Culture, Religion & Politics

Since the end of the sixteenth century until the end of the nineteenth century, the Netherlands was a country of Protestants – the leading religion – and Roman-Catholics. Around 1900 two other ‘pillars’ came into existence: the
Socialists and Liberals. In the 1960s processes of ‘depillarisation’ and secularization began. Old political parties languished, new political parties presented themselves successfully to the voters. In international perspective, Dutch culture is a Northern European culture: the cultural distance between the Netherlands and the Nordic countries is small, between the Netherlands and South- and EastEurope comparatively large. The Dutch cultural pallet got more colors with the arrival of immigrants since the 1960s. But one characteristic remained constant during all this changes: the relationship between culture and water – a ‘delta culture’.