The Dutch obsession with immigration
This week, the following events have been held national elections in the NetherlandsFor 36% of voters, immigration was the main issue in deciding their vote. This is not surprising considering that, in the last 20 years, four governments have fallen prematurely due to immigration and asylum issues, most recently in 2023 and 2025. Foreigners residing in the country represent 8.5% of the total population, and the annual number of people living in the country is a significant factor. Why, then, this obsession with immigration? I will give three reasons: one political, one socioeconomic, and one cultural.
On the political front, everything changed in the early 2000s with the rise of Pim Fortuyn, who suddenly launched a tremendously offensive discourse against Islam. Fortuyn was assassinated by an animal rights activist just days before the 2002 elections, and his party was short-lived. However, the impact was significant: from then on, the taboo surrounding anti-immigrant and Islamophobic positions was broken, and Geert Wilders, currently the longest-serving member of Parliament, took up the mantle. But what amplified its effects was above all the adaptive strategy of right-wing and center-right political parties, which ended up adopting his arguments, and the media, which acted as megaphones, fueled by the attention generated by the histrionics and controversy of the far right.
On the socioeconomic front, Dutch society began to express certain discontents. First, there was petty crime in some neighborhoods, then came the famous "why them and not me?" Macroeconomic figures don't suggest a situation of scarcity. But what matters isn't objective deprivation, but relative deprivation—that is, the perception of having less than others or less than before. This feeling has been closely linked to the housing crisis. Stories of three generations living together or university students unable to move out of their parents' homes, increasingly common, go beyond what the average Dutch person considers tolerable. While the degree of tolerance is relative, what is certain is the housing shortage: it is estimated that there is currently a 400,000-unit shortage.
But why isn't there enough housing? Not because of immigration. The shortage is due not only to a lack of new public housing but also to the demolition of a significant portion of what existed in the early 2000s. As a result of a deliberate gentrification policy, the Dutch state has sold a considerable percentage, hoping to attract young, middle-class couples (mostly white). But there's also a housing shortage because new construction is currently impossible. Beyond the labor shortage, the Netherlands far exceeds the maximum levels (set by the EU) for released nitrates. The meat industry is a disproportionate source of these nitrates, and the Netherlands, small as it is, is the world's second-largest meat exporter after the United States. Simply put: more housing (whose construction also generates nitrates) means fewer cows; you can't have both at the same time.
On a cultural level, several dynamics converged. Dutch society underwent a sudden secularization throughout the 1980s. This meant that religion ceased to be a structuring element of society. Whereas previously Protestants and Catholics lived separate lives, from then on everyone became "equal" under a common identity defined by liberal values (same-sex marriage, euthanasia, etc.). Those who did not share these values, presumably Muslims, became the...other of this new usFurthermore, neoliberal policies have made the Netherlands a leader in globalization. However, there are complaints that Dutch is not widely spoken in the major cities. Finally, the historical alignment with the United States—taken to a tragicomic extreme by Mark Rutte—meant that the crusade against Islam after 9/11 also became a war against its own people.
In short, the grievances are real. But it's easier to find a scapegoat—immigrants—than to propose changes that no one is willing to make. The question now is whether a coalition government led by the Liberals (D66), with Geert Wilders' party out, can overcome this obsession with immigration and address the underlying problems. Therefore, the dilemma will have to be resolved between continuing the rampant meat exports or building more housing, and between liberal economic policies or less immigration, as the D66 leader, and likely the new one, has already promised. premierRob Jetten.
To delve deeper into the topic of this article, read 'Trouble in paradise: the politicization of immigration in the Netherlands', Issues 140, Cidob (Blanca Garcés and Rinus Penninx, 2025).