Dutch media coverage of female politicians within national government has been subject to a pattern of misogynistic representation and sexist language use. Discourse used in relation to female...Show moreDutch media coverage of female politicians within national government has been subject to a pattern of misogynistic representation and sexist language use. Discourse used in relation to female politicians is built upon stereotypes including women as witch-like individuals, as intellectually inferior, and as aggressive instead of assertive. This thesis strives to examine the representation of Dutch female politicians in the Dutch media through a lens of gender performativity, which refers to the theory that gender is not an inherent truth but a performed social construct that can be deconstructed and analysed. Through literary review of oft-weaponised stereotypes regarding women in a professional environment, followed by discourse analysis of Dutch media coverage of women in national politics, I aim to portray an increased level of negative and stereotypical language use in Dutch news and media outlets when reporting on Dutch female politicians as opposed to their male colleagues.Show less
This thesis explores how unions in the Netherlands justify their chosen strategies to achieve their goals. Organisational pressure and their institutional role as labour representation has created...Show moreThis thesis explores how unions in the Netherlands justify their chosen strategies to achieve their goals. Organisational pressure and their institutional role as labour representation has created a situation in the Netherlands where unions have the need to pursue organisational goals next to policy goals. Through interviews with board members of the two largest Dutch trade unions, supplemented with data from newspaper interviews, this thesis analyses the strategic choices made by them. It shows that the larger union (FNV) follows the proposed expectations by pushing for organisational growth to maintain union influence and uses outsider strategies, in the form of campaigns, to appeal to potential members. CNV takes a different approach, focussing on providing services to their members to persuade people to join. This focus on collective or individual advocacy could be a trend, however more research is needed to confirm this. This study also found that both unions still heavily rely on insider strategies in pursuit of their policy goals. However, unions have less trust in the institutions through which this dialogue is facilitated. This can be accounted for through overuse of the advisory body and lack of implementation of the advisory opinions by the government.Show less
This thesis explores the Dutch response to the human rights violations committed against the Uyghur people by the People’s Republic of China. By comparing the PRC’s human rights violations to those...Show moreThis thesis explores the Dutch response to the human rights violations committed against the Uyghur people by the People’s Republic of China. By comparing the PRC’s human rights violations to those committed by Myanmar and Venezuela, it contextualizes the response of the Dutch government. This research observes that the while the PRC has committed all major offenses of which Myanmar and Venezuela have been accused, and for which sanctions have been imposed upon the two states, the Dutch government appears unwilling to impose similar restrictions upon China. Though the assessment of government discourse and the incorporation of threat perception theory as a possible principle for explaining this inconsistency, the paper finds that China’s status as a great power, primarily its economic might, has kept the Dutch government from risking the ire of the PRC as long as it is not guaranteed to have the support of its allies in the European Union.Show less
The Christian left in the Netherlands has yet to produce an electorally viable party capable of winning a national election. Despite the promising political start of the Politieke Partij Radikalen...Show moreThe Christian left in the Netherlands has yet to produce an electorally viable party capable of winning a national election. Despite the promising political start of the Politieke Partij Radikalen in 1968, no party on the Christian left has had parliamentary representation in the Tweede Kamer since 1991. The aim of this thesis is to discern which factors bear culpability for preventing the emergence of an electorally potent party on the Christian left over the past 50 years. Two case studies from the Netherlands and one comparative case study from Italy have been conducted with that objective in mind. Through analyzing existing academic scholarship and party manifestos, five overarching factors that have undermined the Christian left have been identified: the legacies of pillarization, consociational governance, the secularization of Dutch society, social conservatism in Orthodox Protestant Communities, and the ideological distance of the Christian left’s representatives from the political center.Show less
The role of ideology and religion on voting behaviour has declined. But, what does then determine voting behaviour nowadays? New dimensions and (short-term) factors seem to play a role and there is...Show moreThe role of ideology and religion on voting behaviour has declined. But, what does then determine voting behaviour nowadays? New dimensions and (short-term) factors seem to play a role and there is more attention to the personalization thesis. Some politicians are treated as celebrities and image, appearance and also clothing are subjects considered to be important. The suits of Mark Rutte and Diederik Samsom have been widely discussed in the run-up to the 2012 Dutch parliamentary elections. Does fashion rule? The central question of this master thesis is: Does the clothing style of politicians influence trait perceptions and voting behaviour of Dutch voters? A quantitative analysis of data obtained by an experimental study will be the basis for this research. Unknown men will be photographed in different clothing styles, which randomly assigned groups of respondents will evaluate on the basis of six leadership traits. What will be analysed is if indeed the men in suits with ties are statistically significant more positively evaluated on the six leadership traits compared to, for example, men in jeans and a casual sweater. By testing four hypotheses, an answer to the research question can be given and the implications of the results will be discussed. This analysis distinguishes between the assessment by men and by women, by different age groups and by clothing style of respondents themselves. In a first step to discover the influence of clothing on the evaluation of Dutch politicians and voting behaviour, this study focuses only on male politicians, mainly because men still dominate among party leaders in national parliamentary elections. What seems to come out of the questionnaires overall, is the fact that it depends on the person what he has to wear. Faces are more important when evaluating unknown persons in pictures. Clothing style can in some way increase or decrease the evaluation scores of some traits, but no clear relationship is to be found between certain traits and a specific clothing style. Politicians’ clothing can reinforce certain leadership traits in the eyes of voters, however, it differs between politicians which clothing style enhances which leadership traits. In general, an in-between clothing style yields the most positive responses and the most votes. But when looking independently at each trait, quite different evaluations appear between different persons. Some small changes in methodology and recruitment of respondents will make the findings of further research stronger. In further research, women definitely have to be included as stimuli persons and possibly political attitude also.Show less
