These parties have more support among people with a lower (or practical) education. I myself am familiar with both of these worlds. I come from a working-class family and my parents had only a primary-school education. Now I work as a philosophy professor at Erasmus University. I also have experience in politics, as a former member of the House of Representatives.
The higher up the social ladder I climbed, the more unwritten rules there were: about the words you should use, the opinions you should have and the parties you should support – or not. As a philosophy student, I learned the importance of thinking for myself and doing research, but in the academic community, people tacitly assumed I would have certain views. I noticed this even more in politics, after I became an MP for the Socialist Party (SP). At that time, free-market principles were dominant in parliament and embraced by parties on the right and the left. Criticism of this neoliberal market-based ideology was not appreciated: any politician who gave voice to such criticism placed themselves outside of the accepted order.
‘People with a higher education are more alike in their views than less-educated people’ stated a headline in the Volkskrant newspaper above an interview with Quita Muis, who did her PhD at Tilburg University on a study of polarisation in European countries. People’s opinions have not changed that much over the years, Quita Muis observed, but the experience of polarisation has increased. The reason seems to be that people with a higher education have become more alike in their opinions, while opinions among people with a lower education have remained more diverse. It’s an interesting study, and it also lines up with my own experience: the pressure I sometimes experience in academic circles about what you are supposed to think and do.
“Epistemic communities.” I learned about this concept from another PhD candidate: Naomi Woltring, working at Radboud University Nijmegen, in her thesis on The market-based welfare state. In her thesis, she describes how free-market principles became dominant in Dutch politics; a process in which Erasmus University played a role. For years, the university was a hub for networks of civil servants, politicians, lobbyists and academics. People who were supposed to monitor each other and keep each other on their toes with regard to substantive issues, but who in practice always reinforced each other’s ‘correct’ political beliefs and policy choices. This kind of research by young PhD candidates is enlightening, and also holds up a mirror to the academic community: a higher education does not automatically make you open-minded. It can even trap you in an academic echo chamber of your own convictions.
