Introduction
In recent decades, populist radical right parties (PRRPs) have made significant electoral gains in Europe and beyond.Footnote 1 While earlier academic studies focused primarily on examining the reasons behind this renewed ‘swing to the right’ (Betz, Reference Betz1994; Mudde, Reference Mudde2007), recent scholarship has started to analyse how these parties organize themselves (Art, Reference Art2011; Böhmelt et al., Reference Böhmelt, Ezrow and Lehrer2022; Ellinas, Reference Ellinas2020). Taken together, these studies reveal considerable diversity when it comes to PRRP organization (e.g., Heinisch and Mazzoleni, Reference Heinisch and Mazzoleni2016b; van Kessel and Albertazzi, Reference van Kessel and Albertazzi2021). For instance, while the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom or PVV) has developed a leader-centric structure, others, like the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest Party or VB), have embraced traditional ‘mass party’ models (Albertazzi and van Kessel, Reference Albertazzi and van Kessel2021). However, the reasons behind such organizational polymorphism remain underexplored. Why do some PRRPs invest in mass party structures, while others choose a more personalistic approach? This article seeks to address this question by analysing the strategic vision behind the organizational choices of different PRRPs in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands provides an ideal laboratory environment to examine organizational variation among PRRPs. While the country seemed ‘immune’ to the far right until the turn of the twenty-first century, it has since witnessed the rise of several influential PRRPs, including the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (List Pim Fortuyn or LPF), Geert Wilders’s PVV and, more recently, the Forum voor Democratie (Forum for Democracy or FvD), led by Thierry Baudet.Footnote 2 Despite obvious ideological similarities, these three parties invested in different organizational models: While the LPF opted for a loose but democratic structure, the PVV adopted a highly centralized, leader-centric model that sacrificed membership for control, whereas the FvD combined a large membership base with strict limits on member influence. This article seeks to explain why these differences exist by elucidating the rationale behind the organizational decisions made by these parties. Thus, using the Netherlands as a case study, we analyse the development and evolution of the LPF, the PVV and the FvD over time.
Methodologically, we employ process tracing, a qualitative method that is well-suited for detailed (‘thick’) within-case analyses (Collier et al., Reference Collier, Brady, Seawright, Brady and Collier2004). This approach focuses on identifying causal mechanisms by reconstructing events to explain how and why specific outcomes occurred. As such, it emphasizes contexts, timing and sequencing of events, taking into account the history of a specific case, general knowledge derived from other relevant cases, and diverse forms of evidence to eliminate flawed explanations and support valid ones (Mahoney, Reference Mahoney2015). A key element of this method is the identification of ‘smoking guns’, i.e., compelling evidence that provides support for a particular causal inference. For this article, we manually examined a wide selection of sources archived by the Documentation Centre for Dutch Political Parties (DNPP). These include party statutes, financial records, campaign materials, newspaper clippings, autobiographies, social media posts, interviews and existing scholarly research – all sources likely to provide insights into (the motivations behind) party organizational structures.Footnote 3 Examining three parties within a single country over a relatively short time period allows us to control for different background variables such as political traditions, historical trajectories and institutional constraints that could explain cross-national differences. In other words, some of the ‘environmental’ explanations that are often seen as key drivers behind party organizational change (Harmel and Janda, Reference Harmel and Janda1994) can be ruled out. Instead, this study focuses on internal party dynamics and leadership strategies. While it is generally very difficult to explain why parties make organizational choices, the Dutch case marks a rare exception: as shown below, we found explicit evidence of party founders articulating reasons behind their specific choices, thereby offering a rare insight into the ‘black box’ of party organizational decisions.
Our main argument is that the organizational model of the FvD is a synthesis of its two predecessors, notably the LPF and the PVV. To avoid internal dissension that brought about the demise of the LPF, the FvD opted for a deeply hierarchical party model with authoritarian features, thereby incorporating organizational elements of Wilders’s ‘personal party’. At the same time, the FvD drew lessons from the financial limitations of the PVV by creating a large membership base, which has enabled the party to accumulate considerable financial means. Thus, the findings show clear evidence of institutional learning (de Lange and Art, Reference de Lange and Art2011). Beyond providing new empirical insights in the organizational learning of PRRPs in a controlled setting, the article also advances our theoretical understanding of the persistence of PRRPs, in particular their ability to withstand setbacks and adapt to new circumstances. By uncovering the strategic decisions behind organizational choices, we provide new empirical and theoretical insights into why some PRRPs are becoming more effective at mobilising voters and achieving long-term electoral success, while others fail to sustain their presence. In doing so, the article contributes to addressing two critical gaps in the literature: the need for comparative empirical studies that specifically examine party organization (Borz and Janda, Reference Borz and Janda2020: 4) and the call for qualitative, in-depth analyses exploring the nexus between populism and intra-party democracy (Böhmelt et al., Reference Böhmelt, Ezrow and Lehrer2022: 1150).
The argument proceeds as follows. The next section reviews the relevant literature of PRRP organization by introducing different organizational models. The third section introduces the case studies by presenting a brief historical overview of PRRPs in the Netherlands. Drawing on different primary and secondary sources, the fourth section traces the logic behind specific organizational choices made by the party leadership of the parties in question. The conclusion reflects on the broader implications of the findings by comparing the Dutch cases to PRRPs elsewhere.
Theorizing populist radical right party organization
Research on PRRPs is thriving, with studies typically focusing on demand- and supply-side explanations. The demand side emphasizes factors that create fertile ground for the rise of PRRPs, such as socio-economic grievances or cultural anxieties. Supply-side studies, by contrast, examine how PRRPs translate this latent demand into actual votes. Within this line of research, scholars differentiate between the external supply side—structural conditions such as the electoral system that enable PRRPs to gain traction —and the internal supply side, which focuses on the agency of the parties themselves, including leadership and organization (Mudde, Reference Mudde2007). By concentrating on the internal dynamics of PRRPs, this article contributes to the latter strand of literature.
Contrary to the popular image of the episodic ‘flash-in-the-pan’ party that subsides after one or two elections, there are numerous examples of PRRPs that have survived electoral defeats and struggles by successfully establishing themselves within their respective political systems (Mudde, Reference Mudde2019: 52). Examples include the Belgian VB, the French Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN, formerly known as the Front National) or the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party or FPÖ). Collectively, these examples show that PRRPs strive to persist electorally and enhance their credibility, often by adopting sophisticated organizational structures (Heinisch and Mazzoleni, Reference Heinisch and Mazzoleni2016b).
Existing studies have shown that the electoral persistence of PRRPs is closely correlated with strong and complex party organization (Art, Reference Art2011; de Lange and Art, Reference de Lange and Art2011). In other words, the level of organizational rootedness and complexity is a key factor in their ability to persist after their initial electoral breakthrough (Mudde, Reference Mudde2007). When PRRPs have to deal with severe political setbacks – for instance the sudden loss of a (founding) leader – party unity, institutionalization and organizational cohesion are key to avoid or overcome infighting and internal dissension (Heinisch and Mazzoleni, Reference Heinisch, Mazzoleni, Heinisch and Mazzoleni2016a). Because of the overall importance of party organization, scholars have sought to determine whether and to what extent PRRPs share organizational characteristics. There are two main organizational traits that set PRRPs apart from their mainstream competitors (Heinisch and Mazzoleni, Reference Heinisch and Mazzoleni2016b). First, PRRPs are characterized by centralized organizational structures that are dominated from the top (Johansson, Reference Johansson2014). Second, they tend to have weak internal democracy (Art, Reference Art2011; Böhmelt et al., Reference Böhmelt, Ezrow and Lehrer2022; Johansson, Reference Johansson2014). Accordingly, some PRRPs prefer to adopt an ‘atomistic conception of party membership’ (Katz and Mair, Reference Katz and Mair1995: 21). More generally, members of PRRPs typically have limited opportunities to exert influence over key decision-making areas such as ideological direction, campaigning and internal procedures (van Kessel and Albertazzi, Reference van Kessel and Albertazzi2021).
Despite these two main characteristics, however, there is considerable diversity when it comes to PRRP organization. Indeed, PRRPs have adopted traits of different organizational models, including the personal party, the business-firm party and the mass party. For starters, some PRRPs are conceived as top-down, personalized parties that are strongly associated with, and dependent on their party chairperson. Essentially, personal parties are parties in which power is concentrated in the hands of the founder-leader, and where the party’s image and campaign strategies for elections are centred entirely on the founder-leader (McDonnell, Reference McDonnell2013). An archetypical example of a personal, leader-centric PRRP is the Dutch PVV, which revolves entirely around Geert Wilders (Vossen, Reference Vossen2017). Other PRRPs have assumed organizational features of the ‘business firm’ party model. The business-firm party is a relatively new type of party that typically originates from the private initiative of a political entrepreneur, and that bears resemblance to a commercial company in the sense that the image of the party leader is ‘marketed’ to an increasingly volatile electoral market (Hopkin and Paolucci, Reference Hopkin and Paolucci1999; Krouwel, Reference Krouwel, Katz and Crotty2006). The Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party of FrP) is a case in point (Jupskås, Reference Jupskås, Heinisch and Mazzoleni2016).
In light of the overall importance of party organizations for PRRP success (Art, Reference Art2011), recent scholarship has challenged the common assumption that PRRPs are organizationally light-weight and rely on charismatic leadership to survive in the long run. As Stijn van Kessel and Daniele Albertazzi (Reference Albertazzi and van Kessel2021) have shown, many PRRPs have built complex structures and actively developed a grassroots following, thereby conforming to the definition of a ‘mass party’, which can broadly be characterized by a large, activist membership, rootedness on the ground and the cultivation of a shared identity through ideology (Panebianco, Reference Panebianco1988: 268). Some textbook cases of well-established PRRPs that conform to this definition include the VB in Belgium and the Lega per Salvini Premier (League for Salvini Premier or LSP) in Italy (Sijstermans, Reference Sijstermans2021; Zulianello, Reference Zulianello2021). There are also newer PRRPs that have adopted some characteristics of the mass party model, such as the German Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany or AfD) or the Spanish Vox, which have invested in setting up regional and local party branches across the country (Barrio et al., Reference Barrio, Alonso Sáenz de Oger and Field2021; Heinze and Weisskircher, Reference Heinze and Weisskircher2021).
As these examples illustrate, many PRRPs maintain extensive organizational structures that they seek to institutionalize over time. They do so by adopting different organizational traits. But what exactly drives these organizational choices? According to van Kessel and Albertazzi (Reference van Kessel and Albertazzi2021), these choices can, to some extent, be attributed to ideology (see also Böhmelt et al., Reference Böhmelt, Ezrow and Lehrer2022). Specifically, it makes sense for PRRPs to invest in organizational models that resemble the mass party because it is in line with their populist narrative of wanting to be ‘close to the people’: ‘For parties that place great importance on being seen to be different from the much criticized “cartel” of their opponents, presence on the ground and a growing membership suits their populist identity rather well’ (van Kessel and Albertazzi, Reference van Kessel and Albertazzi2021: 369). If there are indeed ideological reasons behind certain organizational choices, why then is there so much diversity in PRRP organizational models? In other words, why do some PRRPs resemble the mass party, while others adopt features of the business-firm party or choose more personalistic organizational models? This article attempts to answer this question by examining the evolution of PRRP organization in the Netherlands over time. Before doing so, however, the following section introduces the Dutch case by providing a brief historical overview of PRRPs in the Netherlands.
A short history of PRRPs in the Netherlands
Until the early 2000s, the Netherlands formed a noteworthy exception with regards to the success of PRRPs (Mudde and van Holsteyn, Reference Mudde, van Holsteyn and Hainsworth2000). The absence of a successful PRRP was partly due to the so-called ‘pillarization’ of Dutch society (Lucardie, Reference Lucardie, Albertazzi and McDonnell2008). Towards the end of the century, however, these societal pillars increasingly disintegrated due to the growing individualization and secularization. At the same time, major political and ideological differences between the three major governing parties, notably the Partij van de Arbeid (Labour Party or PvdA), the Christen-Democratisch Appèl (Christian Democratic Appeal or CDA) and the conservative liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy or VVD) subsided, which created room for populist movements.
Despite increasingly favourable societal and political conditions, it took some time for populist movements to gain momentum. During the 1990s, these movements managed to secure a strong foothold in local politics with the emergence of small parties that stood up against large-scale urban development projects. They also advocated the preservation of the ‘Dutch quality of life’ by introducing a new term, leefbaarheid or ‘liveability’ (Lucardie, Reference Lucardie, Albertazzi and McDonnell2008: 154). In 1999, Leefbaar Nederland (Liveable Netherlands or LN) was founded, and in 2001, the political maverick Pim Fortuyn became its leader. The charismatic, exuberant and openly homosexual Fortuyn had been a sociology professor and columnist of a conservative liberal weekly magazine. As a political outsider, he was neither accepted by the PvdA (of which he was a member) nor welcomed by the CDA and the VVD. Fortuyn criticized the political elite and announced ‘to give the country back to the people’ (Lucardie and Voerman, Reference Lucardie and Voerman2012: 84). His idiosyncratic personality, however, eventually was too much for the LN; when Fortuyn refused to moderate his tone regarding the, in his view, ‘backward’ Islamic culture and withdraw his demand to abolish the anti-discrimination clause in the Dutch constitution, he was expelled and subsequently decided to form his own party: the LPF.
The rise and fall of the LPF
The rise of the LPF marked the emergence of right-wing populism in the Dutch political arena. In the run-up to the 2002 general election, opinion polls predicted a bright future for Fortuyn. However, just before the said election, he was assassinated by an animal rights activist. Despite (and partly because of) his murder, the newly founded LPF went on to win 17 percent of the vote (see Fig. 1) and 26 seats in parliament, thereby setting an all-time record for a debutant party in the Netherlands. As the second largest parliamentary group, the LPF became incontournable in the coalition negotiations and joined a government coalition with the CDA and the VVD. However, the leadership vacuum, political inexperience and a poorly institutionalized organization soon tore the party apart (de Lange and Art, Reference de Lange and Art2011). Internal dissension led to organizational chaos and disintegration, resulting in the fall of the cabinet and the breakaway of three of its members of parliament (MPs). At the 2003 snap elections, support for the LPF fell to 5.7 percent, which translated to a loss of 18 seats (down to just eight MPs). Half of the party’s MPs subsequently deserted their group. Having lost all its credibility, the LPF did not make the parliamentary threshold at the 2006 general election and was dissolved one year later, thereby making room for a new and more durable right-wing populist contender: Geert Wilders’s PVV.
Figure 1. Election results LPF, PVV and FvD for provincial, national and European elections (2002–2023).
Source: Electoral Council, <www.verkiezingsuitslagen.nl>.
PS – Provinciale Staten (Provincial Elections);
TK – Tweede Kamer (Lower House Elections);
EP – Europees Parlement (European Parliament Elections).
The genesis of the PVV
Founded in February 2006, the PVV was able to occupy the political and electoral space left by the LPF. The party was established by Geert Wilders, who had entered parliament in 1998 as a member of the VVD. Over the course of the years, Wilders grew increasingly critical of Islam, and in 2004, he broke with the VVD following a clash over Turkey’s potential membership to the European Union (EU). He criticized ‘the complacent political elite’ and demanded that the Netherlands should become ‘independent’ of the European ‘superstate’ and the alleged ‘growing Islamization’. The Dutch should therefore ‘take their fate as a people into their own hands’ and regain their freedom (Wilders, Reference Wilders2005: 104–5). In the 2006 general election, the PVV secured 5.9 percent of the vote, increasing its support to nearly 17 percent in the 2009 European elections (see Fig. 1). By the 2010 general election, the party came close to matching the LPF’s 2002 results, earning 15.5 percent of the vote. Following this success, the PVV provided formal support to a right-wing minority cabinet without joining the government. However, Geert Wilders withdrew this support when the EU demanded budget cuts, triggering a cabinet crisis. In the subsequent 2012 early elections, PVV’s support declined to 10.1 percent. Despite this setback, the party rebounded in 2017, capturing 13.1 percent of the vote (20 seats), although it faced competition for the first time from the far-right newcomer FvD. In the 2019 provincial elections, the PVV reached an all-time low (3.5 percent) and lost its representation in the European Parliament. Analysts speculated that Wilders’s influence was waning (Voerman and Vossen, Reference Voerman and Vossen2019: 13). However, the PVV staged a comeback in the 2021 general election, outperforming the FvD with 10.1 percent of the vote compared to FvD’s 5.0 percent. This resurgence culminated in a historic victory in the 2023 general election, where the PVV emerged as the largest party in the Netherlands, securing 37 of the 150 parliamentary seats and winning nearly a quarter (23.5 percent) of the votes. In July 2024, the PVV entered a coalition government with the VVD, BBB and the newly founded Christian democratic New Social Contract (NSC). The government was led by Dick Schoof – a former top civil servant with no party affiliation – and conceived as an ‘extra-parliamentary cabinet’, with none of the four coalition party leaders holding formal cabinet positions but remaining active behind the scenes to guide policy and strategy. The PVV also provided five ministers and four state secretaries for the Schoof cabinet.
The foundation of the FvD
Founded as a Eurosceptic think tank, the FvD was registered as a political party in 2016. It entered parliament in 2017 with 1.8 percent of the vote and won 15 percent in the 2019 provincial elections (two times more than the PVV), thereby becoming the largest group in the Dutch Senate. The aim of two co-founders, PhD-laureate Thierry Baudet and former lawyer and banker Henk Otten, was to improve Dutch democracy by ‘breaking through the party cartel’ and giving voters more say in the decision-making process through binding referendums, popular initiatives, directly elected mayors, and e-democracy (FvD, 2016: 1). Whereas the flamboyant and self-aggrandising Baudet assumed a prominent leadership position, Otten served as the silent strongman behind the scenes, supposedly trying to prevent Baudet from moving too far to the right. Accordingly, Otten became an exponent of the moderate wing within the FvD, while Baudet was the figurehead of the party’s radical current. However, in July 2019, Otten was expelled over allegations of fraud, having publicly accused Baudet of ‘pulling the party too far to the right’ (de Koning and de Witt Wijnen, Reference de Koning and de Witt Wijnen2019), thereby giving Baudet as chair of the party and the parliamentary group free rein to dominate the FvD.
In January 2020, the FvD announced it had become ‘the biggest party in the Netherlands by membership’, counting nearly 44,000 members (FvD, 2020). At the end of that year, however, the party nearly collapsed due to infighting. Following allegations of extremist tendencies within the party, Baudet’s position as party leader was at stake. In a flight forward, he organized a binding referendum in which members could decide on his fate as party leader. In December 2020, the FvD announced that a quarter of the approximately 37,000 participating members had voted against Baudet, while three quarters supported him. Through this plebiscite, Baudet’s leadership was reaffirmed and the leadership struggle ended – also because several prominent party representatives renounced their membership and founded their own party, Juiste Antwoord 2021 (The Right Answer 2021 or JA21).Footnote 4 In the 2021 general election, the FvD won 5 percent of the vote and eight parliamentary seats, but two months later, three of the eight MPs broke away to form a party of their own, which was dubbed Belang van Nederland (Interest of the Netherlands or BVNL). By the 2023 election, the party’s support had dwindled to 2 percent, securing three parliamentary seats.
Thus, over a period of just two decades, the Netherlands witnessed the rise (and fall) of several influential PRRPs, making the Netherlands one of a few countries with meaningful competition within the right-wing populist party family (Otjes, Reference Otjes2021: 152). Indeed, the LPF, the PVV and the FvD can broadly be classified as PRRPs; they all share (to varying degrees) the key ideological components of radical right populism: nativism, authoritarianism and populism (Mudde, Reference Mudde2007; Otjes, Reference Otjes2021). In terms of party organization, all three parties can (to varying degrees) be characterized by centralized and leader-centric organizational structures and relatively weak internal democracy. Despite these commonalities, however, there are also considerable organizational differences between these three PRRPs. The following section seeks to analyse and explain the differences and similarities in the organizational models of the LPF, the PVV and the FvD.
PRRP organization in the Netherlands
The LPF, PVV and FvD were distinctly populist in their criticism of the political system. Accordingly, they attacked the political establishment in strong terms, accusing the mainstream ‘elite’ of betraying ‘the people’ for the sake of their own benefit. For instance, Fortuyn often spoke of a ‘political caste’, ‘regents’ and ‘mandarins’ (Fortuyn, Reference Fortuyn1991: 16); Wilders regularly vilified the ‘complacent, arrogant political elite’ (cited in van Lonkhuyzen, Reference van Lonkhuyzen2018); and Baudet frequently bashed the ‘party cartel’ (Baudet, Reference Baudet2020). Part of their criticism of the political elite was rooted in the rejection of established political parties, which supposedly had become alienated from society and degenerated into professionalized electioneering machines. However, the consequences that Fortuyn, Wilders and Baudet attached to their respective populist diagnoses for the structure of their own party varied widely – even when the institutional context seriously constrained their options and formally forced them in the same direction. Notably, according to Dutch electoral law, only political parties that are also an association with a legal personality can participate in elections under their own name, and only they are eligible for state subsidies for their extra-parliamentary organization after obtaining seats in parliament (Dutch Electoral Law, 2022; Dutch Party Funding Law, 2020). Yet, despite these legal parameters, there was still some room for each of the three parties involved to set up their own, clearly distinguishable party structure. As shown below, they did so by drawing lessons from the experiences of their predecessors, both in terms of party unity and electoral effectiveness.
The LPF: restricted leadership autonomy through direct-democratic membership influence
As mentioned earlier, Fortuyn was the first Dutch politician to set up a successful PRRP. In February 2002, he founded the LPF with a few business friends and established himself as party chair and leader.Footnote 5 In its early days, the LPF was a clear example of the ‘personal party’, where power is completely centralized in the hands of the founder-leader, making the party organization fully dependent on him (McDonnell, Reference McDonnell2013). In a book published two months prior to his assassination, he noted that established political parties had lost touch with their rank-and-file and argued that this was partly due to the fact that they had abolished internal democracy: ‘The political party has ceased to be an institution for democratic decision-making and opinion-forming’ (Fortuyn, Reference Fortuyn2002: 135; 136–138). Against this background, it is not surprising that Fortuyn chose a direct-democratic membership party model for the LPF – although it is questionable to what extent Fortuyn was actually open to the input of LPF members.
By statute, the party opened up to members who were granted direct influence on the party’s functioning and the composition of the party leadership. The key of this party model was that all party members had the right to vote at the general assembly (algemene vergadering) (LPF, 2002).Footnote 6 The general assembly had to be held at least once a year, but the party executive was authorized to convene more frequently if they deemed this to be necessary. Crucially, the party executive was required to convene when ten percent of the members requested an extra congress. If the executive did not comply with such a request within four weeks, the applicants themselves would be entitled to organize a congress (LPF, 2002: art. 14.4). Formally, all major decisions were taken by the members during the general assembly: they elected the party chairman and the other members of the party executive and could ‘at any time suspend or dismiss any member of the executive’ by a two-thirds majority (LPF, 2002: art. 7.2). Furthermore, the general assembly determined the list of candidates and the election programme for the Lower House. The congress could change the statutes or dissolve the party with a two-thirds majority, provided that at least half of the members were present (LPF, 2002: art. 19.3). If this quorum was not reached, a new congress could decide within four weeks with a two-third majority, regardless of the number of members present. Moreover, the party members enjoyed some degree of protection vis-à-vis the party in the sense that if the party executive expelled a member, he or she could appeal to the congress.
At its foundation in 2002, the LPF distinguished itself with its general assembly from most other Dutch political parties, which at that time had an indirect, hierarchical party structure with a congress composed of delegates of the party’s branches.Footnote 7 However, the formally large degree of member influence contributed to the instability of the LPF after the murder of the undisputed party leader Fortuyn. At the time of his death, the party was not yet fully developed, and the level of institutionalization was low (de Lange and Art, Reference de Lange and Art2011). In the years that followed, there were continuous conflicts within and between the party in central office (between the executive and the general assembly), in public office (between the cabinet ministers and the parliamentary group) and on the ground (the regional branches). Fortuyn’s successor as party leader, Mat Herben, believed that the organizational disintegration of the LPF was mainly due to the members: ‘According to Herben, the turmoil within the parliamentary group might have been overcome were it not for the “job-hoppers”, people “who had been denied high places on the list by other parties”, and who knew just enough about politics to cause problems and “tear the party apart”’ (de Lange and Art, Reference de Lange and Art2011: 1242). In light of the negative experience of the LPF, Wilders opted for a deeply hierarchical party model.
The PVV: a memberless party with full leadership autonomy
In order to avoid the structural instability and factionalism of the LPF, Wilders decided that the PVV would not enrol members, in this way creating one of the first ‘memberless parties’ in the Western world (Mazzoleni and Voerman, Reference Mazzoleni and Voerman2017). The failure of the LPF was decisive for Wilders to opt for this party model (Art, Reference Art2011: 185; 238–240; Vossen, Reference Vossen2017: 88–89; 105). ‘It is incredibly important to avoid all the mistakes of the LPF […]. My new political movement must become precisely everything that the LPF was not’, he declared a year before actually founding the PVV (Wilders, Reference Wilders2005: 58). Wilders consciously decided not to enrol any members for fear of internal conflicts instigated by troublemakers and infiltration by right-wing extremists. By doing so, he was hoping to avoid ‘LPF-like conditions’ (Lucardie and Voerman, Reference Lucardie and Voerman2012: 164). His right-hand man and party ideologist, Martin Bosma, later explained that the LPF served as a ‘warning model’ for the PVV (Blok, Reference Blok2018: 131). Bosma also provided a theoretical, ideologically-driven justification for the memberless party model by explaining that this organizational choice was ultimately rooted in the populist antipathy towards political parties; in other words, a ‘virtual’ or ‘network’ party without an intermediate layer of members would be directly accountable to the Dutch voters. In Bosma’s view, ‘the structure of a member-based party has a disruptive effect on democracy’; seen from this perspective, the PVV could claim to be much more democratic than the traditional parties (Bosma, Reference Bosma2010: 30–31; 215–216).
The PVV has only two formal members: the natural person Geert Wilders and the legal person Foundation Group Wilders (with Wilders as its sole member) – effectively making him the sole member in practice. Since the party on the ground and in central office are non-existent, the PVV coincides with the party in public office, which is, of course, also headed by Wilders. The PVV has a ‘strongly centralized, hierarchical character’, in fact resembling an autocracy (de Lange and Art, Reference de Lange and Art2011: 1240; Vossen, Reference Vossen2017: 91). Accordingly, Wilders controls the main party functions such as candidate recruitment, drafting platforms and agenda setting. He is supported by a small inner circle of veteran MPs who were elected in 2006 – and who have been dependent on him for re-election. Wilders’s solo rule is further strengthened by personal circumstances: since 2004 he is constantly under security protection because of persisting death threats.
Although the PVV does not admit members, it does have an informal membership, consisting of its elected representatives and their support staff at the local, provincial, national and European levels, as well as its non-elected candidates and volunteers. Taken together, from 2004–2012, these informal members might have numbered a thousand in the most optimistic estimation (Vossen, Reference Vossen2017: 97). Like members of established parties, these people endure costs (e.g., invested time and potential damage to their reputations, given the PVV’s controversial character), but they enjoy no formal membership rights in return. As such, they generally do not have a say in internal party affairs, as all the power is concentrated in the hands of Geert Wilders.
With a minimalistic party organization, Wilders sought to reduce the risk of dissent and internal conflict as much as possible. Initially, he only took part in the national and European elections, as well as in the local elections in only two municipalities. The PVV was forced to participate in the provincial elections in 2011 in order to play a significant role in national politics, since the provincial councils ultimately elect the Dutch Senate. However, Wilders’s strategy to control these provincial groups by implanting confidantes was not effective (de Lange and Art, Reference de Lange and Art2011: 1243): of all the seats won in the 2011 and 2015 provincial elections, for instance, 24.6 percent and 19.4 percent were lost, respectively, in the ensuing term periods due to breakaways – ‘with which Wilders surpassed the LPF’ (Vossen, Reference Vossen2017: 100). Between 2006 and 2015, seven MPs left the PVV group. After the elections of 2017 and 2021, only one further MP split off, which suggests that Wilders was able to improve his recruitment and screening procedures.Footnote 8 Yet, in other arenas, the breakaways continued, such as the sole MEP of the PVV who joined the FvD group in 2022. As the PVV representatives were not formally entitled to participate in the internal decision-making processes and in the absence of regulatory procedures for resolving conflicts, disagreements within the party could easily escalate and criticisms often became personal, particularly given Wilders’s erratic dominance over the PVV (Mazzoleni and Voerman, Reference Mazzoleni and Voerman2017).
Viewed over a period of almost twenty years, the memberless party model as a response to the unstable, conflict-ridden LPF with its direct-democratic membership structure was only partially successful. Although the PVV has proven to be much more resilient than the LPF (which, of course, also had to do with the fact that the former did not face an existential leadership crisis as the latter did), Wilders’ party has not truly institutionalized as a political party. This became apparent in the aftermath of the 2023 election. First, the PVV faced the challenge of list exhaustion: its electoral list comprised only 45 names, leaving a very limited reserve pool of candidates. This lack of organizational depth was further exposed at the start of the government formation process. PVV senator Gom van Strien, who was appointed by Wilders as a scout, was forced to resign following revelations of financial misconduct. Consequently, Wilders had to rely on experienced figures with affiliations to other parties, such as the PvdA and CDA. Second, although the PVV managed to supply ministers and state secretaries for the new cabinet, the nominees were largely party loyalists with long-standing ties to the PVV but limited administrative experience outside of it. This resulted in a series of high-profile incidents, including problematic statements and instances of poor performance, which underscored the party’s struggles with professionalization and institutional capacity.
Moreover, the party has only been capable, to a certain extent, of maintaining party cohesion. In the PVV, conflicts occurred at the different levels within the party in public office, frequently culminating in split-offs. On the one hand, these conflicts seem to be related to the leadership centeredness of the PVV and the absence of regulatory procedures and long-standing ‘party cultural’ traditions to channel internal dissatisfaction. On the other hand, the lack of a large membership and – as a result – of a cohesive party in central office and on the ground, prevented possible larger scale escalations of conflicts (as happened in the LPF).
At the same time, however, the structural phenomenon of split-offs at the PVV can also be explained by the party’s lack of resources, which is a corollary of the chosen party model. Not enrolling members implies a limited reservoir for recruiting loyal and competent candidates for representative positions, which, in turn, increases the risk of defection after being elected. The way the PVV conducted the recruitment, training and education process was also rather unprofessional, partly due to the lack of finances. Not only did the party deprive itself of income made up of individual membership contributions, it was also not eligible for state subsidies for its extra-parliamentary organization because it did not have the required minimum of 1000 members paying a membership fee of at least 12 euros and possessing meeting and voting rights (see Dutch Party Funding Law, 2020).Footnote 9 As a result, the PVV misses considerable funding opportunities: the absence of members has easily cost the party tens of millions of euros in state subsidies since its foundation in 2006. As shown below, the founders of the FvD were fully aware of the disadvantages of a memberless party and sought ways to overcome these limitations when setting up their party.
The FvD: a synthesis of the LPF and the PVV
The FvD is formally composed of two party organs: the general assembly (algemene vergadering), which is accessible to all members, and the executive board (partijbestuur), consisting of a minimum of three people (FvD, 2016). When the party was set up, the executive board comprised three people, including Thierry Baudet as party chair and co-founder Henk Otten as treasurer. In its early days, the FvD clearly resembled a business-firm party. This was mainly thanks to Otten. Before entering politics, he had been a successful businessman, and after a period of living abroad, he applied his entrepreneurial mindset when re-entering politics in order to get the FvD off the ground.
When setting up the FvD, Otten sought inspiration from other parties, notably the centre-right CDA and VVD, but also added his own input based on his personal experience at the LPF, which he had been a part of for a short time after Fortuyn’s death. In an effort to avoid the weak organizational features of the LPF, Otten opted for a simple and hierarchical party structure in which the party leadership would keep tight control over the organization. Accordingly, he set up an agile ‘lean and mean’ party that was built around a small team and operating according to ‘business principles’ (Aalberts, Reference Aalberts2020: 103). In an interview with de Volkskrant in 2018, Otten elaborated on this decision by explaining that he was aiming for ‘controlled growth’ of the party: ‘We have looked very closely at where things went wrong with other [new parties]. Then you see that there is often a dispute about the division of positions within the party. We took this into account when drawing up our statutes. […] As a party, you have to learn to crawl, walk and only then run. In that order’ (cited in Hendrickx and Mebius, Reference Hendrickx and Mebius2018). In a separate interview with Trouw, Otten detailed the party’s initial focus on screening and training candidates (Scholten, Reference Scholten2023). These training sessions featured video clips showcasing failures of predecessor parties, including the LPF, with the accompanying message: ‘This is how it should not be done’ (Aalberts, Reference Aalberts2024). The FvD’s commitment to avoiding past mistakes and learning from the organizational failures of the LPF was further underscored in a December 2016 email from Baudet to FvD candidates for the 2017 elections. In this email, Baudet stressed that ‘LPF-like situations must be avoided at all costs’ and instructed candidates to act professionally on social media and refrain from speaking to journalists without prior approval from Baudet or Otten (cited in Stokmans and de Witt Wijnen, Reference Stokmans and de Witt Wijnen2018).
To minimize the risk of internal dissent, the party preferred working with freelancers instead of volunteers because they could be hired and fired as needed (Aalberts, Reference Aalberts2020: 106), even if that meant incurring higher financial costs. Moreover, European, provincial and local FvD-branches were kept on a short leash and they were never recognized as independent party organs (de Jonge, Reference de Jonge2021). At the same time, however, Otten also drew lessons from the structural limitations of the memberless PVV. Specifically, he sought to overcome the financial shortcomings of Wilders’ party by recruiting a large membership base. By January 2018, so very shortly after entering parliament, the FvD had already attracted nearly 23,000 members, and by 2020, that number had almost doubled to 44,000 members, thereby becoming the largest party by membership in the Netherlands (DNPP, 2020). There was a clear financial incentive behind recruiting such a large membership. In an interview with the newspaper Het Parool in 2019, Otten spoke openly about his financial strategy for the FvD, explaining that from the moment the party was founded, he had been ‘benchmarking’ other parties with regards to their ‘financial performance’:
As far as members are concerned, it’s a zero-sum game […]. It’s one pot, one pizza. And your pizza slice gets bigger with a higher membership. Plus, the amount that we received is at the expense of established political parties. So for the FvD, the knife cuts both ways. The cartel parties receive less money and the FvD more. A very healthy dynamic for us (cited in den Hartog, Reference den Hartog2019).Footnote 10
In other words, by attracting members, the FvD consciously sought to strengthen its financial position whilst at the same time working towards its main goal to ‘break through the party cartel’. Even after Otten’s departure, Baudet continued this strategy for membership campaign purposes, stressing on multiple occasions that a large membership base not only generates funding but also weakens the position of ‘the cartel’ parties (Baudet, Reference Baudet2023). In 2023, for instance, the FvD launched a special ‘friend’ membership package offering financial incentives to current members who recruit a friend to join. This package included returning half (12.5 euros) of the membership fees to both the current member and their newly recruited friend. Partly as a result of these recruitment strategies, the FvD established itself as the largest party by membership with over 61,000 members (DNPP, 2024).
While the FvD focussed on recruiting a large membership base, the party also maintained some of the elements of the PVV, as power remained entirely concentrated in the hands of the party leadership. Indeed, FvD members serve as donors rather than members in the sense that their formal organizational affiliation with the party does not come with any privileges, such as the right to participate in the internal decision-making process or have a say in the ideological direction of the party (Aalberts, Reference Aalberts2020: 90). For instance, the executive board is in charge of appointing its own members, and all party activities (e.g., preparing the general assembly, implementing decisions, changing the statutes) have to be formally authorized by the board (FvD, 2016: 7–8). Although members are formally entitled to have a say in the party’s internal decision-making during the general assembly, it is practically impossible to exert any influence; for instance, members can only expel board members by two-thirds majority, provided that at least two-thirds of all members are present to take part in the vote (FvD, 2016: 7). With current membership numbers, this quorum would require some 40,000 members to be present at the general assembly to take any sort of action against the board. Thus, contrary to what the party’s name might suggest, the FvD’s party organization is entirely undemocratic.
Discussion and conclusion
For political parties to endure in the long run, organizational adaptation is key: ‘In order to survive, political parties must be like sharks, they must keep moving to adapt to changing conditions’ (Dalton et al., Reference Dalton, Farrell and McAllister2011: 225). PRRPs are no exception to this mantra. Yet, research on how PRRPs organizationally evolve and adapt remains limited, particularly in systematically linking these processes to strategic learning and decision-making by party elites. In an effort to redress this gap, this article set out to explain the organizational polymorphism in the PRR party family. While it is obvious that ‘[n]o single feature can adequately account for the complex processes of organizational change or the varied evolution of organizational entities’ (Ellinas, Reference Ellinas2020: 43), ideological considerations can go a long way in explaining organizational choices.
As this article has shown, organizational decisions can indeed partially be traced back to their ideological roots (as argued by van Kessel and Albertazzi, Reference van Kessel and Albertazzi2021) and the parties’ interpretation thereof. Specifically, the populist ideological component appears to be malleable enough to be translated into different organizational models. On the one hand, it can push parties to adopt mass party organizational structures because such a model allows PRRPs to differentiate themselves from ‘cartel parties’, notably by maintaining close connections with ‘the people’ (see Böhmelt et al., Reference Böhmelt, Ezrow and Lehrer2022; van Kessel and Albertazzi, Reference van Kessel and Albertazzi2021). On the other hand, as we have seen with the PVV, the populist ideology can also incentivize PRRPs to adopt a memberless party model since parties without intermediate layers of members are intended to be directly accountable to the people. However, ideological motivations cannot fully explain why some PRRPs opt for organizational models that resemble the traditional mass party, while others choose a more personalistic approach. As we have demonstrated in this article, learning effects also play a crucial role.
The main contribution of this study lies in its nuanced analysis of how organizational learning influences party structures. While prior studies have acknowledged the existence of learning effects in PRRPs (de Lange and Art, Reference de Lange and Art2011; Johansson, Reference Johansson2014; Rydgren, Reference Rydgren2005), they often focus on programmatic or electoral strategies. This article advances the literature by not only confirming that learning occurs but also demonstrating how and why PRRPs adapt their organizational structures in response to their predecessors, thereby offering insights for understanding the interplay between ideological, strategic and contextual factors in shaping party organization. Specifically, it uncovers how Dutch PRRPs consciously learned from their predecessors to avoid pitfalls, overcome structural weaknesses and enhance resilience.
While the qualitative process-tracing methodology employed in this study does not allow for definitive causal claims, it enables us to trace the evolution of organizational models over time. Using this approach, we uncovered compelling evidence (‘smoking guns’) to rule out the most plausible rival hypothesis, namely that the organizational models of the PVV and FvD emerged merely as responses to contextual factors or by chance. Instead, our findings demonstrate that these models reflect deliberate learning from earlier PRRP experiences. To avoid the internal dissension that led to the LPF’s demise, the PVV adopted a hierarchical, leader-centric model with authoritarian features. However, this structure imposed significant limitations, particularly on the PVV’s ability to professionalize and govern effectively. The absence of a membership base hindered the party’s financial sustainability, while a lack of qualified leadership personnel constrained its capacity for governance. These structural weaknesses may undermine the PVV’s long-term viability. The FvD strategically addressed these limitations by creating a large membership base while simultaneously limiting the influence of these members, thereby heeding the lessons drawn from the experiences of the LPF. The FvD’s hybrid organizational model, combining a solid institutional foundation with a large donor membership base and a hierarchical leadership structure, has thus far proven to be resilient to electoral setbacks. This underscores the importance of strategic learning in party development, confirming that ‘the ability of leaders to learn from prior experience’ does indeed matter (Art, Reference Art2011: 187). While the PVV has achieved greater electoral success, the FvD’s structure may be better positioned for long-term sustainability – though its ultimate effectiveness remains subject to further empirical evaluation.
The experiences of the LPF, the PVV and the FvD underline the importance of learning processes for PRRPs. While Fortuyn had to build his party from scratch, Wilders was in a much better position since he was able to draw lessons from the mistakes of his predecessor. The FvD was in an even more privileged situation because Otten and Baudet were able to avoid the organizational shortcomings of both the LPF and the PVV. Taken together, these findings provide illustrative evidence that in order to survive, PRRPs evolve organizationally to adapt to changing circumstances. This conclusion carries important implications for mainstream competitors in the Netherlands and elsewhere. By learning from the experiences of others, PRRPs are becoming much better equipped to endure setbacks, suggesting that they are less likely to subside in the near future. Mainstream competitors might therefore seriously reconsider their responses to PRRPs and prepare to compete with them in the long run.
Future studies might examine to what extent these findings are applicable beyond the Netherlands, particularly in countries that are also experiencing competition within the populist radical right party family. Denmark is an interesting case in point in this regard. For years, the Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party or DF) was considered one of the most successful PRRPs in Europe; however, in the 2019 general election support for the party plummeted, while the far-right newcomer Nye Borgerlige (New Right or NB) made its entrance into the electoral arena. While it remains to be seen whether NB can maintain its momentum, Denmark offers an interesting case to examine whether and to what extent NB might draw lessons from DF in terms of party organization. Evidence from neighbouring countries suggests that investigating this hypothesis is warranted. In Sweden, for instance, the far-right Ny Demokrati (New Democracy or NyD) appears to have served as a negative example for comparable parties such as the Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats or SD), notably ‘by reminding others of the need for organization building and organizational capacity as a means for survival’ (Johansson, Reference Johansson2014: 21). Since PRRPs have entered a new international and transnational phase (McDonnell and Werner, Reference McDonnell and Werner2020), it is also worth investigating whether and to what extent organizational learning effects can be traced beyond the national settings. In other words, do PRRPs learn from the experiences of similar parties in other countries?
Finally, future research should consider whether and to what extent mainstream parties draw lessons from the organizational models of PRRPs. More than half a century ago, Maurice Duverger (Reference Duverger1959) famously predicted a ‘contagion from the left’, by arguing that in order to maintain their power and influence in the era of mass suffrage, parties on the right side of the political spectrum would have to mimic changes in party organization that were happening on the left. Because of dwindling membership numbers and related developments, Leon Epstein (Reference Epstein1967) later proposed a rival hypothesis of organizational ‘contagion from the right’. In light of the findings presented in this article, it is worth asking whether there is evidence of ‘contagion from the far right’. In other words, to what extent are mainstream parties mimicking the organizational models of their far-right competitors? Previous research has shown that the rise of PRRPs has a programmatic ‘contagion effect’ in the sense that PRRPs can incentivize mainstream parties to shift their policy agendas rightwards, for instance by advocating stricter immigration rules (e.g., Abou-Chadi and Krause, Reference Abou-Chadi and Krause2020). This begs the question whether there is also an organizational ‘contagion effect’. In a time where PRRPs have made important electoral advances and become increasingly normalized, this question seems more pertinent than ever.
Acknowledgements
An earlier draft of this article was presented at the 2022 ECPR General Conference in Innsbruck. We would like to thank our discussants, Manès Weisskircher and Anna-Sophie Heinze, as well as all other commentators for their helpful and encouraging feedback. We also would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on previous drafts.
Funding and disclosure statement
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
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