Author Joris Luyendijk is invited to one of the biggest talk shows in the country, Buitenhof, to talk about his new book. The book is an exposé of how the Netherlands is dominated by people like him: white, male, straight, highly educated, with privileged parents.

He says it's a problem. Luyendijk adopts a fairly confrontational style, highlighting for instance the privileged social background of the host, another white man. He says that being a white man who did not experience discrimination makes him less suitable as an interviewer.

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alexandre afonso

@alexandreafonso

Feb 13

Here's a farce: *80%* of the votes of the Portuguese diaspora in Europe in the last legislative election have eventually been declared invalid. publico.pt/2022/02/10/pol…

By default, Portuguese nationals had to vote by mail. The law requires the photocopy of their ID to be sent alongside their vote. This information didn't get through because many did not.

At first, PS and PSD had agreed that all the ballots would be counted. The PSD changed its mind, and all the votes in the voting stations where ballots with and without ID had been mixed were declared invalid.

Read 5 tweets

alexandre afonso

@alexandreafonso

Feb 8

A thread about social privilege in the Netherlands.

J. Luyendijk has a new book in which he argues that Dutch society is dominated by people with 7 characteristics:
1. male
2. white
3. at least one highly educated parent
4. at least one parent born in NL
5. straight
6. had classics education in high school
7. university educated

I thought I would try to see if there was a way to measure this with data: how privileged are people with these characteristics in the Netherlands? How many people are there who "tick" the 7 boxes?

Read 23 tweets

alexandre afonso

@alexandreafonso

Feb 8

@JORISLUIJENDIJK

Een draadje (in het Nederlands ) over @JORISLUIJENDIJK's #7vinkjes met data.

Ik vroeg me af of er een manier was om de rol van deze "vinkjes" in Nederland met data te meten. Hoe geprivilegieerd zijn mensen met 7 vinkjes eigenlijk? Hoe groot is dit groep?
nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/02…

Om dit te meten gebruik ik de laatste 3 beschikbare rondes van de European Social Survey. Dit is een grote sociale enquête in veel Europese landen over politiek, arbeid en levensomstandigheden. europeansocialsurvey.org

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alexandre afonso

@alexandreafonso

Feb 6

@jonhenley

A thread on why I think that the lessons to be learned from Portugal and the victory of Antonio Costa for the European left are quite limited (after reading this piece by @jonhenley) theguardian.com/world/2022/feb…

In a nutshell, Portuguese social democracy looks more like European social democracy's successful past than its successful future.

That's because the class structure of the Portuguese electorate looks a bit like the one of other West European countries a few decades ago (and like some CEE): a higher proportion of skilled and manual workers, the traditional electoral base of social democratic parties

Read 13 tweets