The Netherlands, the challenge of Lijst Pim Fortuyn, and the Third Way

The shock 2002 general election result in the Netherlands has provided a wake-up call to those
who believed it would withstand the Europe-wide rise of the far right more successfully than others. This article firstly investigates why Lijst Pim Fortuyn performed so well, and suggests that its popularity owes more to its anti-establishment stance than its xenophobic outlook. The second half of the article links the upheavals to normative deficiencies in the ‘third way’ framework, and concludes that a more distinctive left-of-centre agenda needs to be formulated, both in itself and in relation to containing the far right.