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Meindert Fennema: Political Theory in Polder Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Dante Germino
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Extract

The polder—a strip of land redeemed from the sea—is a symbol in the Dutch collective consciousness for the successful struggle against threatening inundations. Implicit in this struggle is the idea of strong civic communities, because cooperation is mandatory in the building of dikes to keep out the water. It is therefore appropriate to describe the work of Meindert Fennema currently one of the Netherland's leading political theorists, as a view of political reality from the perspective of the polder. This is not meant in a provincial sense, however, for the polder is a form of shelter and as Eric Voegelin wrote in the Introduction to his long unpublished notes on the “History of Political Ideas,” “the function proper of [political] order is the creation of a shelter in which a man may give to his life a semblance of meaning.” “Political Theory in Polder Perspective“ is therefore a fitting title for this review article on the work of the contemporary Dutch political theorist, Meindert Fennema, longtime member of the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 63 , Issue 4 , Fall 2001 , pp. 783 - 804
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2001

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References

The author wishes to thank Meindert Fennema for the opportunity to interview him at length about his work.

1. Voegelin, Eric, Appendix A to his History of Political Ideas: Volume I, Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1999), p. 225Google Scholar. This appeared as volume 19 of Voegelin's Collected WorkGoogle Scholar.

2. Fennema, Meindert and Wouden, Ries van der, eds., Het politicologen-debat: wat is politiek? (Amsterdam: Van Gennep BV, 1982), from Introduction by Fennema, pp. 7,8,14, and 17Google Scholar.

3. Fennema, , De Multinationale onderneming en de nationale staat (Amsterdam: Socialistische Uitgeverij, 1975)Google Scholar.

4. Fennema, , International Networks of Banks and Industry (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. See Pijl, Kees van der, Transnational Classes and International Relations (London: Routledge, 1998)Google Scholar.

6. Interviews by the author with Fennema.

7. Fennema, De Multinationale onderneming, op. cit, p. 47Google Scholar.

8. See Germino, Dante, Beyond Ideology: The Revival of Political Theory (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), chap. 1Google Scholar.

9. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983Google Scholar.

10. Fennema, has recently published a reworked English version of his earlier article in Spanish: “Hispanidad and National Identity in Santo Domingo,” Journal of Political Ideologies 3 (1998): 193–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Fennema, , “Professor Lijphart en de Nederlandse politiek,” Acta Politica 1 (1976): 1–12Google Scholar. Lijphart's reply follows, pp. 13–17Google Scholar.

12. Lijphart's book appeared in Dutch under the title of Verzuiling, pacificatie en kentering in de Nederlands politiek (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1968)Google Scholar.

13. Quoted by Fennema, in his article “Pacificatie-democratie is geen oplossing voor Zuid-Afrika,” De Volkskrant (Amsterdam), 6 05 1987, p. 15Google Scholar. The Dutch passage by Kruijt is as follows: “Zuilen zijn…op levensbeschouwelijke grondslag gebaseerde, gelijkberechtigde blokken van maatschappelijke organisaties en samenlevingsvormen binnen een grotere, maar raciaal en etnisch homogene, democratische maatschappij.”

14. Lijphart, Arend, Power-Sharing in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), p. 21Google Scholar. Published in Dutch as Machtsdeling: een oplossing voor Zuid-Afrika? (Haarlem: H. J. W. Becht, 1987)Google Scholar. In a recent interview Fennema expressed his respect for Lijphardt's theory of consociationist democracy as a contribution to political theory in general.

15. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1995Google Scholar.

16. “To set up a government is an essay in world creation. Out of the shapeless vastness of competing human desires there rises a little world of order, a cosmic analogue, leading a precarious life under the pressure of destructive forces from within and without” (Voegelin, , Political Ideas, 1: 225)Google Scholar.

17. Schumpeter's advice to his German students is quoted by Fennema, in De moderne democratic, p. 246Google Scholar. His source is Allen, Robert Loring, Opening Doors: The Life and Work of Joseph Schumpeter (New Brunswick: Transaction Press, 1991), p. 285Google Scholar.

18. Fennema's translation of Condorcet's Rèflexions sur l'esclavage des nègres is preceded by his lengthy Introduction in which he describes Condorcet as “a reformist with a radical temperament.” Condorcet, Beschouwingen over de negerslavemij, trans. Fennema, M. (Weesp: Uitgeverij Heureka, 1996)Google Scholar

19. Fennema, , “Some Conceptual Issues and Problems in the Comparison of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe,” Party Politics 3, no.4 (1999): 473–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Fennema, and Maussen, Marcel, “Exsiste-t-il un débat démocratique avec 1'extrème droite?” (Paper delivered in Brussels before the CCLJ, 10 1997)Google Scholar, and Fennema, , “Extreem-rechts en de democratie,” Socialisme & Democratie 54/2 (1997): 52Google Scholar. Fennema has written several recent papers and articles on dealing with the extreme right in Amsterdam concerning their right to demonstrate, etc., such as “Democratie en extremisme in Amsterdam,” written with Buijs, Frank J.Google Scholar. His most important article on the right of free expression as balanced against protection against racial discrimination is in De Witte, Hans, ed., Bestrijding van racisme en rechts-extremisme: Wetenschappelijke bijdragen aan het maatschappelijke debat (Leuven: ACCO, 1997), pp. 155–70Google Scholar.

21. Fennema, , “Het einde van de onderdrukking?” (“The End of oppression?”) in De Groene Amsterdammer (5 02 1992), pp. 12–13Google Scholar. One of Fennema's points was that “without a universal perspective” one cannot speak convincingly of equality and solidarity. Without these ideas, furthermore, the notion of oppression has no intellectual basis.

22. Fennema, Meindert and Pollmann, Christopher, “The Ideology of Anti-Immigrant Parties in the European Parliament,” published in Acta Politica in 06 1998Google Scholar. The article concludes that it is a mistake to characterize all of these parties as belonging to the extreme right. At the same time, their emphasis on the theme of ethnic identity may eventually “forge these parties into one political family.”

23. “De dollarkoers van de universiteit. Meindert Fennema over universitaire aristocratie, democratie, en commercie,” Interview with Kreulen, Edwin in Het heilig vuur: De kem van het universitaire bestaan, ed. Willemen, Kees et al. (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1998), pp. 219–30Google Scholar.

24. Fennema, and associates, “Sociaal kapitaal en politieke participatie van etnische minderheden” (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 2000)Google Scholar. Separately published as a pamphlet of 46 pages for the Instituut voor Migratie-en Etnische Studies (IMES).

25. Fennema, , chapter 1 of what is to be a book-length ms. entitled Democratic Nationalism and Multicultural Democracy, written in 2001Google Scholar.

26. Fennema, , “Hans Max Hirschfeld: Secretaris-generaal van een onthoofd ministerie (1940–1945),” to appear in Fennema, et al. , eds. Onrecht, Oorlog en Rechtvaardigheid in de Twintigste Eeuw (Amsterdam, 2001)Google Scholar.

27. The eighteenth-century Scottish writer Thomas Reid denned common sense as follows: “There is a certain degree of it which is necessary to our being subjects of law and government, capable of managing our own affairs and answerable for our conduct towards others. This is called common sense, because it is common to all men with whom we can transact business, or call to account for their conduct” (see Reid's, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man [1785],Google Scholar quoted in Voegelin, Eric, Anamnesis: Zur Theorie der Geschichte und Politik [München: Piper Verlag, 1966], pp. 352–53 and 380)Google Scholar. Fennema's employment of the venerable term “the common good” in the Introduction to his forthcoming book on Multicultural Democracy must be interpreted in light of his reliance on “common sense” understood in the above Reidian sense and not as a compendium of received prejudices and unexamined cliches that happen to be hegemonic at a given moment.

28. Voegelin, Eric, From Enlightenment to Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.