Christian democracy in the Netherlands

This article gives an overview of christian democracy in the Netherlands, which is also called confessional politics, including political Catholicism and Protestantism. It is limited to Christian democratic parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ means a reference to another party in that scheme.

Christian Democracy is the second oldest political ideology in the Netherlands, although before 1977 it was called "confessionele politiek" (politics based on the Christian confession).

Christian Democracy in the Netherlands is separated by roughly two kinds of cleavages—religious cleavages and political cleavages—which sometimes coincide.

The strongest religious cleavage is between Catholicism and Protestantism. Before the 1920s Catholics were treated as second class citizens and they were strongly despised by Protestants, who combined their Dutch nationalism with fierce anti-papism. There also are strong cleavages within Protestantism, most notably between the Dutch Reformed Church (hervormd) and the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (gereformeerd). There are also cleavages within the Reformed Churches. The religious cleavages were reinforced by pillarization—self-imposed religious segregation.

Christian Democratic parties were also divided on political matters. The left-right cleavage split leftwing, centrist and rightwing strands of Christian democracy within the movement.

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