The Netherlands: A heartland full of insights into populist communication

Populism has played a pivotal role in the Dutch political landscape since the 2000s. The rise and rapid decline of Pim Fortuyn’s right-wing populist party Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) in 2002 marks the start of inuential Dutch populism (Schafraad, Scheepers, & Wester, 2010). Although the party’s success was short-lived, Lijst Pim Fortuyn was the rst populist party that managed to obtain a large share of the vote in the national elections, eventually winning 26 seats in parliament. After Fortuyn’s death in 2002, Dutch politics witnessed a few relatively quiet years, with a quarreling Lijst Pim Fortuyn and several offshoots of Fortuyn’s party, such as One Netherlands and the Party for the Netherlands. Successful populism re-entered the stage with Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) in 2005. In 2010, the Freedom Party even became the third largest party in the general elections, winning 24 seats in parliament. During the last decade, various populist parties such as Verdonk’s right-wing Proud of the Netherlands (ToN) and the 50Plus Party (for the senior population) entered the political stage in the slipstream of Lijst Pim Fortuyn and the Freedom Party, albeit with less electoral success.