the old way of how the political spectrum was divided. She did not want to be mentioned left
or right, but wanted to think in old and new (Lucardie, 2007: 181). With this she cannot be
seen as more distinguishing herself from the establishment or elite and taking the side of the
people. From her history it does make sense for her not just to criticise the left, since she was
ousted by the VVD party leaders, but favoured by the people during the elections. In general
we can see Verdonk trying to frame that image of her party taking on politics in general.
The other important point to qualify Verdonk as a populist is that she places emphasis
vigorously on voluntarism and direct democracy. In her view the people should govern and
we do not need politicians to sort out the best solutions. This is best illustrated by the fact that
she wanted citizens to discuss with each other what the best solutions to certain problems are.
The real knowledge of ordinary people would improve this country (Vossen, 2010: 31). What
we see here is Verdonk moving away from the politician as a professional in politics.
Politicians should listen to the people and she goes to extremes to establish that link. She also
did not present a real party manifesto until very late. She presented her plans to the public just
a couple of months before the elections. She then focused on taxation, subsidies and other
public spending8.
8 ‘ToN richt pijlen op ambtenaren’ De Telegraaf, April 8 2010
8
The personality of Verdonk was therefore very important. As Vossen stresses, she mainly
has relied on her own popularity and the image she had built during previous the years. Trots
op Nederland is very apolitical, in that way and more a feeling. (Vossen, 2010: 32-33).
Because of that lack of content of what the party is really about, it is difficult to clearly
explain what kind of party or movement it is. It could only somewhat be qualified as a
nationalist party. She does emphasize Dutch culture and the relevance of putting that up front,
but not as extreme as Wilders does it. She could therefore best be seen as a populist liberal-
conservative (Lucardie 2007: 182). The clear difference here is that Wilders actually wants to
tackle the influence of Islam in society, whereas Verdonk does not see that danger. She sees it
more in terms of not letting the Dutch society fade away in general. By focusing on taxation
and more power to the people, she fits very clearly in the classic image as depicted by
Taggart.
1.3. Success and Failure
With this outline of populism and Wilders and Verdonk as populist leaders it is now
possible to look at the elements that explain success and failure. In general there are three
reasons that can be defined why people vote for populist parties: the protest vote, in reaction
to other parties; voting for the charisma or leadership or voting for substance of policy
preferences.
The protest vote comes from what Immerfall sees as a neo-populist agenda. He focuses
on what the emphasis of a populist party is and sees its appeal accordingly. He argues it to be
important for such a party to hold together what he calls, a neo-populist coalition. This is
aimed at exploiting country specific issues, mainly focused on the economic situation of the
nation, in order to attract voters (Immerfall, 1998: 250). Populism here is seen as a reaction to
what is happening in a country and the reason of existence is an appeal to the people. Populist
parties, by showing what is wrong, have a reason to exist. Voters then react to this by seeing
the establishment as incompetent failing to take care of the nation, and vote for the party that
raised those questions (Ibid., 258). This explanation of the populist vote has nothing to do
with the appeal of leadership or what plans are presented to the people. It is the basic idea of
framing the image of the corrupt elite that has let the people down and is not representing the
general will anymore.
As Taggart explains, there are a problems with the way populist parties behave or are
organised, especially in this way. One of these is the criticism of established parties. Populist
parties want to distance themselves from established parties, but are forced, by the way
9
politics is organised, to behave in a similar way. As a consequence, they have a large risk of
internal conflicts or collapsing (Taggart, 2000: 100). In practice it comes down to a very
simple logic. At first a populist party successfully explains why the old parties are not the
right choice for the voter. With this they create momentum for them to grow in support.
However, since this is not based on concrete plans or policy they fall in the trap they have
created for themselves. Once the people notice that they are not capable of fulfilling their
needs either, the image of a strong counter party disappears and the party collapses.
Roger Eatwell sees the importance of charisma in leaders for explaining the success of
populist parties. Whereas it is a concept that cannot be defined very easily and can take on
many forms, he focuses on the personal presence of the leader. It is about being able to create
the right image on television and to catch the right sound bite and not so much about the
physical attraction of the party leader. The focus of the publicity tends to be on the personality
of the leader and this creates electoral appeal (Eatwell, 2005: 108). This approach takes away
the idea of charisma just being about the leader and puts the emphasis on his actions. It still
remains a personalised attraction, but of a different nature.
Taggart sees problems with charismatic leadership in the long run. He argues it to be
unstable and not very reliable. Politicians can never be certain how to effectively sustain their
charisma and it is therefore very unstable (Taggart, 2000: 102). As long as politicians are seen
to be charismatic and are capable of catching the public eye, they will continue to be popular.
However relying on charisma alone seems to form a problem in the long run. A new
contender can come along and take away the support or people will start to see through the
charismatic mask.
Van der Burg and Mughan (2007) conclude from their study of Dutch populist leaders
that they do not have a greater effect on the voting behaviour than their counterparts from the
established parties. Even for Pim Fortuyn, arguably a very charismatic man, no significant
difference between his leadership appeal and that of other politicians was found (Van der
Burg and Mughan, 2007: 44). This puts further pressure on the effectiveness, if any, of just
the leader as a token to attract votes. Even though in a best case scenario it helps to improve
voting for the party, it seems to be the case that a populist party cannot rely on the leader
alone.
There is more to it and Mughan and Paxton (2006) try to explain this with a case study of
anti-immigrant feelings in Australia. What they find is that policy preference is highly
significant as an explanation for the populist vote. Only if there is correspondence between
what voters want and what parties offer them, will they vote for them (Mughan and Paxton,
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2006: 354, 357). It seems that voters have an idea of what they want to happen in a country
and need parties to defend this or to bring this forward. It can effectively boost the claim
made by many populists that the old parties are not representing the will of the people. It
could be the case that it is then more than a protest vote and basic rhetoric and gives a chance
for parties that can actually find a niche in politics to grow and become important.
Ivarsflaten, shows the volatility of populist parties when it comes to issues and thereby
also acknowledges the importance. She shows that the saliency of (especially the economic)
issue is important (Ivarsflaten, 2005: 489). The populist voter does look at issues and does
take the state of the nation into account and is not simply affected by rhetoric or leadership
appeal. Van der Burg and Fennema (2003) firmly support this conclusion and conclude from
their analysis of the development of anti-immigrant parties, that voters vote according to their
issue preferences. They argue that voters for those parties vote for the same reasons as any
other voter. Some evidence even hints that they are even more issue voters. (Van der Burg
and Fennema, 2003: 66. 70-71). It seems that we should not underestimate the voters for
populist parties. There is evidence that they are not the simplistic voters as some people hold
them to be. The strength of a party does not just rely on the leadership or on a protest vote. It
depends heavily on which issues are salient and whether a party manages to bring them
forward in a right way. There are therefore many ways for a populist party to go wrong and it
depends on the context whether such a party is successful or not.
1.4 Sub-questions/Expectations
Based on the literature and the characterisation of both Wilders and Verdonk, it is possible
to formulate some sub questions to analyse the success and failure of their parties. As seen
above there are three main reasons for the success of populist parties; these will serve as a
guide for explaining the differences between the two parties and finding an answer to the
research question. From this it is possible to distinguish between the following sub questions.
Q1: What was the influence of the ‘protest vote’ for Wilders and Verdonk?
It follows from the literature that the protest vote can be one of the reasons why people
vote for populist parties. The protest vote is a result of the party emphasising the difference
between the old and the new. The establishment has failed the people and the new (populist)
party is there to re-establish the link between the people and the government. For the protest
vote explanation to contribute as an important factor of success, we would expect to see the
11
populist party to rally against the old parties and their politics. Furthermore the emphasis
would be on the old elite that has failed the people and the importance of restoring that faith
and giving power back to the people. An important explanation for failure here is the inherent
implications of this strategy. When parties run into problems themselves (mostly internal),
this will backfire and the protest vote will no longer be of any use to the populist party. If they
no longer have the image of being the new that will get rid of the habits of the old, we will
expect to see failure.
Q2: What was the influence of leadership as an explanation for success and failure?
A second explanation of success can be found in the leadership appeal or
personification of politics. It works either through charisma or authoritarian leadership.
Whereas charisma is not an easy concept to define, for the purpose of this study it will be
operationalised in a comprehensive way. Here it will just mean the personal appeal of a leader
to attract voters. For this to work out, we will expect to see little or no emphasis on issues or
ideas, but attention for the leader in general. It is expected that voter appeal will go up when a
lot of attention is given to the populist leader. The danger here is the unstable factor of
charismatic leadership. It seems that emphasising just the personal appeal of the leader for too
long can pose a problem and an unstable basis for a party to continue to grow further or hold
its position. Authoritarian leadership can be a further explanation for a populist party to
maintain a strong position. This type of leadership is expected to be very important for
holding the party together and we can expect to see differences with regards to voter
preferences for parties.
Q3: What is the influence of issue preferences and saliency?
The final sub question relates somewhat to the second. What is more important, having a
leader with a substantial charismatic appeal or talking about the issues and focusing on
improving specific things? For this question we would expect to see attention to issues
relating to voter appeal. It is also expected that certain issues will result in more support of
voters than others. When parties talk more about salient issues or create saliency for an issue
they are expected to increase their voting potential. Failing here could be the result of two
different things. First of all, it could mean that the specific party is unable to create any
substance to link themselves to. This could mean that the party focuses more on leadership
potential or has other reasons not to focus on the issues. The other explanation is that a party
12
emphasises an issue that apparently is not that salient to the general public or where they take
a (in the eyes of the public) wrong stand on.
2. Methodology
The three sub questions and subsequently the research question, will be answered by
looking at the period between 2006 and 2010. In this period, as seen in figure 1, some
interesting developments took place with respect to the voting potential of the two
politicians/parties. Verdonk joined the race for the populist vote. Verdonk and Wilders both
had their ups and downs in the polls, eventually resulting in Verdonk dropping to nothing and
Wilders reaching an all-time high. It can therefore be qualified as a period with many changes
and different sides. This makes it an interesting period to analyse.
The analysis will be divided into six periods where we see most of the changes happen, as
indicated in figure 1. The first period is the arrival of Verdonk. Here we see her rising to 25
seats in the polls, taking away half of the potential PVV voters. These are also the first signs
that there seems to be a strong correlation between the two parties with respect to vote
preference of the electorate. It can be seen as the most abrupt shift in the polls in these four
years. The second period is the first drop of Verdonk and one of recovery for Wilders.
Interesting here is that it seemed to have been a period without any major events (except for
the discussion about the military mission in Uruzgan). This goes on until the start of the third
period, early 2008, when the discussion about Wilders’ film Fitna broke out. Surprisingly this
is not a period of growing support for the PVV, it is Verdonk that had her second surge in the
polls. If the focus really was on Fitna as much as it seems, then this could point at an
interesting development. During the second part of this period this image somewhat returned
to the previous status quo until the start of the fourth period. This marks the beginning of the
end for Rita Verdonk. In September and November of 2008 she was confronted with the
departure of two key figures within her party who both criticised TON in the media. The drop
in the polls followed almost instantly. Interesting here is that Wilders did not profit from this
development, the PVV retained its position for most of that period. The fifth period then is the
staggering growth of the PVV to their all-time high of 32 seats in the polls in early 2009. The
developing story here was the decision to prosecute Wilders for his Islam views. This was
spread out over several months, with the initial decision not to prosecute him being overruled
later on. The final and sixth period that is interesting for analysis is the drop of the PVV in the
polls just before the general election. It seems to correspond with the aftermath of the cabinet
crisis and the local elections.
13
From these periods a reconstruction is made to see what explains success and failure of
these parties. The reconstruction itself will be on the basis of a newspaper analysis of De
Telegraaf. With a newspaper analysis it is possible to see what actually happened during this
periods. It is possible to see what kind of attention and how much was given to the parties and
what the focus of the attention was. If there are differences between articles of leadership
appeal for Verdonk and Wilders or on certain issues, than this could be clear indicators of
success and failure when linked to the relevant polls. The search term ‘Rita Verdonk’ for the
period September 21, 2007 (the day before the 2006 general election) to June 10, 2010 ( the
day after the 2010 general election) resulted in 649 De Telegraaf hits. A similar search for
‘Wilders or PVV’ resulted in 2378 hits.
The reason to take De Telegraaf as the focus of this study is that this paper is well
known for its right wing, often populist, sympathies. The long-time motto of the paper: ‘De
krant van wakker Nederland’, relating to the newspaper being there for the active Dutch
people, is also a reference to this populist appeal. De Telegraaf, because of that, should be the
paper that follows the development of these populist parties closely. It will also be more likely
to portray a certain picture of the parties with respect to their potential of representing the
people. By analysing newspaper content through Nexis Lexis, a reconstruction can be made of
the periods selected. Note here that the aim of this research is not to establish causality
between media coverage and populist success. Rather the media coverage is used to create the
essential narrative.
To answer the three sub question on the basis of this reconstruction and the related
opinion polls, there are some features will be looked for. For the first question expressions of
the ‘protest vote’ are important. The focus will be on whether the two populist parties try to
create an image of the elite versus the people and the new party against the establishment. Is it
possible to see one party being better equipped to go against politics as usual and show an
anti-establishment agenda? Do they create an image of wanting to give the power back to the
people? If it is possible to link this protest vote idea to success and failure in the polls than it
can be argued to be of influence.
For the second question the focus will be on leadership. It could be the case that with the
media attention it is very much a picture of Verdonk and or Wilders and not so much the party
or the idea. The idea here is that there is negative or positive information about the leaders
that can be linked to success and failure in the polls. Related to this is what characteristics are
mentioned. Is it the case that a certain image is created of a leader concerning their leadership
qualities or their personality that leads to more or less support?
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The third sub question can be answered by looking at the issues. Here the story is
twofold. Since the question is somewhat related to the second sub question the first part is: are
there any issues that are linked to the parties? If it is the case that the emphasis is on
leadership and not on substance, then that is an important part of the puzzle. The second part
is, when issues are present, what kind of issues and stands these parties are linked to. Can
these issues and them pressing on them be linked to the success or failure of these parties? In
short these will be the indicators to answer the sub questions. Each of them can have a
separate influence on the polls, but is also important to keep in mind their combining effect on
these parties’ results.
In addition to the media narrative of De Telegraaf, there are also some interesting data
that can be linked to the opinion polls. Peil.nl carried out separate research on important
moments over these four years. Many relate to the confidence in the party leaders over time,
but they also focus on specific issues when they appeared to be more salient or played a role
in decision making on that moment in time. The Dutch election study 2010 can also be used
to back up the story. Feeling thermometer scores for the parties (both TON and the PVV) and
the sympathy scores for the party leaders (both Wilders and Verdonk) were included with
these surveys, providing us with data on the importance of both. For Wilders some additional
questions were asked: What issue comes to mind when thinking of the PVV and do you agree
with the PVV on that issue? What other issue comes to mind when thinking of the PVV and
do you agree with the PVV on that issue? How much would you trust Geert Wilders with
being Prime-Minister?
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