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The politics of military deployments: contestation of foreign and security policy in the Netherlands

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Abstract

In many liberal democracies today, foreign policy is the subject of increasing political contestation. Recent studies have demonstrated that political parties cluster predictably when voting on military deployments. In the economic left/right dimension, support for military deployments is highest for centrist and centre-right parties, and decreases towards the (far) left and (far) right. This pattern is not as robust in the non-economic GAL/TAN dimension, which pits parties with green, alternative and libertarian (GAL) values against those with traditional, authoritarian and nationalist ones (TAN). This article addresses the dimensionality of foreign and security policy by analysing 57 votes on military deployments in the Dutch parliament between 1998 and 2019. The results show that even in the Netherlands, where the GAL/TAN dimension is most likely to explain party–political contestation, foreign and security policy remains more attuned to the left/right cleavage. These findings contribute to analyses of party–political contestation in other Western European democracies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Richard Sonneveld

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Appendices

Appendix

Appendix 1

List of Dutch political parties and scores on left/right and GAL/TAN.

Full name

Acronym

Years in parliament*

Votes participated

Left/right**

GAL/TAN**

50PLUS

50PLUS

2012–2019

20

5.17

4.97

Christian Democratic Appeal

CDA

1998–2019

57

6.22

6.84

Christian Union

CU

2000–2019

55

5.70

8.09

Democrats 66

D66

1998–2019

57

4.86

1.69

DENK

DENK

2017–2019

6

4.36

7.55

Forum for Democracy

FvD

2017–2019

6

9.54

8.33

GreenLeft

GL

1998–2019

57

2.42

1.59

Reformed Political League

GVP

1998–2000

2

6.70

8.64

Liveable Netherlands

LN

 

2

Not scored

Not scored

List Pim Fortuyn

LPF

 

16

8.38

5.44

Reformatory Political Federation

RPF

 

2

6.80

8.55

Labour Party

PvdA

1998–2019

57

3.78

3.44

Party for the Animals

PvdD

2006–2019

39

2.88

3.02

Party for Freedom

PVV

2006–2019

39

8.84

7.18

Reformed Political Party

SGP

1998–2019

57

8.03

9.48

Socialist Party

SP

1998–2019

57

1.40

4.53

People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy

VVD

1998–2019

57

7.52

5.08

  1. * The time frame under ‘Years in parliament’ is limited to the period under review in this article. While parliamentary representation of most mainstream parties goes back to the end of World War II, the maximum time frame here is 1998–2019
  2. ** Scores on left/right and GAL/TAN are based on averages scores of all editions of the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) between 1999 and 2019

Appendix 2

List of deployment votes per administration.

Administration

In office

Coalition parties (seats in parliament upon instalment)

Number of votes

Kok II

1998–2002

PvdA (45)—VVD (38)—D66 (14)

2

Balkenende I

2002–2003

CDA (43)—LPF (26)—VVD (24)

8

Balkenende II

2003–2006

CDA (44)—VVD (28)—D66 (6)

5

Balkenende III

2006–2007

CDA (44)—VVD (28)

3

Balkenende IV

2007–2010

CDA (41)—PvdA (33)—CU (6)

10

Rutte I

2010–2012

VVD (31)—CDA (21)—PVV* (24)

9

Rutte II

2012–2017

VVD (41)—PvdA (38)

14

Rutte III**

2017–2021

VVD (33)—CDA (19)—D66 (19)—CU (5)

6

  1. *PVV was not a full coalition party, but vowed to support the minority government on negotiated issues
  2. **Rutte III served until 2021, but analysis only covers the data until 31 December 2019

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Sonneveld, R. The politics of military deployments: contestation of foreign and security policy in the Netherlands. Int Polit (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-024-00556-x

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