Anti-Revolutionaire Partij

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The Anti-Revolutionaire Partij ( ARP , pronounced [ɑntiʔrevoly (t) ʃonɛːrə pɑrtɛi] ; German Anti-Revolutionary Party ) was the first confessional or Christian Democratic party in the Netherlands . Founded in 1879 by Abraham Kuyper , it represented the strict Calvinist ( reforming ) Christians. The “anti-revolutionary” in the name referred to opposition to the ideas of the French Revolution and the EnlightenmentIdeas. Although it never got above 20% in parliamentary elections after 1917, its influence remained considerable. In 1980 it merged with other Christian parties to form the Christian Democratisch Appèl (Christian Democratic Appeal, CDA).

history

Abraham Kuyper, founder and long-time chairman of the ARP

Establishment and Verzuiling

An “anti-revolutionary” political current and parliamentary group already existed in the first half of the 19th century, then under the leadership of Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer . She rejected liberal ideas and confessed to "God, the Netherlands and the House of Orange".

As a party in the true sense - the first in the Netherlands - the ARP was founded in 1879 by the Protestant theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper . The most important point of the ARP was the equality of public and private (church) schools. In the previous year, more than 300,000 Protestants and 160,000 Catholics had protested with a petition against the school reform of the liberal Prime Minister Joannes Kappeyne van de Coppello (which King Wilhelm III nevertheless put into effect). In the 19th century, Kuyper was the leader of a reform movement within Protestantism, which propagated a return to the “pure” teaching of Calvin and in 1886 led to the split of the Gereformeerde Kerken from the Protestant state church ( Hervormde Kerk ) .

Kuyper formulated the idea of sovereignty in eigen kring ("sovereignty in one's own circle"), i. This means that state and church (s) are each independent in their own sphere. This also resulted in the phenomenon of verzuiling : the various denominational and social groups (Protestants, Catholics, liberals and labor movement) each founded not only their own parties, but also their own schools and universities, newspapers and radio stations, trade unions and even leisure and sports clubs. As a result, the Netherlands was shaped by something like parallel societies until the 1960s . The Gereformeerden column, whose party political representation was the ARP, also included the denominational Scholen met de Bijbel ("Schools with the Bible"), the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam founded by Kuyper in 1880 , the newspaper De Standaard (or after the Second World War Trouw ), the trade union Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond (CNV), the Nederlandse Christelijke Radio Vereniging (NCRV), the hospitals of the orange-green cross and a section of the football hoofd class , which only played on Saturdays due to the strict Sunday rest of the Calvinists, while clubs were Catholic or socialist played in the Sunday League.

Conflict with the Liberals and breakaway of the CHU

Up until the First World War, the ARP succeeded three times, in coalition with Catholics and non-party conservatives, in ousting the Liberals from the government and in providing the Prime Minister himself: Æneas Mackay (1888–91), Abraham Kuyper (1901–05) and Theo Heemskerk (1908-13).

The census suffrage , which was valid from 1866 to 1917, disadvantaged the supporters of the ARP, who were more likely to be found among the "little people" (little luyden) , while it preferred the liberals, more rooted in the upper class, who until 1909 were always the strongest force in the Second Chamber . Due to their fundamental opposition to republican ideas such as the principle of popular sovereignty , the ARP initially rejected an expansion of the right to vote, as proposed in 1892 by the liberal Interior Minister Johannes Tak van Poortvliet . Instead, the anti-revolutionaries spoke out in favor of a “household suffrage ” (huismanskiesrecht) : the father, as the head of the household, should cast the vote for his family. Since there was no majority for this, Kuyper agreed to Tak van Poortvliet's liberal proposal - the right to vote for every man who can read and write and take care of his own living - which he hoped would increase the ARP's electorate.

Kuyper's tactics were unacceptable to a part of the anti-revolutionary faction, which split off under Alexander de Savornin Lohman as the Vrije Antirevolutionaire , which later became the Christelijk-Historische Unie (CHU). This party split also reflected the church split (Doleantie) of Kuyper's strict Calvinist Gereformeerden from the official Hervormden Kerk that had taken place a few years earlier . Kuyper's teaching was particularly well received by the lower classes, who were consequently more strongly represented in the Gereformeerden churches and among supporters of the ARP, while the Protestant bourgeoisie and the nobility tended to stay in the established Hervormden Kerk , which was close to the CHU. An essential difference between the two Protestant parties was also the form of organization: the ARP was a tightly hierarchical party with a mass base , the CHU was more of a loose association of dignitaries . The CHU also rejected the isolation of the Calvinist milieu in its own "pillar", which Kuyper and his supporters had promoted.

The threshold for the right to vote was gradually lowered - until it was completely repealed by the constitutional amendment in 1917 - so that increasingly larger parts of the male population were allowed to vote, which each time resulted in an increase in the proportion of votes and seats in the ARP. After the election in 1883 (in which only 75,000 voters took part), it had only 18 of the 86 seats in the lower house, but - despite the spin-off of the CHU - it was nominated for the first time in 1909 (with almost 600,000 voters) with 28% of the vote and 25 out of 100 seats the Liberals strongest force (the CHU got 11% and 10 seats).

From 1917 to the Second World War

ARP poster for the 1937 election with Hendrikus Colijn

The constitutional reform of 1917 contained a compromise between the liberal and the Christian camp with regard to school and electoral law issues and is therefore called Pacificacie ("pacification"): The liberals set universal suffrage (initially for men, from 1919 also for women) by, but the demand of the denominational parties for equal funding of state and church schools was met.

Ultimately, Catholics and Social Democrats benefited more than the ARP from the introduction of universal suffrage . That is why the ARP's share of the vote leveled off at 12-14% between the two world wars. The three Christian denominational parties - the Roman Catholic State Party , ARP and CHU - now dominated the political landscape and provided government throughout the interwar period. For a while there was also a head of government from the ranks of the ARP: Hendrikus Colijn was in charge of a Christian-denominational coalition from 1925-26, a coalition of Christian and liberal parties ( LSP and VDB ) from 1933-37, and another from 1937-39 Government of the three confessional parties. Colijn's government pursued a strict austerity and deflation policy in the 1930s . He was celebrated for this in the Calvinist milieu, but in retrospect this attitude has been criticized for having worsened the effects of the economic crisis in the Netherlands.

Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy, head of the Dutch government in exile (1940-45)

During the German occupation in World War II , the ARP was banned together with the other bourgeois parties in 1941 and continued to exist underground from then on. The ARP politician Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy headed the Dutch government in exile in London. Many anti-revolutionaries took part in the resistance against National Socialism .

History after 1945

After the war, the Gereformeerd Politiek Verbond (GPV) split off from the ARP in 1948 , which was related to the split in the church of the "liberated" (vrijgemaakten) Gereformeerden . The ARP, like the Catholic People's Party (KVP), reflected on its Christian-social roots as a party of the "common people" (unlike the bourgeois-conservative CHU) and decided together with the social democratic PvdA social laws on unemployment insurance (1949) and general Old-Age Insurance (1956). In terms of colonial policy , the ARP insisted that the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia ) remain in the Reichsverband and later also refused to hand over Western New Guinea to Indonesia.

The number of members of the ARP has fluctuated around 100,000 since 1945, but began to decline continuously from the mid-1960s. From 1952 until its dissolution in 1980, the ARP was continuously involved in the government, mostly in a coalition of Christian parties (with KVP and CHU), partly with the right-wing liberal VVD , partly with the social democratic PvdA . With Jelle Zijlstra 1966–67 and with Barend Biesheuvel 1971–73, the ARP provided the Prime Minister, otherwise it was a junior partner of the KVP or the PvdA. From 1973 to 1977 she was part of the center-left government Joop den Uyls (with PvdA, KVP, left-liberal D66 and PPR ).

Joint election of ARP, KVP and CHU in Rotterdam 1972

In 1967, talks began about increased Christian Democratic cooperation between the three denominational parties ARP, CHU and KVP, which had continuously lost support since the end of the war (from together over 53% in the 1948 election to below 45% in 1967). After the loss of importance of the three parties in the 1970s worsened (only 31% in 1972), they ran for the first time in 1977 with a joint list: the Christian Democratisch Appèl (CDA). Opponents of the increasingly intensive cooperation between the three Christian Democratic parties had already left the ARP in 1975 and founded the Reformatorische Politieke Federatie (RPF). In 1980 the CDA grew into a unified Christian Democratic party, the ARP, CHU and KVP were dissolved. At this point in time, the ARP, with 54,500 members, only had a little over half of its membership figures from the high phase after the Second World War. The CDA parliamentary group chairmen Willem Aantjes and Enneüs Heerma came from the ranks of the ARP.

Former members of the left wing of the ARP founded the Evangelical People's Party in 1981 , which - like the green parties in other Western European countries - campaigned for peace, criticism of capitalism, civil rights and against nuclear energy, before being absorbed into the GroenLinks in 1989/91 . The two strictly Calvinist small parties, GPV and RPF, split off from the ARP merged in 2001 to form the ChristenUnie , which sees its roots in Groen van Prinsterers and Abraham Kuyper.

The ARP had a youth organization called ARJOS ( Anti-Revolutionaire Jongeren Study Club ). Until the ban in 1941, the ARP had a national daily newspaper, De Standaard . After the Second World War, it was not published again in favor of the ARP-related newspaper Trouw , which was no longer part of the party .

Election results in parliamentary elections

Jelle Zijlstra, one of the most prominent ARP politicians of the post-war period
Barend Biesheuvel, Prime Minister 1971–73
  • 1918: 13.4%
  • 1922: 13.7%
  • 1925: 12.2%
  • 1929: 11.6%
  • 1933: 13.4%
  • 1937: 16.4%
  • 1946: 12.9%
  • 1948: 13.2%
  • 1952: 11.3%
  • 1956: 09.9%
  • 1959: 09.4%
  • 1963: 08.7%
  • 1967: 09.9%
  • 1971: 08.6%
  • 1972: 08.8%

Prime Minister of the party

Party leader

Abraham Kuyper 1879-1905
Herman Bavinck 1905-1907
Abraham Kuyper 1907-1918
Hendrik Colijn 1918-1933
Jan Schouten 1933-1939
Hendrik Colijn 1933-1944
Jacob Adriaan de Wilde 1945-1946
Jan Schouten 1946-1955
Anton Bernard Roosjen (interim) 1955-1956
Wiert Pauwel Berghuis 1956-1968
Anton Bernard Roosjen (interim) 1968
Antoon Veerman 1968-1973
Jan de Koning 1973-1975
Hans de Boer 1975-1980

literature

  • Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. Navigating between values ​​and responsibility. In: Carla van Baalen et al. a .: A fragmented landscape. Contributions to the past and present of Dutch political parties. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2018, pp. 13–37

Web links

Commons : Anti-Revolutionaire Partij  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 15.
  2. ^ A b Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 14.
  3. ^ Rob Nijhoff: Die ChristenUnie - pluralistic on principle. In: Carla van Baalen and others: A fragmented landscape. Contributions to the past and present of Dutch political parties. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2018, pp. 39–58, at pp. 47–49.
  4. ↑ Rudy Andeweg example, Galen A. Irwin: Dutch Government and Politics. 4th edition, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke / New York 2014, pp. 34–36.
  5. ^ Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, pp. 17–18.
  6. ^ Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 18.
  7. ↑ Paul Lucardie : The party system in the Netherlands. In: Oskar Niedermayer u. a .: The party systems of Western Europe. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 331-350, on p. 331.
  8. ^ Markus Wilp: The political system of the Netherlands. An introduction. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2012, p. 215.
  9. ↑ a b c Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 19.
  10. ^ A b Markus Wilp: The political system of the Netherlands. An introduction. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2012, p. 134.
  11. ^ Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 20.
  12. ^ Rob Nijhoff: Die ChristenUnie - pluralistic on principle. In: Carla van Baalen and others: A fragmented landscape. Contributions to the past and present of Dutch political parties. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2018, pp. 39–58, on p. 42.
  13. ^ Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 21.
  14. ^ Markus Wilp: The political system of the Netherlands. An introduction. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2012, p. 133.
  15. ^ Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 22.
  16. ^ Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 26.
  17. ^ Rien Fraanje: The Christian Democracy in the Netherlands. 2018, p. 27.
  18. ↑ Jasper Blom: Greener than the sum of its parts? Origin and development of the GroenLinks party. In: Carla van Baalen and others: A fragmented landscape. Contributions to the past and present of Dutch political parties. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2018, pp. 85-105, at p. 88.
  19. ^ Rob Nijhoff: Die ChristenUnie - pluralistic on principle. In: Carla van Baalen and others: A fragmented landscape. Contributions to the past and present of Dutch political parties. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2018, pp. 39–58, at pp. 41–42.