discourse, politics and policy: the dutch parliamentary debate about voting rights for foreign...

Discourse, Politics and Policy: The Dutch Parliamentary Debate about Voting Rights forForeign ResidentsAuthor(s): Dirk JacobsSource: International Migration Review, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 350-373Published by: The Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2547187 .

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Discourse, Politics and Policy:

The

Dutch Parliamentary

Debate about

Voting Rights for Foreign Residents1

Dirk Jacobs Utrecht University

This article contains the results of research concerning parliamentary debate about voting rights for foreign residents in the Netherlands

(1970-1996) using a discourse analytical framework. Due to the charac? teristics of the Dutch political field, a large majority of the political actors has to be willing and able to combine political interests and ideological narratives into one story line propagating franchise for foreign residents in order to grant voting rights to nonnationals. It is claimed that the suc? cess and failure of policy changes regarding the political participation of nonnationals is foremost determined by the extent of the discursive affin?

ity of argumentative clusters used by parties of the "center-right" with the

(leftist) discourse which propagates enfranchisement.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Netherlands recruited foreign workers to

meet immediate demands for labor. The employment of guestworkers was

seen as a temporary expedient and, according to official discourse, foreign laborers could be sent home at will when unnecessary as a labor reserve.

However, when unemployment rose, the guestworkers rejected this myth in

the face of the policies of repatriation. Guestworkers became de facto perma? nent residents. From the mid-1970s onwards, when active recruitment

abroad had been stopped, immigration to the Netherlands continued due to

family reunification and the - although increasingly reluctant - admittance

of political refugees. In addition, new Dutch state citizens from the former

colony of Surinam and the overseas Dutch areas immigrated to the conti?

nental territory In the 1980s, Dutch politicians and administrators began to

recognize the fact that large groups of foreign residents would remain part of

Dutch society, and acknowledged the position and integration of ex-colonials

in the Netherlands as a policy issue. It was assessed that certain groups of for?

eign residents and ex-colonials were held back in different areas of society, and

*I am grateful to Randall Hansen, Jan Blommaert, Mariette De Haan, Arie De Ruijter, Meindert Fennema, Aafke Komter, Damian Lawlor, Robert Maier, my colleagues at the

Department of General Social Sciences (Utrecht University), and the anonymous reviewers of IMR for comments on my work at a number of stages.

? 1998 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved. 0197-9183/98/3202.0122

350 IMR Volume 32 Number 2 (Summer 1998): 0350-0373



The Dutch Parliamentary Debate 351

agreement grew that something should be done about this. An incorporation

policy was set up aimed at emancipation of the official categories of ethnic

minorities, with the objective of elevating the ethnicized groups to equal social status with the indigenous groups in Dutch society.

Although increasingly recognized as permanent residents, the nonnation-

als among the ethnic minorities were only reluctantly allowed state citizen?

ship - even if they were born on Dutch soil. In addition, due to stipulations

in the Dutch Constitution linking voting rights to state citizenship, they

were, in principle, disenfranchised. As a consequence, a significant part of the

actual population of the Netherlands had (and still has) no part in the demo?

cratic Dutch polity.2 Alien residents are thus placed in a vulnerable position, at the mercy of those in power in the host society (Tung, 1985:452). Seen

from a political philosophical standpoint, this disenfranchisement constitutes

a serious violation of various elements of modern democratic ideology (e.g., no taxation without representation). The Netherlands, of course, are not the

only country confronted with this democratic deficit. The anomalous situa?

tion that foreign residents, as a significant part of the population, are exclud?

ed from regular politics poses a challenge to all Western European democra?

cies which claim that policymaking should be done by people who represent the whole population (Rath, 1990:127). Individual Western European coun?

tries have reacted differently to this challenge (^Rath, 1990:127). This arti?

cle discusses how the Netherlands has handled this issue.

As will be shown, the democratic deficit has been tackled in the

Netherlands by facilitating (to a certain extent) the legal transition of aliens

to nationals and by local enfranchisement of nonnationals. This mainly hap?

pened as a side effect of the incorporation policy which aimed at elevating the

social status of ethnic minorities in Dutch society. Thus, in 1984 the Dutch

nationality legislation was modified to allow children born on Dutch territo?

ry and residing there since birth to acquire Dutch state citizenship between

the ages of 18 and 25 by declaration. In 1983 the Constitution was adapted to make local enfranchisement of nonnationals legally possible, and in 1985

foreign residents were effectively granted voting rights in municipal elections

by a modification of the Electoral Law. It is tempting to explain the choices

made in the Netherlands by using grand historical narratives. For example, a

lot of (Dutch) people assume that the enfranchisement of nonnationals at the

municipal level has been a result of the Dutch tradition of tolerance. Others

2In 1995, 5% of Dutch inhabitants (approximately 757,000 people) did not - or if they were

underaged would not - have voting rights on the provincial and national level. In a major city like Utrecht, 12.5% of the inhabitants cannot - or would not in the future be able to - vote in national elections.



352 International Migration Review

suggest that all over Western Europe "rights, participation and representation in a polity are increasingly matters beyond the vocabulary of national citi?

zenship" (Soysal, 1994:165). In this view, the granting of (local) voting rights is only a matter of time, and the Netherlands were just a bit quicker than

other countries in changing their conception of (political) membership. In my opinion, the explanation must first be sought on a more modest

level. It is essential to analyze political and discursive dimensions of the poli?

cy process in their own right, before falling back on all-encompassing expla? nations. To this purpose, I discuss how the issue of voting rights for nonna?

tionals has been addressed in Parliament in the Netherlands between the early seventies and the mid-1990s, using a discourse analytical framework. The

analysis focuses on the parliamentary debate, as that debate is easy to recon?

struct in its totality, while this is much less the case for the entire societal

debate. The corpus of data analyzed in this endeavor was all officially pub? lished documents relating to the issue of voting rights for foreign residents,

published in the period 1970-1996 by the two bodies of Parliament in the

Netherlands (the Second Chamber, the Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, and the First Chamber, the Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal).

METHODOLOGY: (CRITICAL) DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Discourse (in its abstract sense) equals "language use conceived as a social

practice" (Fairclough, 1995:35), a practice "not just of representing the world, but of signifying the world, constituting and constructing the world in mean?

ing" (1992:64). Ambiguous social circumstances and events are structured

and framed into meaningful phenomena in the process of discursive practices. Hence, to understand reality one must also study discursive activities creating this reality. The theoretical and methodological framework of this study relies

on this basic supposition. Most forms of discourse analysis are (or deem themselves to be) critical, in

the sense that the authors using discourse analysis have reformative objectives and claim that their deconstructing activities can denounce false or distorted

consciousness and asymmetrical relations of power (see Caldas-Coulthard and

Coulthard, 1996). A problem associated with this critical potential and the

political ambitions of discourse analysis is that it, in general, has to rely heav?

ily on the "dominant ideology thesis" (Abercrombie, Hill and Turner, 1980)

according to which, social order is sustained through the existence of domi?

nant ideologies winning the top-down consent or acquiescence of large parts of the population (through discursive practices). However, the existence of a

dominant ideology (or ideologies) is at best only proven in a circular manner

and/or postulated as a mysterious ghost haunting society.




In most forms of discourse analysis, domination through ideology is the?

oretically postulated to start with, then signs of the reproduction of ideolog? ical domination are actively traced, unveiled, and denounced in discursive

activities, and this is in turn used as proof of the fact that there is such a thing as a dominant ideology or hegemony in reality in the first place. It is only to

discursive practices (to the texts themselves) that empirical reference is made.

Because of this, discourse analysis runs the danger, as Bourdieu (I988:xvii)

stressed, of relapsing into "indefensible forms of internal analysis" because

"the source of the understanding of cultural productions" is sought "in these

productions themselves, taken in isolation and divorced from the conditions

of their production and utilization." Judged from a radical point of view, crit?

ical discourse analysis can then be no more than an interesting (postulated)

perspective on the interrelations between language, ideology, and power. It

can never provide a genuine empirical analysis of the interrelations between

discursive practices on the microlevel and the actual existence of ideology on

the macrolevel. Consequently, opponents claim that discourse analysis is

often more a method of illustration than a method of research and, however

interesting as an eye-opening perspective it may be, drowns in its political dimension, loosing analytical sharpness and theoretical depth (see Van den

Berg, 1992). An analysis of the debate on enfranchisement of foreign residents, leaning

on discourse analysis as the methodological research strategy, runs the big risk

of falling into this trap of internal analysis. It is very tempting to postulate the

existence of a dominant ideology (e.g., racism), the traces of which are then

tracked down on the discursive level. If one starts and defines the lack of vot?

ing rights for foreign residents on all levels as a form of (latent) racism (see,

e.g., Rath, 1990:140), one can easily illustrate how latent racism is being

reproduced at the level of debate. It is fairly easy to trace several discursive

mechanisms that are being used to oppose enfranchisement. The debate on

the enfranchisement of foreign residents can provide abundant proof of dubi?

ous statements which pertain to foreigners and to multiculturalism and which

have a racist - or at least a xenophobic - tenet in relation to the defense of

the principle of membership. But what can we learn from this? One would be

able to show that there are some discursive mechanisms which possibly con?

tribute to the reproduction of a system of racism (or white hegemony). However, taking into account the abundant studies on the discursive repro? duction of racism (see Van Dijk, 1993), this would be old news at best -

regardless of the problems related to such an approach. Moreover, all that

could be achieved would be to denounce the whole debate as reproducing a

system of citizenship relying on domestic closure. In doing so, one would be




forced to focus on stability in the course of the debate, disregarding fluctua?

tions and changes. To avoid the dangers of internal analysis and the problem of analytical

myopia associated with fixation on reproduction, I use a research strategy which is somewhat different to the one used in current forms of discourse

analysis (as in Van Dijk, 1993). For theoretical and methodological reasons,

I consciously choose not to search for one dominant ideology which shapes and structures the debate. What I look into is the role which different frames

(discourses) - representing and constructing reality

- have played over time

in the debate, and I try to give a hint of the explanation regarding these fluc?

tuations. In doing so, I make the presumption that no single ideology (as a

worldview) controls the debate, but that we are, in fact, confronted with an

ongoing struggle between different ideologies (both as political narratives and

worldviews) which are articulated in various degrees in public statements. I

claim that, in assessing the importance of discursive practices in this debate, one must take into account the specific characteristics of the political field of

Parliament in which it takes place.

DEMARCATING THE DISCURSIVE FIELDS

The Dutch Constitution stipulates that, in principle, possession of Dutch

state citizenship is a prerequisite to enjoy voting rights. Hence, enfranchise?

ment of foreign residents necessitates both a simple legislative change and a

more complex constitutional change. The procedure for changing the

Constitution entails two phases. First, both Chambers must pass a bill

proposing constitutional amendment by a simple majority. When this has

been passed, Parliament is dissolved and new elections are held. In practice,

parliamentary dissolutions for reasons of constitutional revision are timed to

coincide with normal parliamentary elections (Andeweg and Irwin,

1993:143). The new Parliament then must adopt the amendment by a two-

thirds majority. As a result, there is considerable inertia in effecting constitu?

tional changes: the major political parties are, de facto, held hostage by the

necessity to create a broad consensus on the principles stipulated in the

Constitution. In the Netherlands, the Parliament traditionally consists of a

relatively large number of different political parties, and only coalition gov? ernments can obtain a comfortable majority. In recent Dutch history the gov? ernmental parties never held a two-thirds majority in Parliament. This means

that in practice extension of voting rights to nonnationals (as any other mea?

sure necessitating a constitutional amendment) would be possible only if all

mainstream political parties (both those in government and in opposition)




can reach an agreement on this matter. Depending on the exact composition of Parliament, at least all major traditional political groupings (Christian-

democrats, right-wing-liberals and social-democrats) and, preferably, also

some of the more peripheral parties (left-wing-liberals, leftist, and confes?

sional parties) would have to grant their support to enfranchisement.

Undoubtedly, enfranchisement of foreign residents is foremost a left-wing

political demand. Without exception, voting rights for nonnationals are put on the political agenda by the left. In Belgium, France, and Germany (coun? tries which still do not have local franchise for nonnationals), proposals to

grant voting rights to foreign residents were always initiated by left-wing par? ties. In this respect, the Netherlands are no exception; enfranchisement of

nonnationals was also put on the political agenda by left-wing parties. This

may be because left-wing parties expect electoral progress due to immigrant votes, but it may also be a result of the leftist ideology of international soli?

darity in which both native and immigrant workers are part of a common

working class suppressed by a dominant capitalist class (Rath, 1990:142). In

this context it is worth underlining that the support for enfranchisement by

left-wing parties is not the result of a suffragist movement among foreign res?

idents themselves - which hardly existed in the Netherlands - but is instead

related to pressure from self-appointed advocates (generally active in the

antiracism movements). However, left-wing parties are unable to implement franchise for nonnationals without support of center and right-wing parties. Since enfranchisement necessitates a constitutional amendment, the creation

of a broad consensus between left-wing and right-wing parties is unavoidable.

Both left-wing and right-wing political actors have to be willing and able to

combine their political interests and ideological narratives into one story line

propagating franchise for foreign residents. As a consequence, the success and

failure of policy changes regarding political participation of nonnationals is

foremost determined by the extent of the discursive affinity of the argumen? tative clusters used by right-wing politicians with the leftist discourse which

propagates enfranchisement. Hence, the (recent) history of the debate on

political integration of nonnationals in the Netherlands is therefore mainly the history of right-wing discourse on the position of foreign residents in

Dutch society and its consequences for democracy. In this article, I use the concept of discourse (in its nonabstract signifi?

cance, as a count noun) as referring to a specific "way of signifying experience from a particular perspective" (Fairclough, 1995:135). A discourse is defined

as a relatively bounded set of claims, images, and tropes through which mean?

ing is given to reality (seeEllingson, 1995:107; Hajer, 1993:45). They are "sit?

uated in a field of debate wherein speakers struggle with one another to estab-




lish meaning, earn legitimacy, and mobilize consensus on belief and action"

(Ellingson, 1995:107). Because discourses are created in reference and oppo? sition to each other, they tend to be organized around certain fundamental

oppositions (Ellingson, 1995:108; Bourdieu, 1991:185) and, to a great extent, are interrelated in contents and use. Discourses structure perception

by focusing on particular elements of the real world. Obviously this process of constructing and framing reality is a highly significant element in debate

and the overall political process (Hajer, 1993:45; Rose and Miller, 1992:175).

Policy is the result of the creation of networks (of politicians) around dis?

courses which make certain phenomena understandable in a similar language and logic, construing goals and fate in a similar direction (Rose and Miller,

1992:184). In this process, some interests are formed and others are liquidat? ed in the very process of formulating them (Fennema, 1994:148; Brubaker,

1992:163) through and in political discourses, persuasions, negotiations, and

bargains (Rose and Miller, 1992:184). The study of discourses is in this sense

crucial in understanding policy developments. Accepting the numerical

strength of parties - the result of elections - as a given fact and one source of

the power of politicians to set policy, power must from then on be considered

as an effect of the successful composition of alliances around discourses, rather than as the explanation of the composition of those alliances (see Rose

and Miller, 1992:183; Latour, 1986). Of course, stabilized networks (for

example a coalition between governing parties) are a potent influence on the

tactical composition of alliances between particular parties. But in a political

system where extragovernmental alliances are condoned and on issues where

broad majorities are obligatory, the creation of alliances around discourses

entails an ongoing process of enrollment and mobilization in its own right. As such, discourses (and especially the extent of their ability to have alliances

being built around them) are important in causing and, concomitantly, in

helping us to understand policy developments.

Taking all this into account, it is my objective to show which discourses

dominate (and compete with each other) in the debate on political participa? tion of foreign residents in the Netherlands. This is done in order to chart the

political struggle over this topic during the last two decades. In this study, the

discourses in the debate over enfranchisement of aliens are empirically traced

by using the grounded theory method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and

Corbin, 1990) as a procedure for qualitative text analysis, combined with the

principles of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995; Hodge and Kress,

1993) and linguistic pragmatics (Blommaert and Verschueren, 1994). The

corpus of texts was systematically analyzed on two levels: the explicit argu? mentative layer was charted using the grounded theory method, while the




implicit argumentative layer (linguistic transformations) was analyzed using the discourse analytical toolkit. The argumentative clusters (of statements) which resulted from this double-layered analysis are considered to be dis?

courses. It is postulated that a particular discourse is used by a politician or a

political faction to enforce a specific standpoint on the issue being discussed.

This normally happens in order to influence policy in accordance with their

own political opinions, although one should not rule out that there can also

be more pragmatic-electoral motives involved - sometimes a politician mere?

ly wants to profile himself or herself to the electorate, hoping to gain or retain

support from certain groups of voters. However, in order to study the dynam? ics of the debate, it is far more important to study the importance and sig? nificance of a discourse than to focus on the intentions - which are not trace?

able - of those persons using the discourse. One can state that the importance of a discourse depends on the extent to which a politician can gain support within the parliamentary arena for a specific perspective on reality. In the

Dutch case, no single political faction - due to the lack of a majority - is able

to dominate Parliament, and the different parties must therefore cooperate and attune their respective discourses. In such a situation, the importance of

a discourse is assessed by looking at the way in which the political actors try to build discourse coalitions (Hajer, 1993) which consist of a set of actors

who share and defend (or seem to do so) the same social construct(s) as the

basis for policy. The sharing of deep values or societal insights is not neces?

sary in the creation of such a discourse coalition; merely the partial orches?

tration and coordination of discursive elements in one seemingly coherent

narrative is what matters here. At moments of decisionmaking, policy

(changes) will, of course, be the result of the narrative in the discourse coali?

tion in which the central political actors participate at that moment.

Use of the grounded theory method in exploring the corpus of data led to

the observation that the Dutch debate on voting rights for foreign residents

can best be reconstructed in a two-dimensional space. The first dimension is

the question whether the fact that foreign residents are not entitled to vote

and stand as a candidate in elections is a democratic deficit. The second

dimension is the question whether or not certain conditions need to be ful?

filled to have a viable multicultural society (if possible or desirable at all) and

whether or not this necessitates certain demands towards foreign residents

(and/or nationals of ethnic minorities). I claim the answers given to these two

basic questions constitute the most important discursive fields in the course

of the debate on political integration of foreigners in the Netherlands. Indeed,

using these two dimensions, nearly all statements in the debate can be con?

fronted with each other in one (imaginary) space, thus providing an adequate




means of compressing the debate. One can postulate that in the development of parliamentary debate, these two dimensions are at the threshold of the

argumentative struggle over the issue of enfranchisement of foreign residents.

It is at the crossing of these two dimensions that distinct discourses have been

created concerning the issue of enfranchisement of nonnationals.

Four major discourses can analytically and empirically be distinguished, which -

inspired by the labels Castles (1994:21-22) gave to specific models

of citizenship - I label assimilationist exclusionary, assimilationist inclusion-

ary, pluralist inclusionary, and pluralist exclusionary. These discourses are spe? cific ways of defining and handling the issue of enfranchisement for foreign residents. They are the result of a combination of different social constructs

related to multiculturalism, democracy, state citizenship, and nationhood in

the context of the specific debate. Although they can be clearly distinguished from one another both analytically and empirically from an argumentative

perspective, it should be noted that it is not impossible to see them being used

alternatively by the same actors in short episodes of discussion. Although they are not exclusively linked to certain (clusters of) political parties, they are, in

general, clearly connected to specific positions in the political spectrum. The

pluralist exclusionary discourse is used by extreme right-wing parties, the plu? ralist inclusionary discourse is foremost used by left-wing parties, while the

assimilationist exclusionary discourse is primarily used by right-wing parties. The assimilationist inclusionary discourse is used by both left-wing and right-

wing parties, although more often by the latter.

In the assimilationist exclusionary discourse, the fact that nonnationals are

disenfranchised is not seen as a democratic deficit, but is regarded as self-evi?

dent in the system of nation-states, and those foreign residents who wish vot?

ing rights should opt for naturalization. As the Dutch right-wing-liberal Veder-Smit (WD) stated in 1974:

Voting rights are, according to the Constitution, granted to the Dutch. These vot?

ing rights - a very precious right - are part of a set of rights and duties which belong to the Dutch. If one wants to have part of that set, the way of naturalization is open to achieve Dutch nationality. (Hand. II, 1974-75:584)3

However, naturalization, in this discourse, is only possible after sufficient

assimilation. In its most radical form, the newcomer is only allowed to adopt Dutch state citizenship if this equals melting into the receiving nation (pos-

3Citations are translated. The original excerpts are in Dutch. The references are to official pub? lications of Dutch Parliament. "Hand." stands for a transcription of an oral debate, published in the Handelingen, "Bijl. Hand." stands for a written document, published in the Bijlagen Handelingen. The Roman numbers I and II refer to the First or Second Chamber of Parliament.




tulated to be a community of common culture) to the point of indistinction

(Feher and Heller, 1994:135). The fact that present-day Dutch society is de

facto multicultural is accepted, but it is only considered to be a temporary

phase. To have a viable coexistence of different ethnicized groups, a set of con?

ditions must be fulfilled and foreign residents should comply to specific demands, which all boils down to adjustment to the (proclaimed) Dutch (or

Western) culture. Relying on the ideology (as a worldview) of homogeneism (see Blommaert and Verschueren, 1994) on the implicit level, the ideal soci?

ety is presumed to be as homogeneous as possible. To this purpose the con?

ditions to which the foreigner has to comply in order to acquire state citizen?

ship should be (or should remain) quite strict. Franchise for foreign residents

is out of the question since this would only inhibit (the deemed necessary) cultural assimilation of nonnationals. Assimilation is foremost an individual

responsibility of the allochthone.

In contrast, in the assimilationist inclusionary discourse the fact that

(large) parts of the population do not have voting rights is regarded to be a

democratic deficit. Foreign residents should obtain or be granted state citi?

zenship to the largest extent possible in order to decrease or avoid this demo?

cratic deficit. However, at the same time certain conditions required to make

the de facto multicultural society viable should be taken into account. As in

the assimilationist exclusionary discourse, on the implicit level the ideal soci?

ety is presumed to be as homogeneous as possible. Hence a minimum level of

cultural assimilation is obligatory. The state has an important responsibility in this process

- it should educate and mold foreign residents into rational

citizens as it has to do with nationals. The granting of voting rights could be

instrumental, in a way, in achieving this molding. As the Dutch right-wing liberal Kappeyne van de Coppello stated in 1979: "The granting of voting

rights is one of the instruments towards integration" (Hand. II, 1978-

79:3692). The aim is to integrate immigrants into the political community, which at the same time requires a high degree of cultural assimilation from

the immigrants. In the pluralist inclusionary discourse, the fact that (large) parts of the

population do not have voting rights is also regarded to be a democratic

deficit. In addition, it is believed that no specific demands are required from

foreign residents to have a viable multicultural society. The responsibility of

society in fighting racism and the societal (and legal) arrears of allochtones is

stressed, while (possibly hidden) objectives to assimilate and deliberately acculturalize immigrants are explicitly rejected. Political rights for foreign res?

idents are seen as unconditional rights, which should be granted without any restrictive measures. It is argued that it is self-evident that a modern democ-




racy should enfranchise foreign residents on every level, regardless of nation?

ality. Enfranchisement of nonnationals is presented as the next logical - and

even natural - step in the history of democracy (after enfranchisement of

women). As the Dutch left-wing Parliamentarian Lankhorst (PPR) stated in

1985:

Up until now the extension of voting rights has always been a positive thing in Dutch history. There have always been positions stating why such an extension should perhaps not put into effect, but after a few years one could not imagine it

being otherwise anymore. (Hand. II, 1984-85:4741)

In this discourse, immigrants are admitted to the political community, while the maintenance of cultural differences that are not seen to be prob? lematic is accepted.

Theoretically the two dimensions (combined in a matrix) also lead to a

fourth discourse which could be labeled pluralist exclusionary, although seg?

regationist exclusionary is probably a better name. In this discourse, the fact

that nonnationals are disenfranchised is not seen as a democratic deficit. The

creation of a viable multicultural society is seen as an impossibility. Ethnicized

groups should at best be segregated, and foreign elements should be destroyed in the worst case scenario. This discourse (used by the small extreme right

parties Centrum Partij and Centrum Democraten) plays only a very margin? al role in parliamentary debate. Although not absent in debates outside of the

parliamentary forum, this discourse was marginalized because their

spokesperson(s) in Parliament were deliberately isolated by the mainstream

political actors.

In the following sections, I will show how these discourses - especially the

first three - were constituted in the course of the debate and how the strug?

gle between them in the political field led to the creation of specific discourse

coalitions.

ENFRANCHISEMENT OF TEMPORARY FOREIGN RESLDENTS

In the late 1960s, a committee of experts, the State Advisory Committee on

the Constitution and Electoral Law (the committee Cals-Donner), was

installed by the center-right government of De Jong (christian-democrats and

right-wing-liberals) with the goal of preparing an extensive modernization of

the Constitution and the electoral law. In their preliminary report to govern? ment and Parliament in 1969, the issue discussed was whether voting rights for national elections should be granted to Dutch citizens living abroad. The

electoral law at that time stipulated that only Dutch citizens actually living in

the Netherlands were entitled to vote for Parliament. A modification of the




Electoral Law pertaining to this issue was rejected by the committee, which

referred to the importance of the principle of residence. It was argued that a

Dutch citizen should live in the Netherlands to enjoy voting rights. Two years later, in 1971, the suggestion to enfranchise (Dutch) employees in the munic?

ipality where they work (and not only where they live) was equally rejected

by the committee Cals-Donner. This rejection brought the debate to the

question of whether or not all inhabitants of a municipality should be enfran?

chised, regardless of nationality. After all, in the rejection of voting rights for

the Dutch living abroad, the importance of the principle of residence had

been stressed some years before. As a result, the committee decided to put for?

ward a suggestion in their final report to change the Constitution in a way

allowing nonnationals to participate in municipal elections. Therefore, part?

ly coincidental and partly fueled by the narrative of universal human rights, the committee Cals-Donner launched the idea to enfranchise foreign resi?

dents. The committee only dared to propose local enfranchisement, inhibit?

ed by the perceived connection between state citizenship and voting rights. The simple statement that "national voting rights are closely connected to

[Dutch] state citizenship" (Staatscommissie van advies inzake de Grondwet

en de Kieswet, 1971:299) was presented as the only justification for the dis-

enfranchisement of foreign residents on the national level, thus closing the

door for a fundamental discussion on principles of entitlement. Regardless of

the report, the center-right governments Biesheuvel I and II (christian- democrats and right-wing-liberals) took no further steps in this matter.

Some years later, a small academic debate on the matter erupted in the

Nederlands Juristen Blad, a forensic legal magazine. In April 1974, Hondius,

Waldeck and Wijsenbeek (1974) demanded that the Constitution and the elec?

toral law be adapted in order to grant all Dutch state citizens, not only those

living in the Netherlands but also those living abroad, voting rights. In June, Donner (1974) - a member of the committee Cals-Donner - reacted to this

article, stating that if there should be a change of the electoral law, then foreign residents in the Netherlands should be granted voting rights as a matter of

greater urgency. He further declared that only in this context was a reference to

human rights justified and not in the case of extending voting rights to the

Dutch who are living abroad (as Hondius, Waldeck and Wysenbeek did). Donner's article was cited shortly afterwards in Parliament by the social-

democrat PvdA during debates on the (societal) position of foreign workers

and on the (legal) position of Moluccan inhabitants. The social-democrats

reminded the other coalition parties of the new center-left government of

Den Uyl (social-democrats, christian-democrats, and left-wing liberals) of the

suggestion to enfranchise foreign residents put forward in 1971 by the com-




mittee Cals-Donner. In the arguments for enfranchisement, reference was

made to the narrative of human rights. However, only enfranchisement at the

local level was demanded, relating to the organization of welfare provisions for foreign residents on that level. Enfranchisement on all levels was not an

issue since the stay of immigrants was seen to be temporary. This was discur?

sively expressed by the statement that local enfranchisement should be aimed

at democratizing local welfare provisions which had emancipation and re-

emigration as their objectives (Bijl. Hand. II, 1973-74, 10504/11:20). As a

result, the center-left government promised to take the issue of local enfran?

chisement (and only local enfranchisement) into account in the course of the

ongoing preparations of a revision of the Constitution.

The center-left government kept its promise, and the Home Office - led

by a christian-democratic minister - presented a bill in August 1976 which

would make an amendment of the Constitution possible in order to grant

voting rights to foreign residents on the municipal level. Elections on the

national level should remain linked to the membership principle, the govern? ment argued, since matters like national defense and foreign politics were dis?

cussed on that level. Provincial elections should remain equally the prerequi? site of nationals, since those elections in the Netherlands indirectly influence

the composition of the First Chamber (the Senate). In this way, a fundamen?

tal debate on principles of entitlement was avoided as much as possible from

the start. Because considerable dissent was anticipated, it was stressed that the

constitutional amendment would not in itself grant voting rights to foreign residents, nor would it force an alteration of the electoral laws; it would mere?

ly make a future adaptation of the electoral law granting local franchise to

nonnationals legally possible. The justification for the bill was formulated in

strikingly careful and dubious words: "It is understandable that as a person resides longer in a country, the desire to have a certain right to have a say also

on the political level increases" (Bijl. Hand. II, 1975-76, 13991/3:5). It was

argued that a certain period of residence possibly justified future local enfran?

chisement of nonnationals. Voting rights were not presented as rights which

foreign residents should have per se, in line with the narrative of fundamen?

tal human rights, but as something foreign residents could legitimately start

to yearn for after a certain period. Nowhere was it suggested that foreign res?

idents had or would become a permanent segment of the Dutch population;

they merely were groups of people which had to be taken into account in the

development of local social infrastructure.

From 1976 onwards, the bill (and the issue of enfranchisement of nonna?

tionals in general) was discussed in session meetings of Parliament. The antic?

ipated dissent turned out to be real. The social-democrats (PvdA) and leftist




politicians (PPR) were in favor of granting political rights to all nonnationals

(not only on the municipal level, but on every political level), the christian-

democrats (ARP, CHU, KVP - combined the future CDA) only wanted to

enfranchise EEC citizens, and the right-wing-liberals (WD) wanted to rein?

stall the principle of membership in electoral law. In general, two discourse

coalitions stood up against each other: the pluralist inclusionary discourse of

the leftist politicians and the assimilationist exclusionary discourse of the

right-wing politicians. To counter the criticism of the right-wing-liberals and

some christian-democrats, the center-left government repeatedly stressed

enfranchisement on other levels was out of the question. They further argued the bill did not undermine the principle of membership in the entitlement to

voting rights, but, on the contrary, upheld the foundations of the principle. These arguments could not suffice in winning widespread support for the

bill. Lacking the necessary unconditional support of (all) christian-democrats

and of the right-wing-liberals, the bill at this point seemed to be doomed. As

an unintended consequence of terrorist attacks by Molluccan youths in 1977

and 1978, the bill did, however, survive a change of government in which

center-right was brought to power.

ENFRANCHISEMENT OF NOT-SO- TEMPORARY FOREIGN

RESIDENTS

When the center-left government of den Uyl was replaced by the first center-

right government of Van Agt (christian-democrats and right-wing-liberals) by the end of 1977, the Home Office, now led by a right-wing-liberal minister,

surprisingly decided to keep and support the bill, although they were not

forced to do so.4 As a result, all three main political parties (socialists, christ?

ian-democrats, and right-wing-liberals) started to commit themselves politi?

cally to the idea of enfranchisement. There are indications (wBijl. Hand. II,

1977-78, 14915/1-2:52,128; Bijl. Hand. II, 1978-79, 13991/8:1, 3) that the

right-wing-liberals (and some christian-democrats) changed their positions in

the debate on local enfranchisement as an unintended consequence of the

painful terrorist activities (see Steijlen, 1996:161-165) of Moluccan young? sters which at that time led to a difficult debate on the complex and prob? lematic position of the Moluccans in the Netherlands.

4An idiosyncrasy of the Dutch Parliament is that in contrast to most other countries, bills do not automatically die after a dissolution of Parliament. This allows a particular legislative pro? gram to survive political crises and smooths the possibilities for compromise and revision of

positions.




To understand this, one should take into account the history of the

Moluccan community in the Netherlands. For complex political reasons, more

than 12,500 Moluccans had been transferred from Indonesia to the

Netherlands in 1951 for what was meant to be a temporary stay. However, to

date, the Moluccans (whose community is now estimated to consist of more

than 37,500 people) are still in the Netherlands. For a long period, the

Moluccan community lived this exile in quite unfavorable conditions which led

to serious tensions and, in the end, to terrorism. With the benefit of hindsight, one can argue that local enfranchisement of nonnationals obviously provided one (easy) solution in (partially) repaying the historical debt of the Dutch

towards this community.5 One might say the aim of democratizing local wel?

fare provisions had been replaced by the wishful thinking that enfranchisement

could serve as a symbolic means to show that the government was doing some?

thing with regard to the societal position of nonnationals (especially

Moluccans). More importantly, the Moluccan violence had the effect of plac?

ing the wider ethnic issue on the national agenda (Hoppe, 1993:87), which

resulted in local enfranchisement being carried along with the flow. Plans were

made to begin an integrated policy for ethnic minorities and the issue of enfran?

chisement to become totally entangled in this development. In this process, the

right-wing parties in government traded their original assimilationist exclu?

sionary discourse for a assimilationist inclusionary discourse.

In 1979 and 1980, the bill on local enfranchisement of nonnationals was

finally discussed in plenary sessions of the Second and First Chamber. The two

largest trade unions (FNV and CNV), the association of Churches (Raad der

Kerken), the Dutch Centre for Foreigners (NCB), and other self-appointed advocates of enfranchisement pressured the main political parties to grant sup?

port to the bill using a low profile strategy (Hisschemoller, 1988:37). In the dis?

cussions in 1979 and 1980 (partially repeated in 1982 due to the procedural

requirements), all parties linked the issue of municipal enfranchisement to the

first steps in the creation of a coherent policy for ethnic minorities (fueled by the Moluccan terrorism). The debate on the position of the Moluccans in 1978

had gradually become entangled in discussions on the positions of other ex-

colonials and foreign residents in Dutch society. As a consequence, the idea that

the presence of immigrants (who came as guestworkers or came as state-citizens

5Efforts of the Dutch government to regularize the social and legal position of the Moluccans and repay the Dutch historical debt towards them met resistance from the Moluccans. Most Moluccans refuse(d) to take up Dutch or Indonesian state citizenship, since they regard them? selves as citizens of the nonexistent Moluccan Republic. As a consequence, most are stateless. Local enfranchisement of nonnationals is one way to grant them political rights without forc?

ing them to obtain Dutch nationality.




from the former Surinam colony and the Dutch Caribbean islands) - and espe?

cially their children - was temporary began to crumble. In the light of these

developments, plans were made to implement an integrated policy concerning ethnic minorities (both guestworkers and state-citizens from overseas areas). In

the development of such an integrated policy, the report Etnische Minderheden,

published in 1979 by an academic advisory committee, was very influential

(Groenendijk, 1986:43). The document stressed the objectives to fight against arrears and exclusion of (particular groups of) immigrants and allochthones on

the one hand, and to stimulate the idea of a tolerant, multicultural society on

the other hand (Vermeulen and Penninx, 1994:9). Led by these ideas, plans were made by the government to improve the position of foreign residents by means of a more or less coordinated policy, the so-called Minderhedenbeleid.G

Measures were taken to open the system of social security to all residents,

regardless of their nationality, and to improve the legal status of foreign resi?

dents. The possible enfranchisement on the municipal level and plans for sim?

plification of the procedures for granting Dutch state citizenship came to be

seen as being in line with the latter cluster of measures.

The increasing importance of plans to create an integrated policy towards

ethnic minorities found its manifestation on the discursive level in the debate

on local enfranchisement in the common reference of all parties to the concept of integration. The question of principles of entitlement and the democratic

deficit became entangled with the issue of societal integration of foreign resi?

dents and allochtones and the creation of a multicultural society. The small con?

fessional right parties (SGP, GPV) - the only contesters of the bill - opposed

enfranchisement because it would hinder integration. They developed an

assimilationist exclusionary discourse stressing the importance of naturalization

of foreign residents. According to them, a multicultural society could only be a

temporary phase in the development towards complete cultural assimilation of

foreign residents. Foreign residents should opt for naturalization as a formal sta?

tus at the end of an extensive cultural adaptation. It was argued that uncondi?

tional enfranchisement would only hinder this process. Moreover, the small

orthodox christian parties opposed the extension of voting rights since they wanted to avoid Muslim, i.e., Islamic, aliens being granted the opportunity to

gain political influence. The social-democrats (PvdA), left-wing-liberals (D'66) and leftist parties (PPR, PSP) supported the bill (and pleaded for its extension

to other levels) using the narrative of universal human rights, combined with

the argument that the de facto integration of foreign residents provided a justi-

6An important element in the Minderhedenbeleidis its strategy of defining specific groups that will be the focus of policy. The policy is not aimed at all foreign residents but primarily only those seen to have a disadvantage.




fication (even an obligation) for enfranchisement. They further elaborated a

pluralist inclusionary discourse in which voting rights for foreign residents were

unconditionally demanded. The right-wing-liberals (WD) claimed enfran?

chisement would be a good instrument to help facilitate integration of foreign residents. The christian-democrats (CDA) defended a similar point of view

using the same line of reasoning; they also raised the question of whether nat?

uralization would, after all, not be a better step towards integration. Both par? ties developed an assimilationist inclusionary discourse in which granting of

voting rights under certain conditions would be one step towards obtaining a

viable multicultural society.

Although there was still considerable dissent within the right-wing-liberal

party (WD) on the issue, in the end they decided to support the bill, under

pressure from their Minister of Interior Affairs (the Home Office). They did

this partly in exchange for national voting rights for Dutch state citizens living abroad (amelioration of principle of membership)

- as was later confessed by the right-wing-liberal Wiebenga (Hand. II, 1990-91, UCV 58:3) - while let?

ting the principle of residence prevail at the municipal level. With broad (but

internally problematic) support of the three major parties -

right-wing-liberals (WD), christian-democrats (CDA), and social-democrats (PvdA) - the bill to

amend the Constitution was accepted. A discourse coalition had been built

around the assimilationist inclusionary discourse used by right-wing-liberals and christian-democrats, sufficiently supported by social-democrats, left-wing- liberals and leftist parties. Although the latter groups preferred the pluralist

inclusionary argument, they were willing to support at least this minimum

breakthrough. On the discursive level, a hybrid story line was created in which

the importance of enfranchisement for integration was stressed, but the discur?

sive complexity and actual contents of the concept were concealed. Each group of actors could stress their own arguments in defining integration, while using the vagueness of the same concept as sufficient common ground to build a dis?

course coalition and justify their common decisionmaking. Since an amend?

ment of the Constitution in the Netherlands necessitates a double procedure of

discussion and vote (with obligatory parliamentary elections between the first

and second phase), it took until 1983 for the change in the Constitution to

finally come into effect.

ENFRANCHISEMENT OF INTEGRATED FOREIGN RESIDENTS

Although in 1980 it was still being argued that the constitutional amendment

did not automatically entail that foreign residents would be enfranchised, it

had become inevitable by 1985. Because of the advances in the implementa? tion of the Minderhedenbeleidy it was no longer the question of whether or not




(all) foreign residents would be enfranchised, but which extra conditions (i.e.,

period of residence) the Parliament would stipulate. In anticipation of the

actual reform granting voting rights to foreign residents in municipal elec?

tions, neighborhood councils - dominated by left-wing parties - in

Rotterdam (1979) and Amsterdam (1981) decided to give an unconditional

vote to foreign residents in their own elections (which were not bound by the

Constitution) (Rath, 1990:138). The fact that these municipal district coun?

cil elections did not cause a political earthquake, as some had feared, only

strengthened the case of proponents of voting rights. After the Constitution

was finally amended in 1983, allowing enfranchisement of foreign residents, the debate on modalities started. In contrast to the experiment in the election

of neighborhood councils in which no special requirements were demanded, the first center-right government of Lubbers (christian-democrats and right-

wing-liberals) decided to enter the condition of five-year legal residency into

the bill granting local franchise. They also introduced the additional demand

that a check should be carried out by the aliens' registration office to prevent -

although highly unlikely -

participation of undocumented immigrants. In

the Minderhedennota (the final policy outline of the Minderhedenbeleia), the

bill was presented as aiming at "more [democratic control of] access to gen? eral provisions at the local level" and granting "a say" at the municipal level

(Bijl. Hand. II, 1982-83, 16102/21:115). In the bill itself it was stated that

local enfranchisement would "enable members of ethnic minorities to exer?

cise their influence on political decisionmaking at the municipal level" (Bijl. Hand. II, 1984-85, 18619/3:6).

The center-right government argued that because of the fact that a long

period of residence increases "the bond with society" (Bijl. Hand. II, 1984-

85, 18619/3:6) local enfranchisement should be as unconditional as possible. However, they did deem it necessary to install the condition of a minimum

period of residence. This would ensure that the foreign resident would have

sufficient knowledge of the Dutch political system and political culture to be

capable of exercising his/her voting rights in a rational manner. Remarkably, a similar time-criterium (trying to assess the bond with Dutch society of

Dutch state citizens living abroad) was rejected at the same moment in the

debate on modalities concerning the newly granted national voting rights to

Dutch living abroad. The criterium of residence was deemed to be too long

by social-democrats (PvdA) and left-wing-liberals (D'66), while it was totally

rejected by the smaller leftist parties (PSP, PPR, CPN) who proclaimed enfranchisement should merely be seen as an unconditional entitlement. The

bill was criticized by the leftist members of Parliament as containing two con?

tradictory elements: the aim of increasing emancipation and integration on

the one hand and the hypothetical demand of sufficient de facto integration - in the sense of being capable to be an active political citizen - on the other




hand. In other words, the leftist parties from the pluralist inclusionary dis?

course tackled the assimilationist inclusionary discourse of the government. In their response to this objection, the christian-democrats (CDA) and right-

wing-liberals (WD) claimed the bill had the objective of stimulating partic?

ipation of nonnationals in Dutch society, but that this idea did not remove

the necessity of expecting a minimum level of political knowledge from for?

eigners. The latter argument, however, did not prevent the government from

launching an information campaign (about the Dutch political system and

political culture) aimed at new foreign voters. The opposition parties did not

succeed in amending the bill, and in 1985 the bill was finally accepted in

both chambers of Parliament. Foreign residents residing in the country for a

period of five years were from then on able to participate in municipal elec?

tions. Foreign residents used their local franchise for the first time in 1986.

NATURALIZATION INSTEAD OF ENFRANCHISEMENT

In the late 1980s, under the reign of the next center-right government of

Lubbers, efforts to discuss further extension of franchise to foreign residents

were systematically blocked. The limits of the assimilationist inclusionary dis?

course pertaining to voting rights had clearly been reached: one step in

enfranchisement had been taken, further political integration should be the

result of naturalization or other means of acquisition of state citizenship,

accompanied by cultural assimilation of foreign residents. Integration could

no longer function as the cement between elements of the assimilationist

inclusionary discourse and the pluralist inclusionary discourse. Instead the

assimilationist inclusionary discourse became increasingly combined (and

alternated) with the assimilationist exclusionary discourse. The main reason

for this development has to be sought in the fact that the concept of integra? tion at the right-wing side of the political spectrum began to be more and

more defined in an individualist-assimilationist way, placing the responsibili?

ty with foreign residents and ethnic minorities themselves. Although it is

often claimed this culturalist swing in discourse on foreign residents and

allochthones began in 1991, following a speech in Luzern, Switzerland, by the increasingly popular right-wing-liberal Bolkestein (Van den Berg, 1995:167), there are clear indications that this phenomenon was already very common in the late 1980s. The problems of foreign residents and ethnic

minorities were increasingly defined as being the results of their cultural dif?

ferences. As Krajenbrink (CDA) stated in 1987:

The first responsibility is, of course, in the hands of the ethnic groups themselves.

They will have to create their own emancipation and integration to an important extent. Of course, a base and the necessary framework must exist, which will be offered by Dutch society and the Dutch State. However, during and after this




process, they will primarily have to do it themselves. . . . The solutions to a lot of

problems related to ethnic groups are hindered because of malfunctions in commu? nication, which are related to the cultural gap. (Hand. II, 1987-88, UCV 19:6)

Given the widespread prevalence of this type of discourse, enfranchise?

ment had become an unpopular topic within mainstream politics. The time

the state carried total responsibility in ethnic affairs had ended; now it was the

turn of foreign residents and ethnic minorities themselves to start changing. The underlying reasoning in not supporting further enfranchisement is evi?

dent: Why grant unconditional voting rights to foreign residents on the basis

of the principle of residence when one wants to be able to set the rules for the

creation of a viable multicultural society? By keeping political rights linked to

state citizenship, the state can secure one of its last resorts of discretionary

power. As Soutendijk-van Appeldoorn (CDA) stated it in 1991,

Sometimes it is argued that the amount of documents and time spent on the policy concerning minorities stands in inverse relation to its effects. . . . The resolutions which are to be discussed today and which are related to the legal position of for?

eigners have the characteristic that they deal with measures such as naturalization and right of residence, which the government itself controls. Through these mea? sures the government can have a direct effect. (Hand. II, 1990-91, UCV 58:4)

In this unfavorable climate, it took until 1990 before the issue would be

raised again by (and during) the center-left government of Lubbers III. Very soon, however, the question of national and provincial franchise for nonna?

tionals became entangled in debates over simplification of the acquisition of

state citizenship (in particular the issue of multiple nationalities). In 1990, the appointed advisory committee Deetman (set up to modern?

ize the Dutch political system) held that the argument concerning national

defense and foreign politics which was used earlier to block national franchise

for foreign residents could no longer be considered as relevant because the

Netherlands were de facto no longer able to claim total sovereignty and inde?

pendence in these areas. Furthermore, it was argued that the wish (and

demand) of integration (as partial culturalization) of foreign residents should

have its expression in granting more political rights to nonnationals. In the

case where the willingness to change the Constitution and the Electoral Law

in this matter did not exist, the committee argued that a further simplifica? tion of acquisition of state citizenship (through naturalization) should at least

be seriously considered as an alternative. The center-left government was

divided on these matters. The social-democrats (PvdA) wanted both simplifi? cation of naturalization and the enfranchisement of nonnationals on all polit? ical levels, while the christian-democrats (CDA) only acknowledged the first




demand. As a result, the government agreed to abolish the stipulation in the

Dutch nationality legislation requiring loss of the old nationality (when pos?

sible) when becoming a Dutch state citizen. The underlying idea was to make

the Naturalization Law more lenient (in allowing multistate citizenship) to

indirectly provide voting rights on all political levels to foreign residents who

want to obtain Dutch nationality. In a "tit for tat" logic, it was considered that

pursuit of the simplification of naturalization procedures would inhibit fur?

ther initiatives pertaining to the extension of franchise. Due to a peculiar series of events, ambivalence in the formulation of nationality legislation, and

partly as an unintended consequence of rhetorical and party political power

games, a parliamentary motion during one of the first discussions on the mat?

ter led to a change of policy in de facto allowing multistate citizenship (see

Heijs, 1995:202-203), although lacking a firm legal basis to do so. Attempts to regularize nationality legislation according to this practice would oddly

enough lead to long and difficult negotiations. The preference of most right-

wing politicians to upholding an assimilationist exclusionary discourse

instead of an assimilationist inclusionary discourse inhibited progress. It took

until 1995, during the reign of the new "purple" government Kok (social-

democrats, right-wing-liberals, and left-wing-liberals), before a real bill on the

matter would be discussed in Parliament. In February 1995, the bill was

approved in the Second Chamber, accompanied by an animated debate in

which the social-democrat (PvdA) and left-wing-liberal (D'66) government

parties and the christian-democratic (CDA) and leftist-ecologist

(GroenLinks) opposition parties supported the bill, and the right-wing-liber? al (WD) government party, confessional right-wing (SGP, GPV) and

extreme right-wing (CD) opposition parties opposed the bill. The christian-

democrats (CDA) only gave their approval in exchange for the promise that

the issue of voting rights on the national level would be dropped. The peculiar history of the debate on simplification of naturalization did

not inhibit the eruption of a debate on provincial enfranchisement. This hap?

pened in the course of discussions concerning the transformation of the

major urban zones into new kinds of provinces (so-called city provinces), which would de facto result in the (partial) loss of the existing political influ?

ence of foreign residents. Due to internal dissent (i.e., refusal of the right-

wing-liberals) the purple government refused to put the issue of provincial enfranchisement on the agenda, which led a minority of Parliamentarians

(social-democrats, left-wing-liberals, and leftist-ecologists) to proclaim that

they would prepare their own bill proposing amendment of the Constitution

enabling provincial franchise.




CONCLUSION

This case study illustrates that policy changes do not have to be the result of

a genuine compromise on the argumentative level or the dominance of one

specific type of reasoning, but can just as easily be the result of an ad hoc dis?

course coalition. No single discourse or ideology completely controls and

structures the debate. The debate can be analyzed as resulting out of a strug?

gle between (and with) different discourses and ideological narratives in the

political field. Although discourses as separate entities shape the course of the

debate (and possibilities of position taking within it), the political actors can

(and do) strategically use them in creating (temporary) discourse coalitions.

In the end, policy is the result of the creation of networks (of politicians) around specific discourses which make certain phenomena understandable in

a similar language and logic. As such, discourses (and the extent of their affin?

ity allowing alliances to be built around them) are important in causing and,

concomitantly, in helping us to understand policy developments. In 1985, after more than ten years of parliamentary debate, foreign resi?

dents were granted voting rights in municipal elections. This policy change was the result of the creation of a (temporary) "hybrid" discourse containing elements from different political narratives combined into one discourse

coalition. In later stages, the creation of a similar discourse coalition around

further enfranchisement of foreign residents turned out to be impossible. This was due to resurrection of the normative tradition of the nation-state

and the Dutch polity as a culturally homogeneous entity in the discourse of

right-wing parties. In the late ?80s and '90s, the left- and right-wing parties of the Dutch political spectrum did not seem able (or willing) to create a

common narrative concerning further enfranchisement of foreign residents.

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