Politics between Accommodation and Commotion

Abstract

According to many scholars, the politics of accommodation has a long pedigree in the “consociational” tradition that stood at the basis of the Dutch Republic, and even before that time had developed out of the common struggle against the sea and the shared interest in building and guarding the dikes to protect the country against flooding. From this perspective, the elite’s “rules of engagement” that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century were an adaptation of older elite practices. These rules were now applied to the new problems of emerging social groups like the orthodox Protestants and socialists, who claimed cultural recognition and a fair share of the national wealth. The politics of accommodation became a way of peacefully integrating new groups into the Dutch state..