Thread by @bencoates1

Thinking a lot this morning about Dutch attitudes to government failure today (given the news that having made bold pledges about delivering covid vaccines, preparations for actually doing this are running way behind schedule)

https://twitter.com/bencoates1/status/1339495822975758336

It’s often striking to me how benign Dutch people’s attitudes seem. The pandemic is a good example: NL has been battered badly, yet Rutte’s polling at record highs. Even when things go badly, the prevailing attitude seems to be: “give them a break, they’re doing their best!”

Why is this? I think there’s a few possible (overlapping) reasons:

Firstly, most obviously, the political culture here is based heavily on consensus. Parliament often feels like a friendly club rather than a competitive arena. Politics is a managerial challenge, not a bloodsport.

As such, fiercely scrutinizing failures isn’t really in the DNA. Point-scoring is unseemly, and criticising policy can seem unpatriotic. “Let’s not be mean, it is what it is, we’re all friends here so let’s work together to fix it!”

Similarly, the breadth of coalition government means opposition muted. It’s striking that when failures do happen (eg. Belastingdienst), scrutiny/criticism often comes from individuals or fringes (Omtzigt). Most opposition comes from radical fringes (FvD) rather than mainstream

In Britain (for example) Boris Johnson has to stand in Parliament every Wednesday and answer tough questions from Keir Starmer about the latest data. Here, there’s no official opposition party snapping weekly at Rutte’s heels – his main opponents are sitting in his cabinet.

From the voter’s perspective, the link with power is also frayed. A large number of parties have often quite similar policies, and go into coalition together. This means people know they won’t get exactly what they voted for but some renegotiated version of it.

“I voted D66 because I wanted them to do X, but I don’t blame them for not doing X because the CDA stopped them”. In this context, failures are easier to get away with.

More broadly, there’s a strong strain of Dutch exceptionalism (see, for example, attitudes towards Italy’s economic woes or Brexit). Surveys show trust in government is very high. “Bad things only happen in countries which are foolish or disorganized enough to let them happen”.

So bad things don’t happen here – and if they do, they were unavoidable. Successes prove we're great but failures are just odd exceptions. We’ve been dining out on the Delta Works for years.

Conversely, there’s also a tendency to assume in a small country, some things are beyond our control & we’re at mercy of Germany/EU/EMA. There’s some truth in this, but “we do things superbly but we’re only a small country after all” leaves a lot of loopholes to wriggle through.

More positively, there’s perhaps also acceptance that governing is hard. Dutch policymaking can be slow; based on compromise and never getting exactly what you want. This inherently implies accepting outcomes are always suboptimal. “I never expected my vaccine on time anyway!”

Finally, the media culture is much flatter and calmer than in the US or UK; less politicized and less excitable. This has benefits, but also means scrutiny is weaker. Questioning at Rutte’s press conferences is often hilariously tame. "Yes 10k are dead but can I go on holiday?"

The media/political climate has hardened a bit in recent years (sometimes unpleasantly) but still: if you were a health minister botching vaccine delivery, where would you rather appear: in an interrogation on the BBC’s Newsnight, or at a press conference in the Hague?

Managing a pandemic is impossibly hard. All the policy options are unpleasant, and decent people are doing their best. But personally I live in hope that one day people will fight for better- and that leaders will under-promise and over-deliver, rather than the other way round...

Anyway, just some rambling thoughts. This is still a wonderful country and I love it dearly. Please buy my books.

abc.nl/book-details/w…

abc.nl/book-details/t…