De stand van de geschiedschrijving van de Nederlandse politieke partijen

Abstract

The position of the historiography of the Dutch political parties

For a long time time, the historiography of the Dutch political parties was used by different groups in their struggle for political and social emancipation; groups such as labourers, Protestant ‘small folk’ and Catholics. This approach, in which society is vertically segregated in pillars, was deeply hagiographic and one-sided in nature. In order to inspire their supporters, any achievements gained were set against the background of the higher ideals that these liberating movements strove to realise. The need for, and with it the right to exist of, this pillarised approach towards historiography diminished as these groups gradually became fully emancipated after World War II. During the 1970s and 1980s, this was largely replaced by a modern, more objective and scientific approach of the political party. A historiographical survey is presented in this article showing the results of this scientific historiography during the last fifteen to twenty years (taking as its starting point the inventory in P. Luykx and N. Bootsma, (eds.), De laatste tijd. Geschiedschrijving over Nederland in de 20e eeuw, Utrecht, 1987).