POLITICAL PARTIES IN DUTCH LOCAL POLITICS:

A Comparison Of Party Branches And Local Parties

Paper to be presented at the ECPR joint sessions

Workshop Comparative Perspectives on Local Party Politics; Helsinki 7-12 May 2007

Work in progress – please do not quote without permission

Dr. Marcel Boogers

Dr. G. Voerman

TILBURG SCHOOL OF POLITICS AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

&

DOCUMENTATION CENTRE FOR DUTCH POLITICAL PARTIES

1

1. Local political parties seen from a party change perspective

Local political parties are usually regarded as parts of larger party organizations that are prevalent within

all levels of representative institutions. Nonetheless, many European countries are familiar with

independent local parties that have no formal links with supralocal parties. As the existence of these

parties has often been seen as a political anomaly, we know little about the ways in which independent

local parties organise and operate.1 The last 15 years, the Netherlands is witnessing an enormous growth

of independent local parties and of their electoral support. After the last two elections of 2002 en 2006,

independent local parties are jointly best represented in Dutch municipal councils. In order to assess the

success of independent locals in the Netherlands, this paper explores how independent local parties

distinguish themselves ideologically, organisationally and operationally. It presents the results of two

online surveys of 1800 independent and other local parties in the Netherlands, which will be discussed in

the context of the debate about political party change. Is the independent local party a prototype of the

modern cadre party?

This paper starts with a short description of the institutional and political characteristics of Dutch local

politics. After that, changes in the presence of independent local parties are been depicted and explained.

Subsequently, the paper examines, in the light of local political developments, the classical functions of

political parties. Within this theoretical framework, independent local parties are been compared with local

party branches. The paper ends with an overview of this comparison, which lays out the strengths and

weaknesses of both party types and which will be regarded from a party change perspective.2

2. Local politics

Local government in the Netherlands is the most important and visible level of subnational government in

the Dutch decentralized unitary state. In formal terms, the Dutch state is unitary, but ‘unity’ in this in this

particular state form is not sought through hierarchical steering, but rather through mutual adjsutment

between the three levels of interconnected territorial government: national, provincial and local.3 The local

tier of government consists of 443 municipalities. Due to an ongoing process of municipal amalgamation,

the Netherlands is the only European country where the number of municipalities decreases every year.

1 Geser, H., M. Saiz (eds.) (1999) Local Parties in Political and Organizational Perspective. Boulder: Westview

press 2 Harmel, R., K. Janda (1994), ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change’, in: Journal of Theoretical

Politics, Vol. 6, No. 3, 259-287. 3 Hendriks, F., P.W. Tops (2003) ‘Local public management reforms in The Netherlands’, in: Public Administration,

vol 81, no. 2, p. 301-323.

2

Between 1990 and 2007, the number of municipalities was reduced with 30%. The average size of the

municipality is now (2007) more than 35.000 inhabitants.4

The municipal council is the highest authority in the municipality. Its main job is to decide on the

municipality's broad policies and to audit their implementation. The implementation of council decisions

and the day-to-day administration of the municipality is in the hands of the Court of Mayor and Aldermen

(College van Burgemeester en Wethouders). The executive implements national legislation as well, on

matters such as social assistance, unemployment benefits and environmental management. Aldermen

(wethouders) are appointed by the council. Councillors can be chosen as aldermen. In that case, they

lose their seats in the council and their places are taken by other representatives of the same political

parties. Unlike councillors and aldermen, mayors are not elected (not even indirectly), but are appointed

by the Crown.5

The local councils are elected every four years. For all Dutch elections applies a system of

proportional representation with an election threshold that equals the electoral quotum. Because of this

electoral system, local politics is very open to political changes and to new parties that are expressing

these winds of change.

3. Political parties at the local level

Political parties operating at the local level can play two different roles. First, they function as local

political parties pursuing representation on the local council. In this sense, they do not differ much from

national parties, which do the same at a national level. However, parties at the local level may have an

entirely different type of organization that is not at all connected to any national political party. Secondly,

local political organisations may act as local branches of national political parties. This does not

automatically imply that they engage in local politics: their role may be restricted to supporting supra-

municipal campaigning activities, and their territorial extension need not necessarily match that of the

municipality. In most cases, parties at the local level combine both roles: they not only operate as political

players in the local arena, but also as local representatives of their national mother parties. However,

there are parties that confine themselves to either one of the roles. Besides national party branches that

for tactical or practical reasons back out of local politics, these are mainly independent local political

parties with no formal ties to any national political party. 6 According to this classification, two different

types of political parties at the local level can be distinguished in the Netherlands:

4 Official statistics.

5 Denters, B., P.J. Klok (2005) ‘The Netherlands: in search of responsiveness’, in: B. Denters and L. Rose (eds.),

Comparing local governance: trends and developments. Houndmills: Palgrave, p. 65-81. 6 Geser, H. (1999), ‘The local party as an object of interdisciplinary comparative study’ in M. Saiz, H. Geser (eds.),

Local parties in political and organizational perspective. Boulder/ Oxford: Westview Press, p. 3.

3

a) party branches: local party branches of a national party organisations

b) local parties: independent local parties with no formal ties to any national party.7

Party branches

Just like many organizations and institutions operating nationwide, political parties have also subdivided

their organization into local branches. In most cases, these branches are active in local politics. Virtually

all national parties expect their local branches to take part in local elections. Only when a party branch is

too small or short of suitable candidates will they accept exceptions to the rule. For a variety of reasons, it

is important for parties to be active at the local level.8

a) BREEDING-GROUND FOR TALENT: First of all, national party branches serve as breeding

grounds for interested citizens to gain experience in the profession of politics. The political and

administrative talent nurtured here may then serve as a pool for positions at other administrative

levels.

b) LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCES: A second reason for participation at a local level is

that parties can gain learning experiences and pick up new ideas. In local councils, they can

indulge in risk-free experimentation with new recruitment procedures, campaigning methods,

opposition techniques, or coalition partnerships. Moreover, the branch level is the first and most

immediate level for parties to encounter new social issues, which need to be addressed by them

inmediately. This is how local branches serve as sources of information on local circumstances,

which may then be channelled to the national party leadership.

c) LOW THRESHOLD: Thirdly, local branches provide low-threshold opportunities for people to take

an active part in party matters. Because of their small scale and close proximity, party activities

are more accessible and the network of social ties is stronger at this level than at other ones.

Moreover, local branches are more attractive to people who wish to take an active part in a party

only on a temporary basis.

d) LOCAL MARKETING: A fourth role that party branches play for national parties is that of a local

marketing organization. This role is of particular importance in supra-local elections. Local

branches call the voters’ attention to the party, its programme, and its candidates and recruited

members, sympathisers, volunteers, and sponsors who will support their campaign. In their

campaigning activities, national parties can also make use of the abovementioned local

knowledge of party branches.

7 As with all classifications, there are some borderline cases. Some local parties have successfully rallied for

provincial elections with independent provincial voter associations. 8 Geser, 1999, pp. 6-13.

4

e) USING RESOURCES: Through their local branches, parties insure themselves of free resources,

such as volunteers and facilities (means of communication, etc.), for party purposes. This might

help to explain why the big membership decreases in most parties has not caused any serious

problems.

f) TRANSLATION OF IDEALS: National party branches, finally, can present ideological party

programmes in an attractive way by translating them into local proposals and plans that have an

immediate bearing on citizens. This way, they serve as a link between abstract political ideals and

day-to-day practice, which is particularly manifest at the local level.

Local parties

As local parties have no ties with national parties, they play a distinct role in local politics. They are more

clearly focussed on local issues than local party branches, and their political positions cannot be easily

reduced to national political cleavages. For these reasons, local parties are commonly regarded as an

extraordinary phenomenon in local politics. As they used to have a strong representation in certain parts

of the country, especially in the Catholic south of the Netherlands, they were long considered a feature of

regional political folklore that would disappear with the modernization of local government.9 Their

declining participation in elections and diminishing voter support gave every reason to think so.

Since the 1990 local elections, however, local parties have shown a remarkable upswing in parts

of the country where they used to be weakly represented.10

This development was regarded with anxiety

by the existing local elites: local parties were not taken seriously as competent players, they were held to

lack the required professionalism, take a clientalist approach to group interests, and make a populist

appeal to gut feelings of social discontent. This image was only reinforced when local parties gained

landslide victories in the wake of the Fortuyn revolt in 2002. Again, the presence of local parties was

considered a temporary phenomenon that would be flushed out as voter discontent ebbed away.11

The

March 2006 local election results countered this expectation: although local parties lost many voters,

jointly they still take up the majority of seats on municipal councils. Their presence in Dutch local politics,

therefore, seems to be permanent.

9 Kuiper, W. (1994), Lokaal en landelijk in Limburg: veranderingen in de Limburgse lokale politiek (PhD thesis).

Maastricht, Universitaire Pers Maastricht.

Boogers, M. & R. Keizers (1991), Een verdeelde eenheid: lokale politiek in Sittard tussen 1900 en 1991. Margraten:

Margraten magazine. 10

Janssen, J., A. Korsten (2003), ‘De wederopstanding van lokale lijsten’ in Bestuurswetenschappen, No. 2, pp. 90-

112.

Zouridis, S. P.W. Tops (1994), ‘Wij zijn een partij voor normaal denken...: stadspartijen en hun betekenis voor de

lokale democratie’ in G Voerman (ed.), Jaarboek 1993 van het Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke

Partijen. Groningen, DNPP, pp. 75-92. 11

Boogers, M., R. Weterings (2002), ‘Het gebeurde in Rotterdam, Hilversum en Drimmelen’ in Beleid en

Maatschappij, No. 3, pp. 169-171.

5

Table .1 Percentage of votes for local parties per province. 1974-200612

1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006

Groningen 5.1 5.0 6.5 5.7 5.9 6.0 6.5 14.3 14.1

Friesland 10.5 9.2 9.9 9.2 12.7 20.4 20.0 24.4 13.7

Drenthe 8.5 8.9 9.3 9.1 12.0 17.4 * 23.1 19.7

Overijssel 10.6 6.5 6.6 6.1 9.4 14.8 13.4 18.9 19.8

Flevoland 6.3 4.7 2.8 5.2 5.7 7.7 11.8 27.2 21.2

Gelderland 16.7 13.0 11.2 10.4 12.1 14.5 16.8 22.7 23.0

Utrecht 5.3 3.2 3.1 3.7 4.9 6.9 14.8 21.4 19.7

Noord-Holland 6.4 4.9 6.4 6.8 7.9 11.8 13.9 22.2 18.3

Zuid-Holland 4.7 3.3 4.6 4.5 4.6 8.1 11.7 23.6 22.8

Zeeland 15.8 13.2 11.4 9.0 10.7 10.4 16.6 16.6 21.3

Noord-Brabant 51.3 37.0 31.7 28.1 30.0 33.6 35.8 42.0 37.2

Limburg 71.8 61.9 41.0 36.1 34.2 34.7 36.7 38.2 33.5

NETHERLANDS 18.9 14.8 13.0 12.0 13.3 17.8 17.7 26.3 23.7

According to the literature, local parties may have different motives for taking independent position vis-à-

vis national political parties.

a) FOCUS ON LOCAL ISSUES: The first intrinsic reason for local parties to operate separately from

national political parties is that this allows them to focus more distinctly on local issues. In this

view, national party positions obscure local issues. Whereas party branches fit their party’s

ideology and points of view onto local issues, local parties are more likely to take up issues that

are not all that relevant from a party-ideological point of view. Local parties, therefore, are said to

be more responsive than party branches to local issues that matter to common people.13

Their

independence of a national political party also holds out the possibility for local parties to devote

themselves to just a single cause. A case in point here is the temporary one-issue parties

12

Source for the 1974-1990 period: M.F.J. van Tilburg, Lokaal of nationaal? Het lokale karakter van de

gemeenteraads-verkiezingen in Nederlandse gemeenten (1974-1990), Den Haag, 1993, p. 34; for 1994-2002: Joseph

Janssen & Arno Korsten, ‘De wederopstanding van lokale lijsten’ in Bestuurswetenschappen, 57 (2003), No. 2, pp.

90-112; p. 99; for 2006: own inventory.

* Owing to a large-scale municipal redivision, local elections only took place in one municipality in Drenthe in

1988. This was in Assen, where the percentage of votes for local parties was 25.8%. 13

Janssen & Korsten, 2003.

6

springing up in Switzerland and dealing with controversies in local politics.14

Dutch examples

would include the legion of ‘village parties’, which mean to promote the interests of one or several

villages that are part of a municipality.

b) INSIGNIFICANCE OF NATIONAL POLITICS: A second reason for playing a non-partisan role is

that in party-political oppositions are quite irrelevant in local politics. In this view, local politics is a

matter of pragmatism and common sense, and political nitpicking is out of place. There are quite

a few international examples of local parties that distance themselves from national parties for

this very reason, such as the Freie Wählergemeinschaften in Germany.15

In the Netherlands, the

local political parties that call themselves ‘public interest’ or ‘municipal interest’ parties are good

examples of parties wishing to profile themselves with a non-political message.

c) DISSATISFACTION WITH POLITICS: A less clearly defined ground for operating as a local

political party is related to an overall dissatisfaction with politics, without making much of a

distinction between national and local politics. This discontent is mainly targeted at national

political parties, which, it is assumed, do not take citizens’ problems and interests seriously

enough. Local political parties, in this view, are a sign of protest against politics in general and an

attempt to change politics by giving citizens a greater say in decisions that affect them. Examples

of local parties that profile themselves with this motive are the ‘leefbaar’ (liveable) parties and

other new local political parties that achieved landslide successes in the 2002 local council

elections, which took place in the wake of the political discontent mobilized by Pim Fortuyn.16

d) INDEPENDENCE OF NATIONAL POLITICAL TRENDS: The final ground for taking a non-

partisan position is that this allows local parties to be independent of national political trends.

Presenting themselves as local parties, they avoid being held to account for the policies of

national politicians. This is why national parties in Canada support independent local parties

(‘civic parties’) rather than participate in local elections under their own name.17

In Dutch political

party circles – especially those of the Labour Party (PvdA) and the Green Party (GroenLinks) –

some do occasionally argue in favour of allowing national party branches to take part in local

council elections by another name. However, this is only allowed in exceptional cases. In

practice, these are usually partnerships of national parties (usually progressive or Christian

14

Ladner, A. (1999), ‘Local parties in Switzerland: an active pillar of the Swiss political system’ in M. Saiz, H.

Geser (eds.), Local parties in political and organizational perspective. Boulder/ Oxford: Westview Press, pp. 213-

241. 15

Schneider, H. (1999), ‘Local parties in the German countryside’ in M. Saiz, H. Geser (eds.), Local parties in

political and organizational perspective. Boulder/ Oxford: Westview Press, pp. 123-150. 16

M. Boogers & R. Weterings, ‘Het gebeurde in Rotterdam, Hilversum en Drimmelen’ in Beleid en Maatschappij,

No. 3 (2002), pp. 169-171. 17

P. Filion, ‘Civic Parties in Canada: Their Diversity and Evolution’ in M. Saiz & H. Geser (eds.), Local Parties in

Political and Organizational Perspective, Boulder/Oxford, 1999, pp. 77-100.

7

parties) whose local constituency is too small to allow them to take part in local council elections

on their own.

4. Political parties

Political parties are generally regarded as an important intermediary between society and public

administration. First of all, national parties organise their membership into local party branches, thus

involving groups in society in debates on social issues. Secondly, parties translate the wishes they

register in society into a political programme and rally support for this programme in election campaigns.

In order to have the party’s views and ideas implemented in policies, they pursue representation in

government. Hence, and in the third place, parties recruit and select candidates to serve on

representative bodies and fill other political positions in public government; moreover, they stage

campaigns to support their candidates in elections and advise and assist politicians once they have been

elected. This, then, sums up the three main functions assigned to political parties in the literature: the

organization function, the programmatic function, and the nomination function.18

The way in which parties perform these functions has changed considerably over the past few

decades, which has also brought about a reshuffle in their relative importance. The drop in political party

memberships and the diminished significance of ideological party programmes have decreased the

importance of the organization and programmatic functions and increased the importance of the

nomination function. This development has been described in great detail for political parties at the

national level,19

but as yet little is known about the changes in the way parties perform these different

functions at the local level.

Organization function

Over the past twenty years, membership of the major political parties has, on the whole, shown a steep

decline. In 1980, parties represented in Parliament had a joint membership file of approximately 430,000,

which has dropped to about 318,000 by early 2007, amounting to a 30% decrease.20

Such a drop may

cause immediate problems for parties at the local level, for sustaining a local party organization requires a

minimum number of active members.

18

See e.g. D.L. Seiler, Les partis politiques, Parijs, 1993, 25-33; K. von Beyme, Parteien in westlichen

Demokratien, München, 1982, 25; P. Webb, ‘Introduction’ in P. Webb, D. Farrell & I. Holliday (eds.), Political

Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies Oxford, 2002, pp. 1-15.;

Dalton, R.J. & M.P. Wattenberg (eds.), Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial

Democracies, Oxford, 2002;

Katz, R.S., P. Mair, ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel

Party’, in: Party Politics, 1 (1995), no. 1, 18. 20

see: www.dnpp.nl.

8

Programmatic function

A political programme embodies the party’s positions on major issues and developments in society and

derives its coherence from an ideological outlook on how society should be organized. For a variety of

reasons, political parties distinguish themselves less often through their programmes. This is not only

related to the reduced significance of ideology for voters and parties, but also to the electoral catch-all

strategies of parties that aim to reach out to as many voters as possible, causing party programmes to

converge.

At the local level, this programmatic party function is even weaker. The sharp political cleavages

exploited by parties to profile themselves in national politics are much more muted at the local level:

nationwide debates on the distribution of incomes, for instance, bypass local politics altogether since local

councils have no competence in this field. Conversely, many local controversies do not easily fit in with

ideological divisions between national parties. This means that party programmes shape the positions of

parties at the local level only to a limited degree, which makes it hard for them to create a distinctive

profile for themselves in local political debates.

Nomination function

The nomination function, as indicated above, has grown to be most important for political parties. From

being a membership organization, the political party has evolved into an executive organization that

recruits, selects, and supports politicians. Only a few studies show if and how this development has taken

place at the local level. In any case, there are reasons to expect local politics to have special

requirements for the performance of this nomination function. In selecting candidates, parties at the local

level must restrict themselves to municipal residents. Drops in membership at this level, therefore, cause

many more nomination problems than at the national level. Overall, citizens’ diminishing readiness to

engage in long-term political activity causes special problems at the local level in recruiting and selecting

candidates for political positions, with the possible hazard of concessions having to be made to the quality

of candidates for the municipal council.

5. Research

In order to get more information about political parties at a local level, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior

(home affairs) commissioned us to investigate the nomination capacity of these parties and to explore the

ideological, organisational and operational characteristics of local parties. We conducted two online

surveys: one among administrators of party branches and of local parties (winter 2005/ 2006, N=1.800:

1.450 party branches, 350 local parties) and one among administrators of local parties (spring 2006,

9

N=250).21

The results of these surveys allow us to compare how local parties and party branches fulfil the

three party functions.

6. Organization and mobilization

The way in which parties organize and mobilize citizens’ political involvement shows how they are rooted

in society. Important aspects here are membership volume and contact intensity between members and

the party. In addition, the character of a party’s organization also depends on the party’s external relations

with residents and groups in society.

Membership

Political parties have been facing declining membership for quite some time now. As in most other

Western countries, the percentage of voters in the Netherlands that are members of a political party is

showing a downward trend.22

This trend is also evident in membership developments at the local level,

even though some party branches are seeing their membership numbers go up. Branches of the

Christian Democrats (CDA), Liberals (VVD), and, to a lesser degree, the Liberal Democrats (D66) have to

challenge dropping membership figures, whereas branches of the Socialist Party (SP), Green Party

(GroenLinks), Reformed Church Party (SGP), and Labour Party (PvdA) more often report increases in

membership. Another striking fact is that local parties are much more successful at retaining members

and recruiting new members than national party branches.

According to branch administrators, party branches have an average of about 100 members.

Approximately 25 of them are active, which involves distributing folders, attending party meetings, serving

on the branch committee, or supporting the council faction. The actual number of members is likely to be

much lower: national membership figures registered annually by the Documentation Centre for Dutch

Political Parties (DNPP) are twice as low as the membership figures reported by the joint national party

branches themselves. However, even if membership figures have not been overestimated, parties in

smaller municipalities still have only very few (active) members. In the smallest municipalities, with less

than 20,000 inhabitants, party branches themselves say they have about 70 members, approximately 15

of whom are active. This is close to the minimum number of active members that is required to run a local

party organization. This is especially true for D66 and GroenLinks, who, on average, have fewer than 10

21

Parties who could not be reached by e-mail, received a questionnaire by post. The overall response rate of the first

survey was 60%; the second survey had a response rate of 30%. The data are representative for party denomination,

region and municipality size. Boogers, M., P. Lucardie, G. Voerman (2006), Lokale politieke groperingen:

belangenbehartiging, protest en lokalisme. Tilburg/Groningen: TSPB/ DNPP.

Voerman, G., M. Boogers (2006), Rekrutering door politieke partijen bij gemeenteraadsverkiezingen: problemen en

perspectieven. Tilburg/Groningen: TSPB/ DNPP. 22

Susan Scarrow, ‘Parties without Members? Party Organization in a Changing Electoral Environment’ in Dalton &

Wattenberg, op.cit., pp. 79-101; Peter Mair & Ingrid van Biezen, ‘Party membership in twenty European

democracies’ in Party Politics, 7, 1 (2001), pp. 5-21.

10

active members in these municipalities. Local political parties have, on average, more (active) members

in small municipalities than national party branches, whereas they have fewer (active) members in the big

cities (see Table 3 for relative differences).

Table 2. Membership developments in local party branches and local political parties (dataset

TSPB/DNPP; N=1824)

decreased stable increased total

CDA 61.1 33.9 5.0 100.0

ChristenUnie 17.5 54.2 28.3 100.0

D66 41.5 47.7 10.8 100.0

GroenLinks 6.3 45.3 48.4 100.0

PvdA 8.9 54.8 36.3 100.0

SGP 10.7 50.9 38.4 100.0

SP 2.2 11.0 86.8 100.0

VVD 52.2 37.4 10.4 100.0

Total party branches 31.7 43.3 25.0 100.0

Local parties 10.6 45.3 44.1 100.0

Total 28.0 43.6 28.4 100.0

11

Table 3. Differences in number of members and active members per party and per municipal size:

index scores (general average = 100) (dataset TSPB/DNPP; N=1824)

MUNICIPAL SIZE

INDEX

AVERAGE

MEMBERSHIP

NUMBER

INDEX

AVERAGE

NUMBER OF

ACTIVE

MEMBERS

LOCAL PARTIES <20,000 inhabitants

20-50,000 inhabitants

50-100,000 inhabitants

>100,000 inhabitants

local parties’ average

40.1

57.5

54.1

98.6

55.2

74.8

89.3

90.1

95.0

85.5

PARTY BRANCHES

<20,000 inhabitants

20-50,000 inhabitants

50-100,000 inhabitants

>100,000 inhabitants

party branches’ average

58.9

88.0

145.3

323.6

78.6

71.1

93.8

122.3

229.8

103.3

TOTAL <20,000 inhabitants

20-50,000 inhabitants

50-100,000 inhabitants

>100,000 inhabitants

general average

71.2

104.0

164.1

369.0

100.0

71.5

93.0

116.9

210.7

100.0

With national party branches, both overall membership figures and the number of active members rise

sharply as municipal size goes up; with local political parties, however, the number of (active) members

shows greater constancy.

Contacts with members

As indicated above, only a minority of party members make an active contribution to internal debates and

campaigning activities, to the party executive committee, or to the support of municipal councillors. It

would seem self-evident to assume that active member involvement is more pronounced in smaller

parties: their members are more likely to feel they can make a distinctive contribution to the party’s

12

activities than members of bigger parties. Moreover, stronger social networks in small parties provide a

greater incentive for participation.23

Bigger parties, as expected, do indeed maintain less intensive

member contacts at the local level: the bigger the party, the lower the percentage of active members.

Active membership varies considerably among parties. Irrespective of their membership numbers, local

political parties maintain considerably closer ties with their members than national party branches. (see

table 4.)

Relations with the local community

Parties have always mainly depended on their membership organization for maintaining relations with the

local community. Through active membership, parties keep in touch with current issues in the municipality

and can mobilize social support for party positions on these issues. As membership figures of most party

branches are going down, and fewer and fewer people are inclined to be active member, parties need to

start looking for other ways of organizing their relations with local community. They often do so by directly

contacting groups in society. Many party branches, for instance, experiment with working groups on

specific topical themes that not only attract party members but also party sympathizers.24

Parties also

increasingly tend to make councillors and council candidates responsible for liaising with individual

citizens, societies, and organizations. This is how political parties are developing into a modern cadre

party, with politicians framing their own grassroots support.25

Local political parties are the clearest exponents of this development. As was said before, these

are smaller parties with a relatively active membership. Their relations with the local community are not

based on a large membership organization but rather on the efforts of politicians and other active

members. With visits to neighbourhoods, working visits, regular meetings with social organizations and

with casual personal contacts, they maintain close ties with the local community.26

They also profile

themselves more pronouncedly than national party branches with politicians that are rooted in local

society and that have thus established considerable authority. In doing so, local political parties appear to

be at the leading edge in developing a more contemporary political organization.

23

Reussing (1989), ‘Participatie binnen politieke partijen op lokaal niveau’ in R. Koole (ed.), Jaarboek 1988 van het

Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen. Groningen: DNPP, pp. 131-152. 24

M. Boogers, P.W. Tops, A. Vries, Effecten van dualisering voor burgers: beweging naar buiten; derde

jaarbericht van de begeleidingscommissie Vernieuwingsimpuls Duallisme en lokale democratie. The Hague, VNG

Publishers. 25

Gunther, R. , J. J. Linz (eds.) (2002), Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges. Oxford: Oxford

University Press. 26

Boogers en Voerman (2006), ‘Lokale politieke groeperingen: belangenbehartiging, lokalisme en protest’.

Tilburg/Groningen, TSPB and DNPP.

13

Table 4. Percentages of active members by party size. Local political parties and national party

branches (dataset TSPB/DNPP; N=1824).

Party size

PERCENTAGE

ACTIVE

MEMBERS

LOCAL PARTY <50 members 50-100 members 100-150 members >150 members Local parties’ average

54.9%

31.8%

21.1%

16.6%

41.7%

NATIONAL PARTY

BRANCH

<50 members 50-100 members 100-150 members >150 members Party branches’ average

38.8%

24.5%

21.8%

15.5%

26.0%

TOTAL <50 members 50-100 members 100-150 members >150 members General average

43.0%

25.8%

21.7%

15.6%

28.7%

7. Programme and profile

The programmatic function of parties is twofold: its first function is to translate citizens’ wishes and ideas

into a cohering political programme; the second is to make clear what can be expected form the party in

terms of political positions and policy proposals. These two would ideally make a seamless match. If the

party programme is not based on local opinions about local issues, it will be hard for the party to offer the

voters any clear option in elections and to retain a distinct profile afterwards. At the other hand, local

voters will feel disappointed if their expectations of a party are not based on its programmatic outlook on

municipal policy. In order to match both components of the programmatic function, it is important for the

party programme to identify and accentuate local conflicts and then to take position. Wishes and ideas

14

articulated in the programme are only politically relevant if they embody or engender conflict and

controversy in the municipality. By taking a stand on such oppositions, the programme gains a clear focus

and the party a distinct profile. Ideological views on local society confer coherence on the political choices

in the programme and thus reinforce the party’s profile.

National party branches

The programmatic profile of a party branch is largely based on the national party’s manifesto. Even if

branches of the same party may respond to local circumstances in different ways, voters will mainly

recognize the party branch by the national mother party’s programmatic profile, which, by and large, is

embedded in national themes. This makes it hard for party branches to take a distinct position in matters

of local controversy: it is almost impossible to frame local conflicts of interest between neighbourhoods or

divergence of views on city centre innovation into political dividing lines between social democrats,

liberals and Christian democrats. All this means that, though the ideological profile of party branches is

rather clear, the electorate hardly knows how this translates into party positions on well-defined local

issues.

Local political parties

Local political parties are a diverse group of diverging organizations that have only their non-alliance to a

national political party in common. This makes it hard to pinpoint them ideologically. Whereas names of

national parties offer voters some guidance on the stands and views of their branches, this is hardly the

case for local political parties. It is possible, however, to distinguish several name clusters that provide a

rough indication of how these local parties mean to profile themselves.

a) PUBLIC INTEREST / MUNICIPAL INTERESTS: The most common cluster is made up of local

political parties whose name refers to the general interest or to municipal interests (algemeen

belang / gemeentebelangen). These names appeal to the idea that local government ought to be

non-political and pragmatic. Divisions between national political parties, in this view, are assumed

to be irrelevant for local politics. Almost two in five local parties fall into this category. Parties with

these names have a strong representation in smaller municipalities and a greater prevalence in

the north of the Netherlands.

b) INDEPENDENT CITIZEN PARTIES: A variation of the previous category is the cluster of

independent citizen parties. The names of these parties express that citizens have established

them independently of national political parties. Approximately one in ten local parties falls into

this cluster. They have a stronger representation in the bigger municipalities (over 50,000

inhabitants) and in the urban agglomeration of Western Holland.

c) LEEFBAAR (‘LIVEABLE’) PARTIES: A well-known and more recent category of local parties is

the so-called leefbaar parties, whose name refers to a local environment that is liveable, or ‘fit to

15

live in’. After the successes of Leefbaar Hilversum and Leefbaar Utrecht in 1998, leefbaar parties

also made their entry in other municipalities in the 2002 elections. Most of them were new local

parties, but some already existed and went for a name change in order to cash in on the national

exposure leefbaar parties received. Some leefbaar parties had informal ties with Leefbaar

Nederland (a national party that participated in the national elections in 2002 and 2003), but most

did not. Almost 6% of all political parties are leefbaar parties, and they are mostly an urban

phenomenon.

d) VILLAGE PARTIES: The fourth cluster of local political parties present themselves as village

parties, promoting the interests of one or several villages that are part of the municipality. Almost

one in ten parties has a name of this type. Village parties are only represented in smaller

municipalities (less than 50,000 inhabitants) in the south of the Netherlands.

e) IDEOLOGICAL PARTIES: There are also local political parties whose name expresses an

ideological profile and which, in this respect, closely resemble national parties. Generally, these

local parties present themselves as alternatives to national parties, sometimes because the latter

do not operate in the municipality or sometimes because they are a faction of a national party.

About one in ten local parties falls into this category; they can be found mainly in the smallest

municipalities and in the cities.

f) SENIOR CITIZENS’ AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S PARTIES: These parties promote the interests of a

specific demographic group, usually senior citizens, but sometimes young people or students.

Almost 4% of all local parties profile themselves as senior citizens’ or young people’s parties.

They are slightly more common in the south than elsewhere in the Netherlands.

g) PERSON-BASED PARTIES: The final cluster is made up of local parties that are named after

party leaders who are widely known in the local community because of their political experience

or social positions. Approximately 4% of all local parties profile themselves in this way. Person-

based parties are mainly active in smaller municipalities in the south of the Netherlands.

h) OTHER: Finally, there is a sizeable category of parties with names that fail to designate the

party’s programmatic profile. Virtually one in five local parties eludes categorization for this

reason.

16

Table 5. Names of local parties (dataset TSPB/ DNPP, N=251)

NAME CLUSTER PERCENTAGE

Public interest / Municipal interest 39.8

Independent citizen’s parties 10.8

‘Leefbaar’ parties 5.6

Village parties 8.4

Ideological parties 9.2

Senior citizens’ / Young people’s parties 3.6

Person-based parties 4.4

Other 18.2

Total 100.0

Survey data on the aims and basic principles of local political parties give a more in-depth picture of their

programmatic profile. These data indicate that local political parties can be distinguished into three types

of profiles27

:

a) LOCALIST PARTIES: These local political parties distinguish themselves by their general focus

on the quality of local administration and local democracy. They have a rather apolitical character:

the main issue in their programmes is the preservation of the municipality’s unique character. Half

of all local political parties fall into this category. They are commonly local parties with a long

history. Most of them carry names designating the general interest or municipal interests.

b) PROTEST PARTIES: This type of local party is driven by opposition to a municipal plan or by a

general dissatisfaction with municipal administration. Well over a quarter of local parties falls into

this category. These relatively young parties are commonly known as leefbaar parties,

independent citizen parties, and ideological parties.

c) INTEREST PARTIES: The last type is made up of local parties that devote themselves to the

interests of specific groups of residents. Almost a quarter of all local parties fall into this category.

Just like localist parties, interest parties have often been around for some time. Common names

in this category include village parties, senior citizens’ and young people’s parties, and person-

based parties.

27

This classification was made by a principal component analysis of 18 items and a two-stop cluster analysis of the

factor scores.

17

Table 6. Programmatic typology of local political parties (dataset TSPB/ DNPP, N=251)

TYPE PERCENTAGE

Localist parties

(general interest, municipal interest)

50.0

Protest parties

(‘leefbaar’ parties, independent citizen parties,

ideological parties)

27.4

Interest parties (senior citizens’ and young

people’s parties, village parties, person-based

parties)

22.6

Total 100.0

When asked how they should be branded in an ideological sense, most local parties decline to be ranked

on a left-right scale or prefer to be classified in the ideological mid-range. This is the case for more than

two-thirds of local parties. This confirms the impression that local parties are hard to classify ideologically;

in most cases, they avoid the ideological divisions used by national political parties to profile themselves.

On the whole, local parties tend to converge on the left-hand side of the political spectrum. Parties whose

names designate their ideological profile and the leefbaar parties tend to position themselves left or right

of centre. Most village parties favour a right of centre position. Person-based parties and general or

municipal interest parties often position themselves in mid-range or refuse altogether to position

themselves on a left-right spectrum.

Table 7. Ideological self-ranking by local parties (dataset TSPB/ DNPP, N=251)

PERCENTAGE

Left 9.1

Left of centre 15.9

Centre 33.2

Right of centre 6.5

Right 1.3

Not applicable 34.0

Total (N=251) 100.0

18

Local dividing lines

National parties can be classified more easily than local parties. Voter surveys show that virtually all

Dutch voters manage to position national parties on a left-right scale and do so relatively consistently and

with stability.28

This gives the national parties a distinctive ideological profile. For their local branches,

however, there is a downside. As national party profiles are largely based on national themes, party

positions on local issues tend to be fuzzy. Local parties find themselves in a reverse situation. Their

ideological position on the classic left-right spectrum is vague, but they take clear and distinctive positions

on local issues. In doing so, local parties introduce three new ideological dividing lines to the left-right

division. Parties with a localist profile emphasize the contrast between municipal interests, on the one

hand, and regional, provincial, or national interests, on the other. They stress that local party councillors

are in a better position to promote local interests than representatives of party branches, who are

assumed to be more responsive to pressures from fellow party members at other administrative levels.

The second new political dividing line is between establishment and anti-establishment. This dividing line

is particularly politicized by protest parties that intend to expose the poor responsiveness of party

branches in office. Interest parties, thirdly, stress geographical and demographic divisions between

neighbourhoods, communities, villages, or between young people and senior citizens. The idea here is

that party branches are not able to act on behalf of the interests of neighbourhoods or demographic

groups.

As local parties have a distinct profile, they appear to have a positive influence on the

accessibility and responsiveness of local politics. Because they bring new, purely local political divisions

into local politics, local parties manage to put issues on to the political agenda that escape the attention

party branches or end up smothered in internal party debate.

8. Nomination

With the reduced significance of the mobilization and ideological functions of parties, nomination has now

become the most important function of political parties. By pre-selecting candidates with a common

outlook on life and with the required competencies, parties simplify the selection process in elections.

This saves voters from having to compare the qualities and ideas of hundreds of individual candidates.29

However, this forces parties to recruit sufficient people who are willing and able to take up town

councillorship, which is increasingly hard to do. Particularly in the smaller municipalities, parties are

having great difficulties with finding motivated and talented candidate councillors or active members who

can support councillors. For this reason, the Liberal Democrats (D66) withdrew form the 2006 elections in

28

See e.g., Wouter van der Brug, Where’s the Party? Voters’ Perceptions of Party Positions, Amsterdam, 1996, 37-

43. 29

Jones, Ph. And J. Hudson (1998), ‘The role of political parties: An analysis based on transaction costs’ in Public

19

Waalwijk, Dongen, and Marum, among other places. According to the survey data, one in seven party

branches seriously considered non-participation in local elections; even more than half the D66 branches

did so. Party branches in particular had great difficulty in finding eligible council candidates: virtually half

of all party branches reported great difficulty in finding sufficient eligible candidates. The D66, VVD, and

PvdA party branches had the greatest nomination problems in the 2006 local elections; the SP and

ChristenUnie branches the least. Local political parties on the whole had less difficulty recruiting council

candidates; only 38% reported they had great or some difficulty finding candidates for local elections.

Table 8. Percentage of party branches and local parties that had some or great difficulty recruiting

eligible candidates (dataset TSPB/DNPP; N=1824)

PARTY PERCENTAGE

CDA 46.6

ChristenUnie 40.0

D66 55.9

GroenLinks 44.5

PvdA 49.0

SGP 47.0

SP 42.7

VVD 50.9

Total party branches 47.9

Local parties 38.2

Total 46.1

Recruitment of non-party members

Considering the major problems some national party branches experienced in finding eligible candidates,

it was to be expected that they must have looked beyond their party organisations to try and recruit non-

party members. This was indeed the case in the build-up to the 2006 municipal elections. The GroenLinks

and CDA branches did so most often, SGP and SP branches least often. A total of approximately one-

third of party branches put up one or more non-party member candidates. Particularly national party

branches and local parties that had to make a considerable effort to find sufficient municipal councillors

often looked for candidates among non-party members. Thus, circumstances seem to have blurred the

distinction between members and non-members.

Choice, Vol. 94, pp. 175-189.

20

Table 5.9 Percentage of party branches or local parties that recruited among non-party members

(dataset TSPB/DNPP; N=1824)

PARTY PERCENTAGE

CDA 41.0

ChristenUnie 17.9

D66 15.3

GroenLinks 46.6

PvdA 38.2

SGP 3.3

SP 5.5

VVD 25.5

Total party branches 29.1

Local political parties 54.4

Total (N=1456) 33.6

The national PvdA, CDA, and VVD party leadership encouraged their party branches to recruit non-

members as council candidates partly because it would be impossible to find sufficient candidates in any

other way and partly to stimulate a much-needed rejuvenation of their council factions. All such non-

members, for that matter, had to join their parties to be able to stand as candidates.30

Local parties

showed an even higher degree of flexibility than national party branches. Well over half recruited people

not registered as members.

Nomination capacity

The quality implications of the political parties’ weak nomination potential for local democracy appear to

be ambiguous. On the one hand, it may involve concessions being made to the quality of council

candidates, with all its consequences for the role and position of the municipal council. On the other, the

national party branches are following the example of local parties in recruiting non-members who, for

instance, have won their spurs in local society. This opening up of the recruitment scope might eventually

reinforce the council’s representative function, which would ultimately benefit the responsiveness and

legitimacy of local politics.

30

Group interview with officials from national party headquarters, june 2006.

21

9. Party branches and local parties compared

In evaluating the way in which political parties fulfil their functions in local politics, we find that their

intermediary function is under considerable pressure. Party branches are experiencing increasing

difficulty organizing and mobilizing citizens’ political commitment. Well over a quarter of all parties are

facing decreasing membership figures at the local level, while the number of members is low anyway. In

the smaller municipalities in particular, many party branches – especially those of CDA, VVD, and D66 –

are approaching critical limits: they have barely sufficient active members to keep the party branch alive,

which is causing difficulties in recruiting candidates for council elections. In the last council elections,

virtually half of all national party branches had difficulty finding people prepared to stand as candidates. In

well over one-third of these cases, parties resorted to non-party members. Although this holds out

prospects for parties, as recruiting talent outside party ranks might have a revitalizing effect, the current

state of affairs is a worry for a substantial number of political parties. Obviously, this has consequences

for the national party organization, as local branches are the party’s grassroots.

Local political parties seem to be doing better. They are spearheading the party change from

membership organization into staff-type organization – a development all parties are going through in one

way or another – with politicians and a small number of active volunteers taking care of the party’s

rootedness in society. Secondly, they enrich local politics with new political dividing lines, smoothing the

entry of new demands, themes, and issues on to the political agenda. Finally, they are proving to be more

resourceful in recruiting citizens to stand as candidates for municipal councillorship. Because of their

ideological and organizational characteristics, they are in a better position to organize citizens’ political

involvement; not on a permanent but an ad hoc basis and not based on party-political ties but rather on

their interests and expertise.31

These qualities give local political parties a head start in developing a new

intermediary role between politics and society. Since national political parties are gradually heading the

same way,32

local parties seem to be a prototype for party branches.

31

SCP (2004) Sociaal Cultureel rapport 2004. Den Haag: SCP.

Dekker, P., J. de Hart en E. Van den Berg (2004) ‘Democratie en civil society’, in: SCP, In het zicht van de

toekomst: Sociaal en Cultureel Rapport 2004, Den Haag: Sdu, blz 181-220. 32

Webb, P., D. Farell, I. Holliday (eds.) (2002), Political parties in advanced western democracies. Oxford: Oxford

University Press;

Gunther, R. , J. J. Linz (eds.) (2002), Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.