On 6 May 2002, Pim Fortuyn was killed. He was the leader of a new populist party, simply called List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), which was leading the polls for the national elections that were to take place nine days later. Dutch prime minister Wim Kok told the New York Times that day: “I feel devastated by this. What went through my head was, ‘This is the Netherlands, the Netherlands, a nation of tolerance.’” While his reaction testified of the inclination toward – or at least the self-image of – a politics of peaceful accommodation, the murder of Fortuyn was a symptom of a broader tendency. Dutch politics in fact appeared to move away from time-tested models of conflict resolution, toward a much more eventful and antagonistic political climate. The nation known for its tolerance suddenly seemed to have turned into an intolerant nation, where ethnic minorities were targeted by populist politicians. Progressive parties in turn were accused of muffling the debate on the drawbacks of the multicultural society under a blanket of political correctness. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the fear of “Islamization” of Dutch society was voiced by the manifestly gay Fortuyn, and that progressive values of gender equality and sexual liberty were suddenly presented as the core of Dutch identity. That identity was considered to be endangered by the overly tolerant attitude toward the more traditional attitudes among Moroccan and Turkish minorities. Careful accommodation appeared to have been replaced by constant commotion.

In the years after the murder of Fortuyn, new populist leaders came to the fore. While not all were equally successful, Geert Wilders, a renegade from the conservative liberal party (VVD), gained substantial electoral support with his Freedom Party (PVV), and between October 2010 and April 2012 even had a pivotal influence in the minority government of the VVD and the Christian Democrats of the CDA. Even more important, the political agenda as well as the public debate became more polarized, creating room for more radical political standpoints. As a result of this remarkable transformation in Dutch politics, many have begun to question the received opinion about the predominance of peaceful accommodation as the core of Dutch political culture. What was in fact the nature of the politics of accommodation?