Performing Authority After the Assassination of Theo van Gogh1

When Dutch filmmaker Van Gogh is murdered by an Islamist extremist, local politicians Cohen and Aboutaleb face the task of giving meaning to the murder. Their tolerant, pluralistic approach of 'de boel bij elkaar houden' (keeping things together) is publicly ridiculed by the so-called Friends of Theo. Protagonists and antagonists try to (counter- )script the meaning of the murder on constitutional and non-constitutional stages, using different repertoires to enact authority. The ruling media format privileges emotional repertoires over the factual genre of procedural assurance. The discourse analysis illuminates how the 'soft' approach of 'de boel bij elkaar houden' changes to include notions of tough action. Distinct divisions or roles between both politicians emerge. The chapter tries to make sense of the question: To what extend can the success of the administrators be attributed to their particular actions? It applies the notion of 'performative habitus' (embodied dispositions shaped over many previous years of symbolic labour) to transcend the dualism between the politician as a strategic actor and the politician as being determined by context; personal authority is a co-production of performative habitus and setting.