In an in-depth interview with the ECPS, Dr. Simon P. Otjes, Assistant Professor of Dutch Politics at Leiden University, argues that the 2025 Dutch elections signaled not the decline but the reconfiguration of populism. “What was previously very strongly concentrated on the PVV has now dissipated into three different parties, representing three different ways of doing politics,” he notes. While JA21 seeks governmental influence and FvD appeals to conspiratorial electorates, the overall radical-right bloc remains stable. Dr. Otjes warns that a broad centrist coalition could “reproduce the very disaffection it seeks to contain,” fueling further populist resurgence. Far from a post-populist era, he concludes, “we’re still very much inside this populist moment.”
Interview by Selcuk Gultasli
In a wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Simon Otjes, Assistant Professor of Dutch Politics at Leiden University, offers a penetrating analysis of the evolving dynamics of populism, centrism, and democratic governance in the Netherlands and Europe. His reflections, delivered in the aftermath of the 2025 Dutch elections on October 29, illuminate the cyclical nature of populist mobilization and the institutional resilience of liberal democracy in an era of fragmentation and recalibration.
For Dr. Otjes, the Dutch political landscape exemplifies a persistent alternation between “almost technocratic, centrist governments… being interrupted by brief periods of radical right-wing governments,” a pattern visible over the past three decades. He observes that while populist radical-right parties such as PVV, JA21, and FvD have become structurally entrenched, their participation in government remains precarious and short-lived. “Populists enter government, those governments prove to be unstable, and then there’s a response from the center,” he notes, emphasizing that this oscillation does not represent a post-populist phase but rather “an enduring populist moment.”
The 2025 elections, in Dr. Otjes’s view, marked not the decline but the reconfiguration of populism. “What was previously very strongly concentrated on the PVV has now dissipated into three different parties, representing three different ways of doing politics,” he explains. While JA21 seeks policy influence within coalition frameworks, FvD appeals to conspiratorial electorates “in news environments very different from the mainstream media.” This diversification, Dr. Otjes warns, “is the key explanation of why [the radical right] remains so stable—their ability to attract very different electorates by diversifying their offerings.”
At the same time, Dr. Otjes cautions that a centrist grand coalition—combining GroenLinks–PvdA, D66, VVD, and CDA—could inadvertently deepen democratic alienation. Such an arrangement, he argues, would lead to “quite centrist compromises that lack the change these parties promised,” thereby driving dissatisfied voters back to the populist right. While this centrist stability may project pragmatism, it risks “reproducing the very disaffection it seeks to contain.”
On the European front, Dr. Otjes underscores that despite D66’s pro-European rhetoric under Rob Jetten, Dutch European policy is unlikely to shift dramatically. “The Netherlands won’t necessarily be a particularly progressive government on this issue,” he remarks, given the enduring influence of conservative fiscal and migration stances within the coalition.
Ultimately, Dr. Otjes’s analysis situates the Netherlands within a broader European pattern: an ongoing alternation between pragmatic centrism and reactive populism, rather than a linear progression beyond it. In his words, “We’re still very much inside this populist moment.”
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Simon P. Otjes, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Dutch Populism Has Stabilized, Not Declined
Professor Simon Otjes, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: The October 29 elections produced a near tie between D66 and the PVV—symbolizing not a populist collapse, but a recalibration of its appeal. From your perspective, does this outcome signify a stabilization of populism within an institutionalized party system, or rather its transformation into a normalized mode of political contestation across Europe?
Dr. Simon Otjes: What I think is very important to note about the election results is that although the PVV lost more than 10 seats, the other populist parties that we have in the Netherlands—we have two other populist radical right-wing parties in the Dutch parliament—both won. So, if you look at the combined share of seats for the populist parties, they have really stabilized. In the previous elections, the votes were heavily concentrated on one party, the PVV, but now they are more evenly spread among the PVV, the radical right-wing populist JA21—which in some respects is more right-wing on economic issues but more moderate in its use of anti-Islamic and anti-elite rhetoric—and Forum for Democracy, a party that, according to specialists, is an extreme-right party bordering on anti-democratic. Some of its members have been sanctioned for inciting violence within parliament, and others have recently been found to be involved in plots to assassinate politicians. In that sense, we can see overall stabilization, but with movements both toward more moderate versions of the radical right and toward more extreme ones.
You have described the Dutch system as one of “fragmented pluralism.” How does this structural fragmentation affect both the endurance and the moderation of populist actors such as the PVV and JA21? Could the Dutch case exemplify how fragmentation simultaneously limits and sustains populist influence?
Dr. Simon Otjes: In the Netherlands, we had a government with populist parties between 2024 and 2025, which fell because of internal instability. But that doesn’t mean populism won’t play a role in the new government formation. There are two possible coalitions that people are discussing. One would be a coalition of all the parties in the center, from the Green Left Labour Party on the center-left to the VVD on the center-right. The other alternative would be what the Liberal Party calls a center-right government, which would involve Jason Sester, a center-left party, the CDA, a center-right party, the VVD, also a center-right party, and then JA21, the more moderate radical right-wing populist party in the Netherlands.
That option is a serious contender—it’s a question of whether they can secure 75 or 76 seats. It’s the first preference of the Liberal Party, their favored option. And that means that even though Rob Jetten proudly declared on election night that he had beaten Geert Wilders and that this was the end of the Wilders era, in reality, there is a strong chance that another radical right-wing populist party will enter government, even governing alongside the social liberals who so proudly claimed to have defeated the populists on election night.
Jetten’s Success Was Built on Progressive Patriotism, Not Populism
As mainstream parties increasingly adopt affective, emotionally resonant campaign styles—such as Rob Jetten’s “positive populism”—do we witness the diffusion of populist communication logics into liberal centrism, and what might this imply for the future boundaries of populism as a concept?
Dr. Simon Otjes: I would note that I don’t think Jetten is a populist, nor did he really operate with populist rhetoric. What was striking was that he adopted a “yes-we-can” kind of orientation from the Obama campaign, which still resonates deeply with a segment of Dutch voters. But what he did do was position his party much more conservatively on the division between cosmopolitans and nationalists, taking a far more centrist stance compared to his party previously—a change that was more rhetorical than policy-based.
You could see him speaking out against asylum seekers who break the law, while also positioning himself in debates between the far left and the far right on this issue. On election night, the room celebrating his success was filled with little Dutch flags. So, you can see that the system felt the need to adopt a more nativist tone—a less extremely cosmopolitan tone—in its positioning. It’s not necessarily nativist, but more akin to a kind of progressive patriotism.
That was instrumental in how they won, because they were able to appeal to center-right voters by no longer positioning Jetten’s party as a very extreme representative of the cosmopolitan side, but rather as a party that’s centrist on this dimension. This shows that the discussion about immigration and the importance of cultural dimensions in the Netherlands have not been swept away by the defeat of the populists. In fact, the only way the social liberals were really able to win the elections was by co-opting part of the flag-waving and the more anti-immigration rhetoric, particularly when it comes to asylum seekers.
Excluding the PVV Risks Deepening Democratic Dissatisfaction
In your work on government alternation and satisfaction with democracy, you argue that meaningful alternation underpins democratic legitimacy. Given the repeated exclusion of the PVV and its allies from governing coalitions, could this exclusionary dynamic paradoxically reinforce perceptions of elite closure and deepen democratic alienation?
Dr. Simon Otjes: When it comes to the voters of the PVV, they’ve been able to access government only twice in the last 20 years—that is, between 2010 and 2012, when the PVV tolerated a center-right government, and between 2024 and 2025, when they were part of a radical government. In that sense, these voters are largely excluded from government participation, and we know that this is not good for their satisfaction with democracy.
We also know that this means the PVV increasingly attracts people who are dissatisfied with how democracy functions, which, from the perspective of the future of democracy, is seen by political scientists as a very important variable in sustaining legitimacy.
On the other hand, we saw that when they governed, they didn’t necessarily undermine institutions like the courts, but they did undermine coalition cooperation. So, in that sense, it is a very difficult bargain. On one side, co-optation of the radical right into government is a way to signal to their voters that their choice matters, but on the other, their involvement in government also risks undermining democratic principles.
A Grand Centrist Coalition Could Drive Frustrated Voters Back to the Radical Right
Relatedly, your research on coalition governance and “frustrated majorities” suggests that complex multiparty arrangements can generate their own legitimacy deficits. Might a centrist, D66-led coalition risk reproducing the very disaffection it seeks to contain, despite its pluralist intentions?
Dr. Simon Otjes: A centrist government—a government that would include GroenLinks–PvdA, D66, the VVD, and the CDA—although on substance they might be able to negotiate very well, because these are all parties with government experience, carries a danger in terms of what it would mean in the long term for where dissatisfied voters can go.
These parties will need to make compromises, and because they’re so broad, those will end up being quite centrist compromises that lack the change these parties promised in their coalition manifestos. In turn, that would mean that voters will grow frustrated, and in the Netherlands, given that the largest opposition party will be the PVV, frustrated voters will likely flock to the PVV.
So, in many ways, a large government of the center might seem promising now—and it’s certainly what D66 wants, because they want both left-wing and right-wing parties in government—but it’s very unattractive in the long term, because dissatisfied voters can only flock toward the radical right under those conditions. Rather, you would want a situation where at least one of the traditional parties of government is in opposition, because that can attract some of the voters dissatisfied with the government.
An Endless Cycle of Centrist Compromise and Populist Backlash
Drawing on your findings on anti-elitism and local political space, do the 2025 elections reveal a contest between technocratic centrism—embodied by D66—and localized anti-elitism, expressed through populist and regionalist currents? How do such competing modes of representation reshape the Dutch democratic fabric?
Dr. Simon Otjes: It’s important to note that in the study about localism and populism, we didn’t find—at least at the party manifesto level—that those two were necessarily strongly related. I didn’t find that. So, I want to stay away from a picture where anti-elitism is concentrated in some regions. Rather, what we find is that there is political dissatisfaction both in major cities and in more rural areas. While we do find evidence for specific forms of regionalized dissatisfaction, what seems much more likely now is that general political dissatisfaction played a major role in why voters supported the PVV.
In that sense, I would want to avoid an image where one is more local and one is more national. However, I do agree with the idea that we are seeing two different modes of governance in the Netherlands. One is the centrist governments that end up being quite technocratic, making compromises—quite gray compromises—where all the different colors are mixed together, leaving no clear political expression or policy choices made by the government. These are then alternated by brief periods of radical right-wing populist government.
That would be a good way to describe the Netherlands over the last 30 years: a centrist coalition between 1994 and 2002, followed by a populist moment in 2002 with the LPF (Pim Fortuyn List), which couldn’t govern and fell apart. Then we had different centrist governments until 2010, when the VVD was willing to govern with the PVV in the 2010–2012 minority government, which also collapsed. It was followed by the centrist Liberal–Labour coalition, and then more centrist governments until 2024, when we had the Dick Schoof government.
So, basically, what we have are periods of rather gray, technocratic, centrist government, alternated by radical right participation in 2002, 2010–2012, and 2024–2025—very short periods, because they have so far proven to be unreliable partners. This seems to be the pattern the Netherlands is caught in: an alternation between uninspiring centrist governments and brief bursts of radical right-wing dissatisfaction, which fail to make lasting changes because of their inherent instability.
Voters Shift from PVV to JA21 for Real Policy Impact on Migration
Your research with Green-Pedersen shows how party competition drives issue salience. Have the 2025 elections further diffused the immigration debate across the party spectrum, eroding the PVV’s ownership of the issue? If so, what new issues might sustain populist mobilization going forward?
Dr. Simon Otjes: Although I don’t really have the numbers right now, because students are only going to start coding manifestos for 2025, I don’t think the PVV has lost its issue ownership on migration. Rather, if you asked voters, a large share of them would still say that the PVV has the most credible and promising positions on migration.
Instead, voters shifted to different parties mainly because the PVV was excluded from government, and therefore, voters who wanted to influence government policy could no longer vote for the PVV—it became more of an expressive vote on immigration. That meant that, in particular, JA21, which is much more likely to enter a government coalition than the PVV, was a good alternative for voters who, on one hand, wanted a change in migration policy, and on the other, wanted to have a chance to influence government policy.
So, that is essentially why that party gained support—because of its ability to attract voters dissatisfied with migration policy but still eager to have a real impact on government decisions, something the PVV currently seems unlikely to achieve.
Populism Persists by Adapting to Different Electorates
You have observed that populism adapts rather than disappears. Does the simultaneous decline of the PVV and rise of smaller radical-right parties like JA21 and FvD represent ideological splintering, or a strategic diversification ensuring the persistence of the populist bloc?
Dr. Simon Otjes: It would be difficult to really assign a strategy to it, but what we can see is that what was previously very strongly concentrated on the PVV has now dissipated into three different parties, representing three different ways of doing politics. There is JA21, which still has radical right-wing positions, but we can really debate to what extent this party is populist. Does it really use the logic of populism? Does it really appeal to this idea of a united, virtuous population versus a corrupt elite? Rather, these groups want to be part of the government, so they don’t really use this kind of anti-elite rhetoric, but they have very clear anti-immigration stances.
So, that is a party that at least appeals to voters who want to influence government policy. That’s still a large segment. It’s still the second party of the Netherlands, despite their inability to govern. In many ways, that party performed well among voters who were dissatisfied with migration and politics, mobilizing a very traditional radical-right electorate.
And then the third party is FvD, which is much more extreme, as I pointed out at the beginning, and also appeals to a different segment of the electorate—one that has ended up in news environments very different from the mainstream media, where conspiracy theories are much more common. It’s particularly notable and worrying from a democratic perspective that FvD grew this much. They were shunned by traditional media under their previous leader, Thierry Baudet, and then they changed their leadership without changing their manifesto or distancing themselves from, for instance, the MP who was sanctioned for inciting violence. When they changed their leader to a more acceptable face, suddenly the media cordon that Baudet had faced disappeared. That is really worrying. This party has now more than doubled its seat total, despite taking very extreme positions and harboring a membership that seeks to undermine democracy.
So, in that sense, I wouldn’t necessarily talk about strategy here, but I would emphasize that there are different parties on the radical right that appeal to different groups, and that is the key explanation of why they remain so stable—their ability to attract very different electorates by diversifying their offerings.
Religious and Cultural Attitudes No Longer Align in Dutch Politics
In light of your work on religious parties and immigration attitudes, how do you interpret the enduring moral and cultural anxieties that underpin populist narratives in an increasingly secular and urbanized Netherlands?
Dr. Simon Otjes: So, the question is, what is the relationship between religion and these cultural attitudes? And there, I have to be a little bit skeptical, in the sense that in the Netherlands, religious attitudes and cultural attitudes aren’t strongly coherent, and we can also see that in the party landscape. There are three Christian democratic parties currently in Parliament—that is, the SGP, which is a very conservative Protestant party; the CDA, the mainstream Christian democratic party that did quite well in the elections; and the ChristenUnie, a more center-left Christian party, particularly when it comes to environmental and economic issues.
On migration, the SGP isn’t really differentiable from the radical right. They take very clear radical-right positions without being populist—very strongly anti-immigration, anti-Islam, and believing that Christianity is superior to Islam. Then the CDA takes much more centrist positions. They favor measures against migration, particularly citing that the Netherlands can’t really handle that many migrants, without veering into nativist territory, but they are quite conservative when it comes to migration. They, for instance, supported the principles of the far-reaching migration bill that was introduced by the previous government. They voted against it for a few amendments, but not because they disagreed with the principles in it.
And then there’s the ChristenUnie, which is much more progressive on migration. It really is a party of the kind of churches that want to help refugees in this country. So, this diversity shows that in the Netherlands, there isn’t necessarily a strong relationship between migration attitudes and voting for different Christian democratic parties. Rather, Christian democracy shows different shades.
The Netherlands Won’t Necessarily Be a Particularly Progressive Government on EU Issues
In “From Eurorealism to Europhilia,” you trace D66’s evolution toward a more assertive pro-Europeanism. Does Rob Jetten’s victory reflect a genuine societal re-legitimization of the EU in Dutch political discourse, or is it a contingent reaction to populist overreach?
Dr. Simon Otjes: We have to really note here that Jetten didn’t win the election because the population in the Netherlands changed its opinion. Public opinions about migration or about the European Union in the Netherlands are surprisingly stable, and rather, if anything, we can see that Jetten appealed to voters by becoming more centrist on this issue. This traditionally very pro-European party decided to have a big Dutch flag during their party conference, signaling that they wanted to move away from the cosmopolitanism that was associated with them. So, I wouldn’t necessarily see his victory as a change in opinion about the European Union or even about migration. Rather, it’s about a party strategically positioning itself on these issues to appeal to a larger segment of voters.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that Dutch policy on the EU won’t change. We’ve had a very Eurosceptic government—also a government that was really unable to influence European policy because the Prime Minister wasn’t tied to one of the major party families and was an unknown in Brussels. And so, the Netherlands will play a more active role in the European Union.
Depending on how the government formation turns out, it could also play a more positive role, particularly on issues where the Netherlands has been quite conservative, such as budgetary expansion. At the same time, despite D66’s entry into government, it seems very likely that the VVD will also be in government. And a government with the VVD will mean a government that inevitably moves against too large an increase in European budgets or too expansionary policies. They are fighting a rearguard battle against an increasing role for the EU in these matters. So, in that sense, the Netherlands won’t necessarily be a particularly progressive government on this issue.
Your study of Volt highlighted the rise of transnational “Europhile populism.” Could D66’s success, with its emotionally charged yet pro-European message, indicate a broader continental trend toward the hybridization of populism and cosmopolitanism?
Dr. Simon Otjes: I really want to emphasize that both in the study about Volt and in the study about D66, I did not claim that these parties are populist. I wouldn’t necessarily call them populist. They don’t make this differentiation between “the people” and “the elite.” D66 is rather a traditional party of government that was able to mobilize dissatisfaction with the current government, but not necessarily by appealing to broader dissatisfaction with democracy. So, no, I don’t think there’s any basis for calling these parties populist. These parties are—I mean, D66 was quite good at running its campaign and adopted a more patriotic, progressive patriotic message—but there’s nothing about them that makes them populist. The same is true for Volt.
D66’s Appeal Is Governmental, Not Populist
How might the Dutch election reshape the EU’s political equilibrium—particularly in debates over migration, democratic reform, and responses to illiberalism? Is the Netherlands now positioned to play a normative role in defending liberal democratic values within the Union?
Dr. Simon Otjes: We really have to differentiate migration from the debate about liberalism. When it comes to migration, all the parties in Parliament, perhaps with the exception of very small ones, support the European Migration Pact, and that is even seen by the parties of the left, such as D66 and PvdA, as a solution to their migration problem. They really make it a European problem. So, there’s broad support for those kinds of measures, including dealing with refugees in third countries and making deals with third countries—although legal scholars seriously doubt whether those measures comply with refugee conventions. But that’s what they see as a solution to the migration problem.
When it comes to the discussion about illiberalism, the Netherlands doesn’t really play any major role, because the issue is largely shaped by the fact that several countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, are willing to tolerate each other’s illiberalism, and moves against illiberalism within the EU require unanimity. So, in that sense, the change of government in the Netherlands hasn’t really changed anything.
I think the Schoof government might perhaps be a little more accepting of illiberalism than previous governments, but it’s important to note that both NSC and VVD, which are in that government, are parties that favor maintaining the rule of law and supporting actions against illiberalism. So, in that sense, I don’t think a change in government will mean much for these discussions—particularly because this debate really centers on Hungary, Slovakia, and soon also Czechia, and increasingly Poland, which continue to allow an area of illiberalism within the European Union. So, in that sense, I don’t think the change in government will necessarily affect this issue at the EU level.
No Major Democratic Changes Expected
Building on your research with Bedock et al. (2022) on the populist challenge to democracy reform, how do you interpret the PVV’s brief period in power? Has it intensified mainstream reflection on the tension between majoritarian responsiveness and liberal constraint in Dutch democracy?
Dr. Simon Otjes: No, I don’t think that the PVV’s participation in government has really changed views about democracy. What we can see is that the NSC, which was one of the government parties, pushed an agenda of government reform, including changes to the electoral system. The previous government was quite open to the introduction of a referendum in the Netherlands.
The interesting question now is what will happen with those portfolios, particularly because the PVV and the VVD are quite skeptical—especially about freezing the introduction of a referendum. There was quite an ambitious reform agenda that was stalled because the government lasted such a short time, and it really is uncertain what kind of reform agenda they will adopt.
What you can see in the centrist part of Dutch politics is an understanding that democracy needs reform, but there isn’t a clear or united agenda around how to do it. What is notable, particularly about the participation of NSC in the previous government, is that they had a very clear reform agenda, but it is now closely associated with them. So, I don’t expect that the next government will do anything in terms of major changes like electoral reform.
I have sincere doubts about whether the referendum bill that had already progressed to Parliament will move forward—it’s likely to be stalled even longer. So, I don’t think this will lead to any major changes in the way democracy functions in the Netherlands.
Centrist Governments and Radical Right Experiments Will Keep Alternating
Across Europe, we observe a convergence between adaptive liberal centrists and fragmented populist right formations. Do you see this dynamic producing a long-term hybridization of democratic politics—where populist affect and centrist rationality coexist as dual pillars of contemporary representation?
Dr. Simon Otjes: This description, where you have an alternation between almost technocratic centrist governments—often including parties from the center-left and the center-right—having to govern together, leading to compromises where you can’t really see the course of the party anymore, being interrupted by brief periods of radical right-wing governments because the radical right has become governable, is quite accurate. That is a pattern we can now see, at least for the last 30 years. And that seems—I can see no basis for another path than that. You would continually have these centrist governments that try to deal with the issues, but because of their breadth inside the coalition, aren’t really able to deliver very clear either left- or right-wing policy solutions, and then being interrupted by different forms of government with the radical right. We saw the government with the LPF in 2002, the tolerated government in 2010, and now this whole experiment, and we’ll just continue to have this alternation between these two options.
The Netherlands Remains in an Enduring Populist Cycle
And finally, Professor Otjes, when viewed globally—from Trump’s America to Milei’s Argentina and Meloni’s Italy—do the Dutch elections signify the emergence of a post-populist phase characterized by ideological diffusion and strategic normalization, or do they mark merely another turn in populism’s enduring cycle of reinvention?
Dr. Simon Otjes: I don’t think we can talk about a post-populist phase. What we see here fits a pattern that we’ve observed before: populists enter government, those governments prove to be unstable, and then there’s a response from the center, which seeks to govern together again. They do that for a while until, once more, the populists become so large that they can’t be ignored. That’s the pattern I’m seeing, so I wouldn’t call this a post-populist phase—we’re still very much inside this populist moment.
When it comes to diffusion, I really don’t think that populism has spread very strongly among mainstream parties. You could argue that mainstream parties have moved to the center, or sometimes to more conservative positions—as with the VVD on migration. So, we can clearly see that populism, and particularly the radicalizing influence of populist parties, is shaping how other parties make policy.
But that doesn’t mean we’re now in a post-populist phase. Rather, we’ll continue to see this alternation—radical right-supported governments briefly interrupting a more general pattern in which the parties at the center have to govern together.
