1994: a breaking point in Dutch political history?
On Tuesday 17 September, Diederik Smit was a guest at the meeting of research group The Eighties to interpret the extent to which 1994 was a breaking point in Dutch political history, thirty years after the first Purple cabinet took office. Smit is a historian at Leiden University and is completing part two of the biography on former prime minister Wim Kok (1994-2018). In doing so, he is taking over from Marnix Krop, who died in 2022.
Diederik Smit argued that through a politico-cultural lens, the years 1982 to 2002 can be regarded as a continuous period: a period of pragmatism and the polder model, in which consultation prevailed over polarisation, pragmatism over ideology, and governance over politics. 1994 played no part in this. From the perspective of the political parties, however, it did: for the Christian Democratic Party (CDA) 1994 marked the end of the Lubbers era. Disappointment over election results prevailed. For Democrats 66, on the contrary, the long-cherished dream of governing without Christian Democrats came true. For Wim Kok 1989 was in fact a more important moment than the start of the Purple cabinet, Diederik argued, since that was when the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) rejoined the government for the first time in years. In 1994, Kok was particularly relieved that the Labour Party’s loss was limited and that he no longer had to play second fiddle as prime minister.
Although the policies of the first Purple cabinet were an extension of previous cabinets, the more favourable economic climate formed a stark contrast to the 1980s and early 1990s. For the three coalition parties, the priority was ‘work, work, work’ and there was an optimistic mood about future opportunities for the Netherlands. That optimism also translated into greater self-confidence on the international stage. The Netherlands profiled itself as a guiding country again and Kok was even hoisted on the shield by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton as a proponent of the ‘Third Way’.