De kerstening van bezuinigingsbeleid

Het christendemocratische gedachtengoed en de bezuinigingen van de jaren tachtig

Samenvatting

After the profound economic crisis that hit the Netherlands in the early 1980s, consecutive governments, led by the Christian democratic party (CDA), sought to push back the institutions of the Dutch welfare state. The CDA had only been formally established in 1980 and was searching to establish a distinctive identity and a solid ideological footing. This article explains how the implementation of welfare state reform and the formation of a new partisan identity were deeply interrelated processes. It will also show how in the course of the 1980s, the newly formed Christian democratic ideology increasingly began to conflict with the governmental austerity programs. The intraparty debates that followed will be illustrated by drawing from articles published in the scientific journal of the CDA. New insights will be provided into the history of the CDA during the 1980s and the difficulties of combining religiously inspired principles with the everyday pragmatic considerations of policymakers.