Verzuiling

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With pillarization ( pillarisation ) is known mainly in the Netherlands, a religiously justified exceptional particularism . In the "columnar" socio-political system, religiously, socially and culturally defined groups lived side by side and had parallel social organizations (parishes, educational institutions, Volksbanks, chambers and others). In the Netherlands a distinction is made between a Christian-Protestant (Calvinist), a Catholic, a socialist and the neutral or general column.

The system had its heyday from 1920 to 1970, so it survived the Second World War undamaged despite efforts to the contrary in the post-war period. The population groups lived side by side in a kind of “voluntary apartheid” in order to be able to be in their own society , “sovereign in their own milieu” ( Abraham Kuyper ). The necessary cooperation between the pillars took place primarily at the level of the elite.

Denominational roots

The strongly repressive politics of the Habsburgs had kept young Lutheranism out of the Netherlands until Calvinism took hold in the wake of the iconoclasm (1566) and became the predominant denomination during the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). After the expulsion of the Habsburgs, the “governor” (originally the representative of the monarch) assumed a predominantly military but also political supremacy. The governor of the House of Orange-Nassau were like the majority Calvinists, while the Catholic areas, the Habsburgs wrested Generality how colonies were managed. In addition, there were currents that felt committed to the ideas of humanism and later the Enlightenment .

In the 19th century, Dutch Calvinism split when the Gereformeerde Kerken separated from the Nederlands-Hervormde Kerk (NH). Gereformeerd was originally just another word for Dutchism (both means “reformed”), now those who found the NH Church too little strict and orthodox called themselves so. The Gereformeerde Bond , which is partly stricter than the Gereformeerde Kerken , remained within the quasi state church NH Church , and there are also other strictly religious groups such as the Oud Gereformeerden . The Protestant Church has existed in the Netherlands since 2004, but it does not satisfy all of the reformed earths either .

Confessional party formations

An important impetus for party formation in the Netherlands was the founding of the Anti-Revolutionaire Partij (ARP) in 1878/1879 by the reforming preacher Abraham Kuyper , who no longer believed that Calvinism could continue to put its stamp on society as a whole. His solution was to isolate the orthodox in order to remain true to their own ideas in their own milieu. With this they found the approval of the Catholics, who wanted something similar for themselves. The greatest catalyst for this verzuiling was the school question, in which a compromise between denominational and liberals was found in 1917. According to this, the denominational “special” schools (not all “special” schools are denominational) are financed by the state to the same extent as state schools. In the political barter trade, the confessionals agreed to universal suffrage.

In 1908 the Christelijk-Historische Unie (CHU) gathered those who tried to give the whole state a Calvinist face. It is difficult to differentiate between the two parties ARP and CHU; For a long time anti-revolutionary and Christian historical were synonyms. Personal conflicts between the political leaders also played a role, and since the authoritarian Abraham Kuyper put off many intellectuals and dignitaries, he eventually became an advocate of the “common people”, reforming craftsmen and merchants, with the ARP . In the 1960s, the ARP had a strong social wing. The CHU was long considered economically more conservative and also dominated by nobles; it was more associated with the NH Church than with the Gereformeerde Kerken .

The classic pillars

According to the pluralism researcher Arend Lijphart , the following pillars now emerged:

A member of the Catholic Pillar, for example, was a Dutchman who voted for KVP, listened to the Katholieke Radio-Omroep (later also saw on television) and read a Catholic newspaper: for example De Tijd or De Maasbode , as a worker probably the Volkskrant . As the latter, he joined a Catholic union in the Catholic umbrella organization NKV. His children attended Catholic schools and then the Catholic University in Nijmegen . Leisure clubs were also organized according to pillars, from sports clubs to Esperanto associations.

Criticism of the pillar model and dissolution of the "pillar"

Proportion of religions in the total population in 2006: orange the non-denominational, blue the Catholics and then red the Protestants and in yellow the Muslims.

The authoritative text on the theory of verzuiling as specifically Dutch pluralism comes from Arend Lijphart (1968), who at that time already described the dissolution of the system. There is now criticism of his representation, for example by Jan van Putten , who considers the fourth or general pillar to be more of an ideological construct.

If one compares the distribution with particularism east of the border, one also finds Catholic and socialist subcultures or socio-moral milieus or counter-elites in Germany (especially in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic with the Catholic Center Party ), but less a “Protestant pillar”. This is perhaps due to Lutheranism, which was not as strict as the Gereformeerden or the Orthodox of the NH Church and therefore rejected the liberals less.

The Dutch system of verzuiling is largely a thing of the past, but still explains some phenomena of the party system such as the two small religious parties, the “blood groups” (currents, i.e. anti-revolutionary, Catholic, etc.) in the CDA and the founding motive of the PvdA and Democrats 66 .

In the course of the erosion of the previously firmly established social and ideological milieus, numerous new parties have been founded over the last few decades, including one-topic parties, regional parties and populist movements. The most successful new groups to date have been the left-wing liberal D'66, the right-wing populist LPF and the left, formerly Maoist SP . As social traditions and ties continue to lose strength, there is an increasing number of alternate voters.

Other countries

In Belgium there is no Protestant pillar, there is or was a Catholic pillar, a socialist pillar and a liberal pillar, which strongly influenced the country until the post-war period. In the meantime, however, there is mainly a Flemish and a Walloon column, which, with the exception of the Brussels region, are clearly regionally separated. See Flemish-Walloon Conflict .

In Lebanon , even constitutional pillars did not prevent the civil war. Positions such as the head of state or the prime minister are reserved for groups such as Christians or Sunnis.

In Germany one traditionally speaks of particularism rather than pillars. Similar to the Netherlands, Germany has been a predominantly Protestant country with a strong, regionally anchored Catholic minority since the 16th century. In the elections in the empire (1871-1918) one could determine a voting behavior that could also be divided into three large groups: bourgeois-Protestant parties, namely conservatives, left and right-wing liberals, often united against a Catholic or socialist candidate. It should be noted that in the German Empire only men were allowed to vote, because women did not have the right to vote until 1919. In contrast to the Netherlands, particularism was to a significant extent overcome in the years after the Second World War, among other things because the inclusion of the Promoted the religious mix of displaced people . A two or two and a half party system developed in which the SPD opened up more to the middle class and the CDU / CSU brought together liberals, conservatives and nationalists of both major denominations.

In Austria there are, in some cases still to this day, "black" and "red" parallel organizations, e.g. B. at touring clubs (ÖAMTC vs. ARBÖ) or sports associations (Sportunion vs. ASKÖ).

literature

  • Arie L. Molendijk: Pillars in the Netherlands: concept, theory, lieu de mémoire. In: Friedrich Wilhelm Graf / Klaus Große Kracht (Ed.): Religion and Society. Europe in the 20th century. Bölau, Cologne a. a. 2007, 307-327 [= Industrielle Welt 73] ISBN 978-3-412-20030-5 . See https://www.ariemolendijk.nl/downloads/download0022.pdf .
  • Paul Luyks: Pillars in the Netherlands. A critical consideration of the more recent historiography , in: Center for Netherlands Studies Yearbook 2 (1991), 39–51.
  • Rudolf Steininger: Polarization and Integration. Comparative study of the structural pillars of society in the Netherlands and Austria . Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1975, [= Politics and voters 14] (= University of Cologne, Phil. Fac., Diss. O. J.) ISBN 3-445-01233-4 .
  • Jakob Pieter Kruijt / Walter Goddijn: Columnization and deadening as social processes , in: Joachim Matthes (ed.): Sociology and Society in the Netherlands. Luchterhand: Neuwied, Berlin 1965, 115–149.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See: Arend Lijphart, Verzuiling, pacificatie en kentering in de Nederlandse politiek , 9th edition, Haarlem 1992.