Institute of Public Administration
Master Thesis
Talking About Europe:
How Dutch political parties address and politicize the EU during national
election campaigns
Submitted by Naomi van de Vorst 1517007
MSc in Public Administration International and European Governance
Supervisor: Dr. Rik de Ruiter Second reader: TBD
10 January 2020 The Hague
Abstract
This research looks at the trend of increasing politicization of European integration in national elections in the Netherlands over the period 2006-2017. The ‘no’ vote in the referendum about a European Constitutional Treaty in 2005 revealed a gap between public and politics. This marked the increase in public attention to the European Union (EU). The EU became politicized, and in politics, the trend of permissive consensus made place for that of constraining dissensus. During national election campaigns, politicians started to share their opinions about European integration with the electorate in the party’s political manifestos and in national media. However, research so far did not cover the possibility of a divergence between what party’s state in its manifestos and in national media. Manifesto studies, e.g. the Manifesto Project, solely focus on what is written in a party’s manifesto. The analysis of the literature finds that there might be a gap between electoral manifestos and other statements made by politicians in the media and newspaper articles, which was the gap that this research tried to fill. Therefore, this study examines the increase of attention to EU issues in politics and media in the Netherlands for the period 2006-2017. Moreover, the study analysed the differences between parties and kind of politicization. It does so by examining the party manifestos and media statements made by D66 and PVV during the national election campaigns. It is expected that the politicization influences whether or not there are divergences between a party’s manifesto and the rest of the electoral campaign. The paper finds that there is an interesting trend visible for the period 2006-2017, in which the EU became more politicized and discussed in the media. In general, political parties stayed close to the written word. However, the analysis of debates and newspaper articles shows that party positions were more extreme outside of the manifestos and that issue emphasis can change throughout the campaign. This can be explained through the different party characteristics of D66 and PVV. The possibility of divergences in statements and coverage of the EU between different electoral materials is important to keep in mind and is a gap in current EU politicization literature.
Keywords
European integration, politicization, manifesto, national elections, election campaigns, Dutch political parties, D66, PVV, permissive consensus
Table of Contents
Abstract __________________________________________________________________ 2
1 Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 4
1.1 Research question ___________________________________________________ 5
2 Theoretical Framework _________________________________________________ 7
2.1 Politicization: A growth of European Integration in politics __________________ 7 2.2 European integration in the Netherlands _________________________________ 9 2.3 Conceptualization of EU politicization in manifestos _______________________ 10 2.4 European Integration in manifestos: benefits and pitfalls of the Manifesto Project 11 2.5 Goal of the research ________________________________________________ 14
3 Methodology _________________________________________________________ 15
3.1 Qualitative content analysis: method, operationalization, reliability, and validity 15 3.2 Analytical framework _______________________________________________ 16 3.3 Data collection ____________________________________________________ 19
4 Results of data collection & comparisons __________________________________ 22
4.1 Democrats 66 (D66) ________________________________________________ 23 4.2 Party of Freedom (PVV) _____________________________________________ 34
5 Discussion of Results and Possible Limitations _____________________________ 42
5.1 Discussion of Data and Results ________________________________________ 42 5.2 Possible explanations of differences between parties: Exploratory explanatory research ________________________________________________________________ 45 5.3 Possible Limitations ________________________________________________ 46
6 Concluding Remarks ___________________________________________________ 48
1 Introduction
The 2012 national election in the Netherlands showed that European integration can no longer be ignored by politicians. The future of European integration was a topic often covered in media, and political parties’ agendas could range from further integration of the Netherlands in Europe to a ‘Nexit’ (Van den Berg & Van Eijk, 2012, p. 47; D66, 2012, p. 5; PVV, 2012, p. 17). This used to be different. For a long time, the national political parties throughout Europe did not focus on the European Union (EU) during the national elections (Senninger & Wagner, 2015, p. 1336; Mair, 2000, p. 47-48; Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 19). The EU was a neglected theme during campaigns and was not used to win any voters. This changed over the last years. The failure of the EU Constitutional Treaty, the consequent signing of the Lisbon Treaty, and the Eurozone crisis made the European Union a politicized item on the national agenda (De Wilde & Zürn, 2012, p. 137, 150). The increase of authority to the EU facilitated it to be a politicized and polarised issue in its member states (De Wilde & Zürn, 2012, p. 139).
In the Netherlands, the population became more Eurosceptic in the period between the Maastricht Accord and the Constitutional Treaty (Lubbers & Jaspers, 2011, p. 31). However, the politicization of the topic happened especially after the ‘no’ vote in the 2005 referendum on the European Constitution. The period before 2005, can be characterized by the trend of permissive consensus. There was a lack of both political and media attention to the topic; the public was not aware of what was happening in the European circuit and consequently, politicians did not have to explain their choices to the public (Van den Berg & Van Eijk, 2012, p. 42). Then, the referendum showed the gap between the political leaders and the more Eurosceptic opinion of the mass public (Högenauer, 2015, p. 252-53). Since then, most Dutch political parties started to take a more critical stance towards the EU and its “domestic implications” (p. 252-53). An increase in media attention to the EU can be observed after the referendum (Van den Berg & Van Eijk, 2012, p. 47-48). Moreover, the EU started to have a more important role in the voting choice of the electorate (p. 47-48). So, after the referendum, the EU became a more politicized topic.
One way of how politicization and Euroscepticism show through can be found in political manifestos during national election campaigns. For instance, in 2012, Eurosceptic parties like the Socialist Party (SP) and the Party for Freedom (PVV) took a very EU-critical stand and were against further integration (Van den Berg & Van Eijk, 2012, p. 51). Overall, political manifestos are interesting to study, because a party’s manifesto is a way through which a party can show which issues are important to them for the coming cabinet period. Moreover, manifestos show how a party wants to achieve certain issues (Spoon, 2012, p. 559). One of the
most prominent studies that looks at party manifestos is the Manifesto Project. The Manifesto Project database contains valuable information about political trends and party positions over time, also concerning different policy issues (Benoit, et al., 2009, p. 503; Dinas & Gemenis, 2010, p. 428). However, the Project received several criticisms from the academic world. For instance, it is problematic that the coding is not dependent on the length of the text and hence assumes that each text is “equally informative” (Benoit, Laver & Mikhaylov, 2009, p. 497). Moreover, a manifesto is not necessarily a reliable way to see what a party prioritizes, and parties can adjust their issue focus during the election campaign (Tresch, Lefevere and Walgrave, 2017, p. 41-42). Additionally, the Manifesto Project does not look at the possible gap between manifestos and what political leaders convey in the media or electoral debates. This means that there is the possibility of discrepancies between messages in manifestos and media. This has societal implications because if there is a gap, citizens could be misinformed about the intentions of political leaders. Consequently, this could influence their voting preferences and the political landscape of the Netherlands. A good example is the wish of certain right-wing parties for a ‘Nexit’ (or ‘Nexit’ referendum).
1.1 Research question
Therefore, this research tries to fill the academic gap by examining whether there is a discrepancy in the literature between manifestos and media statements made by political leaders in the Netherlands. This has not been accounted for in the literature yet due to limited research of comparing manifestos with media statements. This research tries to fill the gap by focusing on the following research question: ‘To what extent did the increase of politicization of the EU in the Netherlands lead to differences between electoral manifestos and the statements in the media made by political leaders of those parties in the run-up to the national elections?. Additionally, this study analysed how these differences can be explained. To answer these questions, this thesis proceeds as follows. The starting point of this study is the growth of European integration issues and consequently politicization of these in the Netherlands. This happened after the ‘no’ vote in the 2005 referendum, showing a gap between politics and the mass public (Högenauer, 2015, p. 252-53). After this, there was an increase in media attention and the EU’s role in the voting choice of the public (Van den Berg & Van Eijk, 2012, p. 47-48). Therefore, to develop an analytical framework, this study first examines literature about politicization, European integration, and manifesto studies. The analysis of the literature finds that there might be a gap between electoral manifestos and other statements made by politicians
in the media and newspaper articles, which this research tries to fill. To do this, expectations are developed for the increase of attention to EU issues in politics and media. This study first makes expectations regarding the increase of attention to EU issues in politics and media in the Netherlands for the period 2006-2017, and how there are differences between parties and kind of politicization. It is expected that the politicization influences whether or not there are divergences between a party’s manifesto and the rest of the electoral materials. The possible differences that occur are expected to be different for pro-EU and Eurosceptic parties. Pro-EU parties are generally more in favour of the EU than its voters (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 21; Högenauer, 2015, p. 252), and are therefore expected to be less explicit about the EU in the highly visible media. Contrary, Eurosceptic parties are expected to frame the debate for further integration (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 21), which is expected to happen through bold statements in the media in order to highlight the negatives of the EU. In order to examine this, the methods used are explained and consequently tested on both manifestos and other electoral campaign materials for national elections. Then, the data collection is explained, and results are analysed through a qualitative content analysis. The paper finds that there is an interesting trend visible for the period 2006-2017, in which the EU becomes more politicized and discussed in the media. It concludes with the implications, limitations and avenues for further research.
2 Theoretical Framework
To answer the research question, this section first discusses theories of politicization and the growth of European Integration, specifically in the Netherlands. This is characterized by the theory of permissive consensus to constraining dissensus by Hooghe and Marks (2009). Then, the measuring of politicization through political manifestos and the Manifesto Project are discussed. These theories and concepts are examined in order to conceptualize the main ideas that are out there regarding the politicization of European integration and establish the relations between them. Based on this, three expectations of the research are formed and introduced after the relevant literature section. The first two are general expectations that give more insight into the politicization of EU issues in the Netherlands for the period 2006-2017 (E1), and how there are differences between parties and the kind of politicization (E2). The third expectation is a direct answer to the explanatory part of the research question. It expects that the politicization influences whether or not there are divergences between a party’s manifesto and the rest of the electoral materials (E3a). The possible differences that occur are expected to be different for pro-Eu and Eurosceptic parties (E3b). The analysis of the literature finds that there might be a gap between electoral manifestos and other statements made by politicians in the media and newspaper articles, which will be the gap that this research tries to fill.
2.1 Politicization: A growth of European Integration in politics
For a long time, political parties did not focus on EU issues in their electoral campaigns (Senninger & Wagner, 2015, p. 1336; Mair, 2000, p. 47-48; Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 19). However, according to research by e.g. De Wilde and Zürn (2012), the failure of an EU Constitutional Treaty and the consequent signing of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007 make that the EU is now a politicized issue, which can no longer be undone (De Wilde & Zürn, 2012, p. 138-39, 150). The concept of politicization as used in this research is defined “as an increase in polarization of opinions, interests or values and the extent to which they are publicly advanced towards the process of policy formulation within the EU” (De Wilde, 2011, p. 560). Arguably, this process still has a long way to go, however, now at least the most fundamental issues, e.g. EU membership and enlargement, are politicized in the national debate (Hurrelmann, Gora, & Wagner, 2015, p. 56).
The growth of the topic of European Integration within politics can be best characterized by the use of the work of Hooghe and Marks (2009). In their research, they found that before 1991, there was a trend of permissive consensus for further European integration. However,
this changed into a growing trend of constraining dissensus (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 5). This means, that for a long time the general public was indifferent to European issues in electoral campaigns, as was already noticed by Haas in his work about The Uniting of Europe (1958) (Haas, 1958, p. 17). European issues were not a part of a party’s promotional material during their electoral campaigns. Nevertheless, since 1991, with the Maastricht Accord, EU matters have become more politicized (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 7). This is also shown by the media coverage during elections for EU issues, as presented in the work of Kriesi (2007). The EU received only 2.5 per cent media coverage in the 1970s during national campaigns (compared to already 7 per cent in 1990s) (Kriesi, 2007, p. 94).
In the literature, at least two reasons are found of how an issue can get politicized. First, Hooghe and Marks (2009) explain how an issue predominantly becomes politicized when “a political party picks [the topic] up” (p. 18). A logical reason for political parties to select an issue is of course if they think that they can win votes with it. However, the examined literature revealed how a party can have multiple underlying reasons to politicize a topic. Hooghe and Marks (2009) mention three such reasons: “a party’s position on the issue in relation to other parties and the electorate; a party’s ideological reputation; and the extent to which a party is united or divided on the issue” (p. 19). Throughout these three reasons, identity is the key motive for framing an issue as something negative (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 21). This is seen for instance in the case of European integration. European integration is a process that is mostly done by the centre parties (both left and right) (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 21). These centre parties stay away from the topic, whilst the EU-opposing parties (both tan parties and radical left) have framed the debate for integration (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 21). A reason for this could be that the mainstream parties are generally more supportive of the European Union compared to its voters (p. 21).
Second, a certain issue can also end up on the political agenda, but only afterwards be politicized by political parties in their electoral campaigns. For instance, referendums concerning further European integration can politicize the issue (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 20). In this case, there is the possibility that the referendum reveals a gap between the mass public and the elite. When this happens, especially populist parties can take the opportunity to further politicize the issue and include it in their campaign in order to gain votes (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 21). Typical of populist tan parties (“traditionalism/authority/nationalism”) (p. 16) that pick up the topic, is that they often link it to the notions of identity and national community (p. 21). So, a topic enters the political arena through a referendum and is afterwards
selected by tan parties who see an opportunity to link the matter to their campaign and align it with their wish for a strong national identity.
2.2 European integration in the Netherlands
The longitudinal research by Lubbers and Jaspers (2010) found an increase in Euroscepticism in the Netherlands between 1990 and 2008 (p. 31). So, between the Maastricht Accord and the Constitutional Treaty referendum, the mass public became more Eurosceptic. The theory of Hooghe and Marks (2009) can be applied to the case of the Netherlands. In the case of the Netherlands, this politicization happened especially after the 2005 referendum (Högenauer, 2015, p. 252-53). In 2003, the issue of how much authority the EU should have was the third important policy dimension in Western European countries (Benoit & Laver, 2006, p. 176). However, in the Netherlands, the topic was still relatively unimportant (p. 172). This could be because there was a lack of both political and media attention to the topic; the public was not aware of what was happening in the European circuit and consequently, politicians did have to explain their choices to the public (Van den Berg & Van Eijk, 2012, p. 42). Hence, there was a trend of permissive consensus. Then, in 2005, the ‘no’ vote in the referendum, revealed that the opinion of the public was not in line with what the parties wanted (Högenauer, 2015, p. 252-53). After the referendum, political parties, also the ones in favour of further integration, started to be more critical about EU matters (Högenauer, 2015, p. 252-53). Moreover, the years after the referendum saw an increase in media attention to the topic and the role it played in the voting choice of the public (Van den Berg & Van Eijk, 2012, p. 47-48). Thus, the EU became a more discussed issue in politics, media, and amongst citizens. This makes up for the first expectation, which is based on the trend of permissive consensus to constraining dissensus as mentioned in Hooghe & Marks (2009):
Expectation 1: For the period 2006-2017 there is expected to be an increase in attention to EU issues by both political parties and the media.
In the 2005 referendum, Eurosceptic parties like Socialist Party (SP) and Christian Union (CU) “campaigned for a ‘no’ vote” (Lubbers & Jaspers, 2011, p. 31). In 2006, the Party of Freedom (PVV), participated for the first time in the national elections (Lucardie, 2019, n.p.). This populist right-wing party easily played into the hands of the Eurosceptic public. So far, in all its political manifestos, the party has been very critical against further EU integration and even
wanted the Netherlands to leave the EU in 2012 and 2017 (GroepWilders/ PVV, 2006, p. 5; PVV, 2010, p. 17, 19; PVV, 2012, p. 10-14; PVV, 2017, p. 1). The party uses the protection of national identity, as mentioned in Hooghe and Marks (2009) (p. 21), as one of its reasons to be critical of the EU. A good example of this is in the 2010 manifesto where the party gives the public a ‘choice’: the Dutch flag (‘our flag’) or that of the multicultural European state (PVV, 2010, p. 7).
European integration was not only politicized by Eurosceptic parties like the PVV, but also by more centre-left parties such as Democrats 66 (D66). This party has been positive for further European integration, which can be seen in the lobbying for a larger EU with more authority throughout their political manifestos in the period 2006-2016 (D66, 2006, p. 63-64; D66, 2010, p. 84; D66, 2012, p. 16-19; D66, 2016, p. 4, 6). There is especially an increase in EU related matters in the manifestos for the 2012 and 2017 national elections. These manifestos of the PVV and D66 show that the EU has become an increasingly politicized issue. Thus, in the Netherlands, the trend of permissive consensus before the referendum quickly changed into constraining dissensus, in which European issues became increasingly politicized and used to attract voters during electoral campaigns.
2.3 Conceptualization of EU politicization in manifestos
As mentioned in the section above, in the Netherlands the trend of politicization is mostly visible after 2005. The literature widely focuses on the politicization of the EU; however, it falls short in considering which specific issues are politicized in national elections and consequently end up in campaigns of political parties. A topic of interest amongst scholars in EU politicization is how national parties use framing to give attention to EU issues (Senninger & Wagner, 2015; Helbling, Hoeglinger, & Wüest, 2010). However, not the issue framing, but the particular ‘EU-related issues’ that political parties focus on are of interest for this study.
Studies that pay attention to the EU-issues that a party focuses on, are the study by Senninger and Wagner (2015) and, to a lesser extent, Hutter and Grande (2014). These authors do not specifically focus on electoral manifestos, but they do identify several specific EU-related issues that political parties use in their electoral campaigns. In the work of Senninger and Wagner (2015) EU issues can be put in one of the following three categories/ types: “EU integration, EU policy, EU-related [issues]” (p. 1346). EU integration issues refer to the general direction of and support for the EU; EU policy issues refer to, among others, “laws and legislative proposals”; and EU-related issues are external issues that the EU is involved in, e.g.
conflicts or issues that contradict EU legislation (Senninger & Wagner, 2015, p. 1338). This categorization of EU-issues will be used for conducting this research. Additionally, the work of Hutter and Grande (2014) identifies how EU issues are politicized when authority is transferred from the national domain to the EU-institutions (p. 1006, 1016). Arguably, this would then fall within the above-mentioned EU integration category, because it refers to a rather general idea of the relations between the EU as a supranational organization and its member states. Therefore, this study does not specifically focus on the research of Hutter and Grande (2014) but instead uses the concepts of Senninger and Wagner (2015).
The research by Senninger and Wagner (2015) found that Eurosceptic parties are expected to focus more on general aspects of the EU (p. 1346-47). Senninger (2017) found the same in his research on parliamentary questions asked by political parties in the period 1973-2013 (p. 283-84, 301). In contrast to the Eurosceptic parties, governing and mainstream parties focus more on EU policies and “EU-related external events” (Senninger & Wagner, 2015, p. 1347). The mainstream parties studied by Senninger and Wagner (2015) were at that time also governing parties and pro-European (p. 1341). These more mainstream parties focus on the economic dimension and the practical benefits of the Union (p. 1347). The studies were tested in respectively Austria and Denmark, and it is interesting to find out whether this general trend also holds for the Eurosceptic party PVV in the Netherlands. D66 can be seen as a more mainstream party, and pro-EU. Therefore, the second expectation considers these differences between Eurosceptic and pro-EU parties in political manifestos and the media:
Expectation 2: Eurosceptic parties are expected to focus more on general aspects of the EU, whilst pro-EU parties are expected to also focus on EU specific policies.
2.4 European Integration in manifestos: benefits and pitfalls of the Manifesto Project
Over the last years, it has become impossible for political parties to ignore European issues because the mass electorate has gotten an opinion about the topic. This, thus, results in the topic becoming important in elections and important to political parties, since its standpoint can either gain or lose votes. An important way to look at how political parties think about these issues is by looking at party manifestos. The two most prominent and well-known studies that do this are the Chapel Hill expert surveys and the Manifesto Project/MARPOR (previously MRG and CMP; hereinafter referred to as Manifesto Project). The Chapel Hill expert surveys conducts surveys amongst political parties to find out their stance on European integration issues and
policy preferences (Chesdata, n.d.). The Manifesto Project uses a different method, the Project focuses on the coding of electoral manifestos (exception: political parties that do not have a manifesto)1 (Manifesto Project Team, 2018, n.p.). Since this study focuses on electoral
manifestos, just as the Manifesto Project, it further examines the Project by first focusing on the pros and cons of the method. Then, it highlights some critics, which form the starting point for this research.
The Manifesto Project contains a lot of data and can, therefore, be used as a valuable baseline to look at political trends. One of the main reasons to use the database is that it offers good time-series of party positions, also regarding different policies and domains (Benoit et al., 2009, p. 503; Dinas & Gemenis, 2010, p. 428). This kind of time-series is not found in other methods (Dinas & Gemenis, 2010, p. 428). Nevertheless, the Manifesto Project also received a lot of criticism. First, different academics have argued that the project has validity problems, because even though the text is static, people can interpret it differently (Benoit et al., 2009, p. 496; Gemenis, 2013, p. 18; Bräuninger, Debus & Müller, 2013, p. 8-9). Second, it contained no “measures of uncertainty”, which gave it reliability problems (Benoit et al., 2009, p. 496). The Manifesto Project responded to this critique and added Benoit et al.’s suggested measure for uncertainty, the “Bootstrapped confidence intervals” (Manifesto Project, “Uncertainty Estimates”, n.d.). A third criticism is that it does not matter how long the text is, it is still coded in the same way (Benoit et al., 2009, p. 501).
Then, there are (at least) two additional criticisms that come with focusing on electoral manifestos. Hence, they can undermine the validity of the Manifesto Project. These criticisms are the most important reasons to conduct this research. First, a party’s manifesto might not correctly show which issues are most important to a party. Research has shown that parties do not always prioritize the same issues in different election materials. Tresch, Lefevere and Walgrave (2017) found that a manifesto is useful for “comparing parties’ positions and ideas”, but to see what a party prioritizes, press releases are more reliable (p. 42). Moreover, a party’s issue emphasis can vary across electoral materials, and parties can adjust their focus on certain issues during the election campaign (Tresch, et al., 2017, p. 41). Hence, the coverage of an issue in a manifesto does not mean that it is (at the end of the campaign) a priority issue for the party. Even though their study is conducted in Belgium, in the regional elections of Flanders, the researchers think that the outcomes could be generalizable or at least partly hold for other countries (p. 43). There are not many studies that focus on this aspect, so it is interesting to
1 For the parties that do not (yet) have a political manifesto, the Manifesto Project tries to code a document, written by the political party, that comes closest to a manifesto (Manifesto Project Team, 2018, n.p.).
consider it and see whether it also holds for the national elections in the Netherlands. Second, a political party’s manifesto can in some cases differ from a party’s true stance on items (Dinas & Gemenis, 2010, p. 437). According to Dinas and Gemenis (2010), this has to do with the “ideological spectrum” of national politics (p. 437). Parties that have ideologically distinguished themselves, for instance as an extreme nationalist party, can add or adjust statements in the manifesto about certain policies without it influencing their image; they do no longer have to distinguish themselves in the manifesto and can have less explicit statements in the manifestos (Dinas & Gemenis, 2010, p. 437).
In short, the Manifesto Project has important internal validity and reliability problems that come with the coding of the manifesto text. On top of this, there are certain problems with focusing solely on electoral manifestos, since a party’s message can differ over different campaign materials. This can also be seen in the Manifesto Project since this study does not look at whether there is a gap between what is in the manifestos and what the political leaders convey to the media, or even in electoral debates. This is a gap that this thesis tries to fill, at least for the Netherlands. The years after the referendum saw an increase in both media attention to the EU and the role it played in the voting choice of the public (Van den Berg & Van Eijk, 2012, p. 47-48). So, in times of increased politicization, the EU was more in the spotlights. Since the topic is receiving critical attention, it could be that politicians are more careful about what they say about the EU in the media compared to in the manifesto. Therefore, the third expectation relates to differences between the politicization of EU issues in political manifestos and other electoral materials.
Expectation 3a: At the times of lack of politicization (2006, 2010), there is a larger divergence in standpoints between a party's manifesto and the rest of the electoral material compared to times of increased politicization (2012, 2017).
If it turns out that there is a discrepancy between a party’s manifesto and other electoral materials, this might also hold for other (European) countries. The expectation is that when there is more politicization, and more attention to the EU during elections, there will be fewer differences between manifestos and other statements. This is, because when the EU is an important topic for the public, the media will more extensively cover the topic (and vice versa). Consequently, political leaders have to be more careful with which message they convey to the public since it can cost them votes. Contrary, in years were the EU is not a big campaign issue, there will be less attention to the EU in the media and the public will be more following the
trend of ‘permissive consensus’. Therefore, there could be more differences between statements made by politicians in the media and statements made in a party’s manifesto compared to years where the issue is high on the political agenda.
The possible differences that occur are expected to be different for pro-Eu and Eurosceptic parties. Based on the research by Hooghe and Marks (2009), Eurosceptic gal and tan parties are the ones that frame the debate for further integration (p. 21). This could result in that a Eurosceptic party as the PVV makes harsh statements in the media to highlight the negatives of the EU and win votes. Contrary, pro-EU parties and mainstream parties are often more in favour of the EU than its voters (Hooghe & Marks, 2009, p. 21; Högenauer, 2015, p. 252). Therefore, a pro-EU party as D66 could be less explicit about the EU in highly visible media, whilst still elaborately covering it in its manifesto. Building on expectation 3a, this results in the last expectation for this study:
Expectation 3b: These divergences between manifesto and media are visible in that Eurosceptic parties frame the debate for further integration by making bold statements in the media, whilst pro-EU parties make less explicit statements in the media (but elaborately cover the EU in the manifesto).
2.5 Goal of the research
Based on the theoretical framework, the research provided by this paper aims to analyse whether a party’s political manifesto includes the same statements as given in the media and newspaper articles during the electoral campaign. Hence, it examines if there is a difference between different electoral campaign materials. In this, the research is also looking at whether there is a gap in the above-mentioned literature regarding the reliance on statements made by manifesto-based research, for instance: the Manifesto Project. In order to do this, two things covered in the literature are also examined. These are whether or not there is an increase in attention to European integration issues in the Netherlands, and how pro-EU and Eurosceptic parties respond to European issues in their political campaigns.
3 Methodology
In this section, first, the overall method of the research is described. Second, the choices for D66 and the PVV as political parties in this research are explained, based on the Manifesto Project. This forms the analytical framework for this research. Then, the data points and the starting point for the analysis are chosen and explained. Consequently, the section looks at how to most effectively compare these data points. Then, the different types of data are collected from national debates, interviews, and newspaper articles.
3.1 Qualitative content analysis: method, operationalization, reliability, and validity
This research was conducted using a small-n comparison and a qualitative approach. The research is a small-n comparison since it compares only two cases (D66 and PVV) and a limited number of variables (manifestos, debates, newspapers, and interviews) over time. This gives a deductive design, as outlined in Toshkov (2016), which starts with the developing of theories, and then evaluating the hypotheses, based on the data (p. 260). A qualitative approach is chosen over a quantitative one because there is expected to be a difference in what politicians’ state in a manifesto versus in the media. This can best be analysed through focusing on the content of the manifesto and media material instead of quantifying it. Quantifying it will not fulfil the goal, because the mentioning of an EU issue in the media by a political party does not mean that it concerns a relevant statement. The differences will be in the content said and written, instead of the number of mentions. Therefore, quantification is less relevant for this study.
In order to answer and explain the research question ‘To what extent did the increase of politicization of the EU in the Netherlands lead to differences between electoral manifestos and the statements in the media made by political leaders of those parties in the run-up to the national elections?’ the independent and dependent variables are identified and operationalized as follows. The independent variables are 1) an increase in politicization, meaning an increase in polarized attention regarding EU integration, and 2) the political parties D66 and the PVV. The dependent variables are 1) manifestos of D66 and the PVV for 2006, 2010, 2012, and 2016 and 2) the media material in the form of national debates, interviews and newspaper articles up to six months before the election date. Both the independent variable and the dependent variables are further outlined and brought together in the analytical framework below (Section 3.2).
The data is scrutinized based on the content analysis of comparing EU statements in the manifestos of D66 and the PVV in 2006, 2010, 2012, and 2017 with campaign material from
national debates on television, radio, interviews, and newspaper articles. In the manifestos, EU issues are categorized on the above-mentioned issues: EU integration (general course of EU), EU policy (specific policies), and EU external (external conflicts/ matters). Then, external campaign materials, e.g. national debates on television and radio, are reviewed. Consequently, this material is for each year compared with the subsequent party manifesto to see the similarities and differences between both. The purpose of this method is to see whether or not there are (big) differences between what is said in a political party’s manifesto and what the party itself says throughout the electoral campaign. Within this study, the electoral campaign (materials) refers to television debates, interviews and newspaper articles, because of its high visibility to the public.
To improve the reliability and validity of this research, the method used is based on data triangulation. The triangulation is done to cross-validate the data, but more importantly to look at the data from different dimensions and consequently get a better understanding of the data. This data triangulation is based on the following three ways: looking at data at different time points (2006 to 2017), data from different political parties and members (PVV and D66), and data in different contexts (manifestos, debates, interviews, and newspaper articles). However, because it is a qualitative content analysis, there is an interpretative part, which might result in variations across researchers and thus lower interrater reliability. However, when the steps in this research are followed, there will be consistency across time and internal consistency.
3.2 Analytical framework
Content analysis of EU-issues in manifestos
For this study, the politicization in manifestos is researched with the use of issue types, as used in Senninger and Wagner (2015). The terms are consequently slightly tweaked to illuminate the differences types of EU-issues in electoral manifestos. Based on the work of Senninger and Wagner (2015), the part on electoral manifestos within this research focuses on the following types of issues: 1) EU integration [general course of EU], 2) EU policymaking [specific policies], 3) EU external issues [external involvement].
The EU issues that are mentioned in party manifestos are categorized as belonging to a particular type of issue for two reasons. First, a categorization conveniently adds structure to the often rather lengthy and wordy manifestos. It is a useful tool to create an order in the chaos of manifestos. Therefore, the core of the statements made in the manifesto is better
understandable. Second, this structure eases comparison between manifestos for different years and of manifestos with external campaign materials (e.g. television and radio debates).
Consequently, the political party manifestos of D66 and the PVV for the years 2006, 2010, 2012, and 2017 are analysed and the appearance of the EU-issues is evaluated on the above-mentioned types of issues. Then, external campaign materials, e.g. national debates on television and radio, are reviewed. Consequently, for each year this material is compared with the subsequent party manifesto to see the similarities and differences between both. The purpose of this method is to see whether or not there are (big) differences between what is said in a political party’s manifesto and what the party itself says throughout the electoral campaign. So, this forms the analytical framework for this research. Before the data analysis of the results can take place, first, the choices for the political parties, the data points, and data collection are reviewed and explained.
Political Parties: choice
For this research, the political parties of interest are Democraten 66 / Democrats 66 (D66) and Partij voor de Vrijheid / Party of Freedom (PVV). These parties are chosen based on the data from the Comparative Manifesto Project. This is done by the ‘Visualize Data’ function on the Manifesto Project’s website, “Dashboard 2: Parties over time” (Manifesto Project, “Visualize Data”, n.d.). In this dashboard, the country the Netherlands is selected for the period 2000-2019, with indicator “[108] European Community Positive”2 (Manifesto Project, “MARPOR Data Dashboard’, n.d.). The outcome is illustrated in the graph of Figure 1. This data revealed how, after 2006, D66 is a very EU positive party, which stands positively against further EU integration. The PVV is a very Eurosceptic party, which is way more critical about EU integration. The choice for these two outliers offers a range for the stance of European integration in the Netherlands. Moreover, in this way research can show whether there are also differences in levels of the discrepancy between pro-EU and Eurosceptic parties, which is one of the goals in this research.
2 The exact definition of this indicator changed and became more detailed over the years. However, this should not matter for the comparison, because the parties are compared at the same points and coded in the same way.
Figure 1. Trendline of political parties in the Netherlands and indicator [108] European Community/Union:
Positive. This figure illustrates how parties stand towards the EU in the period 2000-2019, the higher the trendline the more EU-positive a party is. The arrows in the graph and the red square in the legend show the parties D66 (Democrats ’66) and the PVV (Party of Freedom). Adapted from MARPOR Data Dashboard :: Single Country, In Manifesto Project, n.d. Retrieved December 17, 2019, from https://visuals.manifesto-project.wzb.eu/mpdb-shiny/cmp_dashboard/.
Data points and starting point for analysis
The data points chosen for this research are the 2006, 2010, 2012, and 2017 national political elections. These points are chosen for a practical yet fundamental reason: EU issues only started gaining importance in Dutch national elections after the EU Constitutional Treaty referendum in 2005. Only after this referendum, political parties felt the need to pay closer attention to the domestic implications of EU policies (Högenauer, 2015, p. 252-53). So, before the 2006 election, and even in the 2006 election, there was almost no attention paid to the EU. This phenomenon is in line with the trend observed by Hooghe and Marks (2009) from permissive consensus to constraining dissensus, where only after a certain event or period political parties have to start taking the public opinion into account (p. 5). Moreover, another practical reason for no data points before 2006 is that the PVV did not exist before this election.
For this research, it seemed useful to review all the national elections after 2006 to observe whether there is a trend in differences and similarities between political manifestos and statements made in debates and newspapers. The expectation is that in the years that have the biggest focus on the EU (2012 for the PVV and 2017 for D66), there is the smallest difference between the sources because the issue is most politicized (Expectation 3a).
D66
The collected data from debates, newspapers and other material is reviewed from 6 months before the national elections. This is done because the election manifestos used here are published only 2 to 3 months prior to the elections (and sometimes even less than a month prior). However, it is interesting to see whether the politicians make different statements when the manifestos are not yet officially published. Therefore, the choice was made to take 6 months before the election date in order to capture both the media coverage from before and after the official publication of the manifestos. This gives the following periods:
Election year Election Date Start search period End search period
2006 22 November 2006 21 May 2006 23 November 2006
2010 9 June 2010 8 December 2009 10 June 2010
2012 12 September 2012 11 March 2012 13 September 2012 2017 15 March 2017 14 September 2016 16 March 2017
3.3 Data collection
The data collected for this research consists of three different types of material: national debates, interviews, and newspaper articles.
National debates and interviews
The vision and sound material used for this research includes national debates broadcasted during the election campaigns on television and radio and two interviews. For each year, I tried to find as much material as possible from all sources that had relevant material. First, the television debates used came from the shows EenVandaag/ EFR Verkiezingsdebat (election debate), EenVandaag-verkiezingsdebat, NOS Verkiezingsdebat and Lijsttrekkersdebat (political leaders’ debate), RTL 4 Premiersdebat (prime minister debate), Knevel & Van Den Brink Verkiezingsdebat, RTVNoord Eerste Lijsttrekkersdebat 2017, and L1 Debat van het Zuiden 2017. The last two debates are from regional broadcasters; however, they did contain nationally relevant EU issues and were held with the national political leaders of the parties. Therefore, they are included in this research. Most of the other material was found via using the Beeld en Geluid Instituut (Sound and Vision Institute) website, NPO Start (on-demand-service from the Dutch public broadcast), NOS (national media (on-demand-service) and YouTube (when the official source did not have the material anymore). Second, the two radio debates were both from NPO Radio 1 and were found via the NPO Radio 1 website and a former Facebook
live-stream. Last, the interview material came from the show EenVandaag, which had in 2012 several episodes dedicated to interviews with each political party’s leader. The material was retrieved from the Beeld en Geluid Instituut. For the other election years, there was no interview material related to the EU available.
In total, nine television debates, two radio debates, and two interviews were found and analysed. Not each year had the same amount of available material. For instance, for 2006 there is no video or sound material and for 2010 there is only one debate. This, most probably because both the PVV and D66 were smaller parties (especially in 2006) and the EU was not an important campaign issue. Then, there was a tremendous increase in the material in 2012 and 2017. 2012 had four national television debates, one radio debate, and two interviews. For 2017 this was four television debates and one radio debate.
Newspaper articles
The newspaper articles used for the data comparison all come from Dutch national newspapers. LexisNexis/ NexisUni was used in order to select and find the data. The research is about national elections, and therefore no local newspapers are used. This resulted in the use of the newspapers NRC Handelsblad, NRC.Next, de Telegraaf, Trouw, AD, FD, and FD.nl. The research in the LexisNexis/ NexisUni database proceeded in the following way: first, the search term ‘Europese Unie’ (European Union) was entered. Second, within this search term, either the word ‘D66’ or ‘PVV’ was entered in order to specify the results to each party. Then, the period was selected (for instance 21/05/2006 – 23/11/2006). Last, the national newspapers were entered. It was not always possible to have each newspaper for each election year, because sometimes the papers did not have an article related to the search terms. Hence, for each period, all the available national newspapers were selected.
Graph 1. Amount of newspaper articles per party per year (made by the author).
In total, this led to a large number of relevant newspaper articles. There is an interesting increase in results per year, which underlines the argument that EU issues started gaining momentum after 2006. This is illustrated in Graph 1. So, almost a thousand newspaper articles were reviewed for this study. However, surely, not every article was as interesting, since many included duplications or were just not relevant. Therefore, all the material used in the ‘Results of data collection and comparisons’ section of this research was selected based on three criteria: 1) the statement is relevant (includes a statement about EU issues), 2) the statement is made by somebody from D66 or the PVV, 3) no double articles are included in the analysis of data.3
3 In Graph 1 possible duplications are included. This is because NexisLexis/ NexisUni includes NRC Handelsblad and NRC.Next, and FD and FD.nl as separate newspaper sources without filtering the duplications, whilst sometimes, but not always, the sources publish the same or variations of the same content. NexisLexis/ NexisUni does not include the websites for the other newspapers such as the websites of AD and Telegraaf. Since
NexisLexis/ NexisUni does not make the distinction, and the duplications will be minimal no further cut was made. Moreover, the effect on Graph 1 will be minimal, since the figure shows a clear trend that is largely caused by the accumulation of all the other newspaper articles.
65 77 102 189 3 83 231 199 0 50 100 150 200 250 2006 2010 2012 2017 A m o u n t o f n ew sp ap er ar tci les o n L ex is N ex is Year
Newspaper Articles Party/ Year
D66 PVV
4 Results of data collection & comparisons
This chapter first discusses the results of the data collection. It does so by splitting this section into two parts: the first subsection focuses on D66 and each election year (2006, 2010, 2012, 2017), and afterwards the same is done for the PVV. For each subsection of party analysis, there is first a short description of the political party and their opinion about Europe. This is done in order to get a better perception about what the party stands for, which consequently can explain the party’s stance on EU issues and their behaviour in debates and media in the analysis and discussion of the results. Then, the results of the analysis for the manifestos, debates, newspaper articles and interviews are analysed and compared for each election year. The results are ordered based on the expectations for this research. These are: 1) For the period 2006-2017 there is expected to be an increase in attention to EU issues by both political parties and the media (E1); 2) Eurosceptic parties are expected to focus more on general aspects of the EU, whilst pro-EU parties are expected to also focus on EU specific policies (E2); 3a) At the times of lack of politicization (2006, 2010), there is a larger divergence in standpoints between a party's manifesto and the rest of the electoral material compared to times of increased politicization (2012, 2017). (E3a); 3b) These divergences between manifesto and media are visible in that Eurosceptic parties frame the debate for further integration by making bold statements in the media, whilst pro-EU parties make less explicit statements in the media (but elaborately cover the EU in the manifesto) (E3b). To indicate these expectations within the results of the data collection, the numbers in brackets behind the expectations are added after the data findings that are interesting for the analysis. However, the analysis of the results in this chapter only lightly touches upon these expectations. The next chapter of this paper (‘Discussion of Results and Possible Limitations’) provides an in-depth discussion of the results.
4.1 Democrats 66 (D66)
D66 has been active on the Dutch political terrain since 1966 and is a progressive, social liberal party (their official trademark since 1997) (van der Land, n.p., 2018). D66 is, amongst others, known for its focus on education, integration and a strong positive focus on Europe. This focus on Europe can be seen in, for instance, their political manifestos of 2006 till 2017. D66 stands very positively towards European integration. This can be seen in, for instance, their manifestos where they lobby for more EU integration (D66, 2006, p. 63-64; D66, 2010, p. 84; D66, 2012, p. 16-19; D66, 2016, p. 4, 6). Moreover, according to the Manifesto Project, they are the most EU positive party in the Netherlands (see Figure 1; Manifesto Project, “MARPOR Data Dashboard”, n.d.).
D66 in 2006
The political party’s manifesto: ‘It is about people / Het gaat om mensen’
In 2006, D66 presented an elaborated political programme (of 112 pages) in which the EU already was already substantially covered. Thus, the political party paid attention to the topic
(E1). Issues related to EU integration were a big part of the EU issues mentioned within the
manifesto. There was a separate section on how European cooperation should be improved (Better organised European Cooperation / “Beter georganiseerde Europese Samenwerking”) (D66, 2006, p. 63-64). According to D66, the Netherlands should start to function more and more as part of the Union (p. 43-44). This, in contrast to an autonomous state within the Union. In general, the party wanted a stronger EU, with better military and security capacities (p. 89-90). They argued for a stronger EU on all fronts and argued that certain tasks (like defence) could be better organized at the European level, instead of at the nation-state level (p. 63). However, they did argue that the EU cannot be forever growing and that new members should fulfil all the criteria (p. 63).
The manifesto mentioned some specific EU policy issues that should be organized by the EU and adopted by the Netherlands, such as a European energy cooperation (p. 39), cleaner cars (p. 34), joint climate action (p. 40), and organizing pensions at the European level (p. 34). On top of that, the party wanted more direct democracy within the EU, for instance: directly electing the leader of the European Commission and trying to get a new European Constitutional Treaty decided by the European citizens (p. 63-64). Hence, the party covered general EU aspects, but also specific policies, as mentioned in expectation two (E2). Some EU external issues mentioned focused on developing countries. The Netherlands should, for instance, aim to prioritize the development cooperation of the EU within the EU (p. 37).
Moreover, the subsidizing of agricultural export products should stop, since it harms developing countries (p. 51). Thus, in its political manifesto, D66 promoted the idea of stronger EU integration, more direct democracy within the EU institutions and further European cooperation on external issues (D66, 2006). Overall, there is a wish for transferring more authority from the nation-state to the European institutions.
The electoral campaign in 2006: newspapers
In 2006, some (sixty-five) relevant articles included statements of D66’s stance on the European Union. So, also in the media, the party did cover the EU (E1). In the newspaper articles, this were mostly EU general aspects (E2). MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld of D66 was quoted a few times, arguing for better cooperation between the European institutions and national parliaments, in for instance terrorism prevention [The European Parliament and national parliaments are now too often sidelined/ “Europarlement en nationale parlementen staan nu te vaak buiten spel”] (Heck, 2006). In ‘t Veld also argued for removing Strasbourg as a meeting place (Dirks, 2006), which was also mentioned in the party’s manifesto (D66, 2006, p. 64). Something that was mentioned in the news media, but not in the manifesto was the integrated gas market for North-Europe (NRC Handelsblad, 2006). The manifesto covered more energy cooperation, but not this specific point.
Regarding the national debates, D66 did not make an appearance in the television debate of EenVandaag/EFR Verkiezingsdebat, because they only invited the leaders of the six biggest parties (TROS/AVRO, 2006). Interestingly, there was no other debate or relevant interview in which both D66 was present and the EU was a topic of importance.
Comparison & possible explanations
This research does not capture the election before 2005 (2004), and therefore cannot indicate whether or not there was a difference in attention to EU issues in the period 2004-2006. However, based on the limited amount of newspaper articles about this topic, it can be concluded that European issues were not an important topic in the 2006 elections (E1). Despite this, the EU did already play an important party in the party’s manifesto (E1). As a pro-EU party, it was expected that the party would focus on not only the general integration aspects of the EU but also on EU specific policies. This was indeed the case (E2). The most interesting finding for this year is that even though D66 was already occupied with the EU, and EU specific policies (seen by covering it elaborately in its election manifesto), there is a disproportionate amount covered in the media (E3b). For 2006, there were no statements that caused a
contradiction between D66’s party manifesto and the statements made in newspaper articles
(E3a). A reason for this could be that D66 was not one of the biggest parties back in 2006, so
therefore they might not have received as much media attention.
D66 in 2010
The political party’s manifesto: ‘We want it differently / We willen het anders’
In 2010, D66 had an electoral manifesto of which the core was that the Netherlands should make some changes and start doing things differently. Regarding the European Union, the issues were very much interwoven throughout the whole programme and ranged from organised supervision in the European financial sector to cleaner energy and better defence cooperation (D66, 2010, p. 28, 51, 84). The EU was again substantially covered throughout the manifesto
(E1). Generally, the party wanted more EU integration; what could be done at the European
level should be done there (p. 56). Moreover, they desired a stronger EU with more defence cooperation (p. 84). However, they added some critical notions about the general course that the EU was heading for. For instance, they argued that the EU, and the Dutch position within it, should improve and become more transparent (p. 60), and that the Netherlands should have more influence on EU law (p. 84).
EU specific issues that were covered included the importance of European policies and supervision of the financial and banking sector (p. 27, 28). Moreover, there was attention for more policies for clean technology (p. 30), clean energy (p. 51) and economy, for instance, the aerospace sector (p. 42). Other points that proved that D66 wanted a more integrated EU were arguments for policies for one European energy market (p. 55), health care all over Europe (p. 69), a European asylum policy (p. 75), and stronger police and justice cooperation and privacy protection (p. 73). The EU external issues included the idea of reforming and improving NATO (p. 85). Moreover, the party identified the EU involvement in the Middle Eastern conflict as an important point, together with humanitarian support, the combat of terrorism and arms trade in the area (p. 85). The party paid attention to the general course of the EU and the corresponding policies (E2). So, in 2010, D66 again had a manifesto in which a stronger European Union with more authority and better cooperation of the member states played an important role.
The electoral campaign in 2010: debates & newspapers
In 2010, there was one national debate available in which D66 took place; this was the NOS Verkiezingsdebat on the 8th of June 2010. The EU was mentioned a few times within the debate; it was not an important topic and D66 leader Pechtold only stressed the importance of the EU
and showed his fear for a smaller, less influential, EU when following the politics of the two other parties the VVD and the PVV (Fabriziozanin ‘Verkiezingsdebat deel 3’, 2010, 2:04-2:26). Concerning the newspaper articles, there is more material available compared to 2006
(E1). There were for instance some articles that closely related to improved climate action and
sustainable development goals in the manifesto. For instance, a quote by van der Ham (D66), arguing against the weak climate agreement [very disappointing, a weak agreement/ “heel teleurstellend, een zwak akkoord”] and how the EU should have taken more leadership at the Climate Top in Copenhagen [“De Europese Unie had meer leiderschap moeten tonen”] (NRC Handelsblad, 2009). Moreover, there is an article about the rejecting of ivory trade by the EU, argued by PEM Gerbrandy (D66) (AD ‘Geen Kop’, 2010). This could relate to the trade stop in endangered animals, as mentioned in the manifesto (D66, 2010, p. 49). Furthermore, the external EU issue of the Middle Eastern conflict is covered. In the papers, it was mentioned how an agreement between the EU and Israel should stop under the circumstances (Stokmans, 2010). Hence, both general and more specific statements about the EU are made (E2).
Interestingly, the financial aid to Greece popped up a few times in the papers. There was the support by D66 for more financial aid to Greece (Zandbergen, 2010), and an earlier article where D66 mentioned how Greece should have had sanctions for its budget deficit [The EU Growth and Stability Pact must be enforced more vigorously/ “groei- en stabiliteitspact moet veel dwingender worden gehandhaafd” (quote by Fatma Koser Kaya (D66), as cited in Dirks & Douwes, 2010] (Dirks & Douwes, 2010). Remarkably, the whole Greece crisis and the budget deficit was not mentioned in the manifesto.
Comparison & possible explanations
Compared to 2006, the EU stayed a topic of interest throughout the political manifesto. However, there was an increase in media attention by the party compared to 2006, especially in newspapers (E1). European issues were again elaborately mentioned throughout the manifesto (E2). However, in the media, it seemed as if the EU was again not a big theme within the electoral campaign of D66. So, even though it was a relevant part of the manifesto, the party was not actively promoting it outside of this (E3b).
In general, there was not much difference between statements made in the manifesto and newspapers and debates (E3a). Most articles and debate statements (at least of what could be found and was available online) related closely to what was written in the manifesto. The only interesting difference was the case of the Greece crisis. In 2010, this issue already received media attention but was not covered in the manifesto. Thus, this could be identified as a small
discrepancy (E3a). Still, it seemed as if parties were avoiding the EU topics, even though the euro crisis was already an important phenomenon at that moment. The media also paid attention to how political parties choose to not focus on the EU as a campaign theme (Kranenburg, 2010). So, in short, despite the lack of politicization in the media by D66, there is not a large divergence in standpoints of the party’s manifesto and the rest of the electoral materials (E3a). However, there is a divergence in coverage since the EU was elaborately covered in the party’s manifesto, but not in the media (E3b).
D66 in 2012
The political party’s manifesto: ‘And now move forward / En nu vooruit’
The political manifesto of 2012 included a clear focus on European Union issues. For instance, the manifesto included a whole section about how people should choose in favour of Europe (D66, 2012, p. 16-19). This emphasis on EU issues can be seen as an increase in attention to the topic compared to 2006 and 2010 (E1). In general, this year’s manifesto was also very much focused on general EU integration kinds of issues. The Netherlands benefited much from its EU membership. Moreover, the party explained how the financial crisis in Europe has shown how the EU needed more instead of less integration and regulation (p. 5). This was also shown by statistics of how the EU yields more money than it costs (p. 18). However, because of this wish for further integration, D66 was during this year especially critical about the performance of the EU and how it should be improved. For instance, it did agree that the EU is in a crisis, however, instead of reducing EU influence (as EU sceptic parties argue), the EU should be improved (p. 17-18). For instance, there should be more democracy and less bureaucracy (p. 19), and better parliamentary control (p. 60). There was the same argument as in the previous manifestos of a stronger federal Europe: what can be done at the EU level, should be done there (p. 19). Ultimately, D66 aimed for a political union (p. 19).
Some EU policy specific issues that were important in this campaign relate to better regulation of the banking sector (p. 13, 18), stronger EU privacy legislation (p. 47), and European cooperation in the asylum, terrorism, and defence policies (p. 54-55). Moreover, D66 wanted one European airspace (p. 10), more sustainable EU fishery policy (p. 41), and European energy policy in North-West Europe (p. 11). The party also paid attention to some EU external issues, for instance, the Israel-Palestine conflict (p. 55), development cooperation (p. 55), and NATO (p. 54). So, the EU and further EU integration received a great deal of attention during this political manifesto (E2).
The electoral campaign in 2012: debates, an interview & newspapers
The media paid a lot of attention to European issues in the national electoral debates and newspaper articles (E1). For 2012, there were three national television debates (NOS (two times), and Knevel & Van Den Brink), one national radio debate (NPO Radio 1), and one interview (TROS/ EenVandaag) available that covered EU issues and D66. In the first national debate with the political parties, Pechtold (D66) was present. During the debate, he made some Eurosceptic statements, for instance, how the failure of banks, politics, Europe and the euro, did not give us what we can expect (NOS, 2012, 57:46-57:55), and how the crisis started with banks, the EU and the euro (1:16:28).
In the debate of Knevel & Van Den Brink, Pechtold again admitted that the EU has problems (Viral Videos Holland, 2012, 54:20). However, he argued that ‘we’ should finish Europe, instead of running away from it like Wilders (54:46-55:03). Moreover, he blamed prime minister Rutte (VVD) that he was against the banking supervision (55:27).
In the last national debate of the electoral campaign, Pechtold was also present. This debate was really focused on the EU, shown by for instance the first 23 minutes of the debate covering the topic. Interestingly, in this debate, Pechtold only mentioned the EU twice and rather seems to avoid the topic, as if he did not want a direct association with him and the EU. In the closing round of the debate, parties were asked for one concrete point that they will keep the coming cabinet period. Pechtold mentioned that the Netherlands and EU should spend less money compared to what comes in (NPO Start, 2012, 1:10:50) and that his biggest focus is on ‘education’. Instead, it is mostly Wilders (PVV) who mentioned the EU a lot and used the issue to position his party at the Eurosceptic end of the spectrum. In the closing round, he heavily criticised the EU, and when Pechtold got to speak directly after him, he did not respond to Wilders’ Euroscepticism, but instead only mentioned that the Netherlands should keep an open view to Europe but should focus on its internal market (1:26:25).
In the radio debate, Pechtold and Wilders stood face-to-face debating the asylum seekers issue. Pechtold is positive about the European immigration policy (NPO Radio 1, 2012, 07:13), and argued that the Netherlands should tackle the refugee streams with the help of the EU and wants cooperation with EU asylum policy (08:54-09:40).
For this campaign, there is also an interview included in the research, since a national television show held interviews with each of the political leaders. During the interview at EenVandaag, the political leader of D66, Alexander Pechtold, held the same line as his statements given in the debates and the manifesto. He did admit that North Europe is for the time being paying for South Europe. However, he again argued that it, in the end, results in
more money since the EU makes for a bigger market (TROS, 2012). Therefore, the regulation of banks at the European level is necessary. Moreover, the EU should get more democratic by giving citizens more influence instead of diplomates and bankers (TROS, 2012). In short, Europe is the solution, however, the Netherlands should be critical (TROS, 2012).
Concerning the newspaper articles, there is a strong increase in the material available compared to 2006 and 2010 (from 65 to 77, to 102) (E1). For instance, some EU integration issues covered are the wish for the election of the chairman of the European Commission, and a more democratic EU: now decisions are made behind closed doors in the EU [“Europa is er al en nu wordt er achter gesloten deuren besloten” (quote by In ‘t Veld (D66), as cited in Moes, 2012] (Moes, 2012). The party also says that the EU is one of their top 3 priorities (Van ‘t Hof & Van Soest, 2012). Then, newspapers covered how banking should have been better regulated, so there should come a banking union and later a political union (Willems & Broekhuizen, 2012) (E2). In NRC Handelsblad, MEP Schaake (D66) wrote an opinion article in which she argued how the EU should help in the Syria conflict [The EU must help unite the Syrian opposition/ “De Europese Unie moet helpen de Syrische oppositie te verenigen”] (Schaake, 2012). This is not mentioned in the manifesto.
Comparison & possible explanations
The European Union was a big topic of debate within the 2012 electoral campaign. This can be especially seen in how elaborately the topic is covered during the national debates. Compared to the previous years, there is a strong increase in EU coverage in the party’s manifesto and the available newspaper articles and debates (E1). D66 covered the topic in-depth in their manifesto
(E2). However, interestingly, the party did not make a lot of pro-EU statements in debates and
papers (E3b). So, even though the EU is a big part of the political manifesto, the political leader, Pechtold, seemed to avoid the topic on national television, radio, and newspapers and instead only lightly touches upon (E3b). The expectation here was that there would be the least discrepancy between what is said in the different sources since this is the most EU-centred campaign of the period 2006-2017 (E3a). For both the statements made in the debates and papers, most related closely to what was written in the manifesto, with the ‘Syria statement’ made by Schaake in NRC Handelsblad being an exception (E3a).
