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
This is a transnational research on the way Dutch Catholic media perceived the Kulturkampf in Germany from 1880 to 1884. This dissertation examines two Dutch Catholic newspapers and one magazine to...Show moreThis is a transnational research on the way Dutch Catholic media perceived the Kulturkampf in Germany from 1880 to 1884. This dissertation examines two Dutch Catholic newspapers and one magazine to explain three things. Firstly, what the main motives of Dutch Catholic media were to report on German social struggles after 1880. Secondly, how the Milder-ungsgesetzen – that were intended to end this social struggle – influenced the content of the reports of Dutch Catholic media. Thirdly, to what extent the German social struggles were put in an international perspective by these media. The conclusion adds to the debate that ques-tions the nineteenth century as the ‘age of the nation state’.Show less
