Largest or least small party?
It is also striking that the largest party in the Netherlands is shrinking. ‘Journalists often act as if it is very important who becomes the largest, but when the differences between parties are so small and no single party stands out, it is not that important at all.” This focus on the largest party has been imported from America, but if it were up to Jacobs, the media would shift their attention. ‘The Dutch system is almost the opposite of that in the United States. With two parties, it makes sense to look at who gets the most votes, but here there is hyper-representation: for almost every group of citizens, there is a party with at least one seat.’ Without any really large parties, the formation process becomes an increasingly difficult puzzle, requiring more parties to form a majority cabinet and increasing the likelihood of clashes because each party has its own interests. In addition, it is mainly the larger parties that are obstructive, not the smaller ones.
Meanwhile, distrust in politics is growing. ‘That's not surprising, because the government has shown itself to be unreliable on several occasions in recent years. Think of natural gas extraction in Groningen, the benefits scandal and the nitrogen crisis,” Jacobs sums up with ease. And that trust is difficult to restore. ‘In recent election campaigns, you saw a kind of Messiah being created. Someone who stood out positively and whom everyone hoped would be able to deliver the desired solutions: Omtzigt, Van der Plas, Bontenbal and now Jetten.’ In practice, however, things are proving to be much more difficult. ‘Previous cabinets ended up muddling through, and it remains to be seen whether the next cabinet will be able to deliver sufficiently. In any case, it would make a big difference if they could hold out for longer than a year or two.’
Knowledge under fire
Moreover, democracy is proving not to be as resilient as long thought. ‘The prevailing view was that democracy is stable in a country with sufficient prosperity, but now that you see even in rich countries such as the United States that democracy is being eroded from within, that view no longer seems tenable.’
In his current research, Jacobs is looking at initiatives that can actually strengthen democratic culture. ‘At the local level, you see all kinds of things happening, and with success. Think of citizens’ assemblies that advise on waste policy or municipalities that give citizens a budget to spend on their neighbourhood in consultation with them.’ The big challenge, Jacobs emphasises, is to roll out these kinds of initiatives at the national level as well.
At the same time, during all the meetings and citizens' assemblies he has attended in recent years, Jacobs has seen a new problem emerge: declining agreement on what is true. ‘Scientific knowledge is under attack. At citizens’ assemblies, for example, you saw this in discussions about which experts to invite. The self-evident authority of experts is eroding, and if you cannot agree on fundamental issues, such as what happened in America on 6 January 2021 (during the storming of the Capitol), you can safely say that democracy is facing a challenge.’ Jacobs will study the role of knowledge in democracy in his new research. ‘Thorbecke, the man behind the first Dutch constitution of 1848, said it best: you have to invest in knowledge and education if you want to have a well-functioning democracy.’
End-of-year series
This story is part of the End-of-year series. Especially for this series, the editors of Radboud Recharge, together with scientists, look back on seven important moments from 2025. Curious about the other articles? View the entire series here.
