Niels’s Reviews > Governance and Politics of the Netherlands > Status Update

"The recruitment of departmental specialists has important consequences. Experienced observers can detect distinct departmental cultures, even in dress, ranging from jeans at Education, Culture, and Science to pin-striped suits in the Foreign Office." (p. 176)

"Whereas in 1956 practicing Christians comprised a majority of the population, by 2017 they made up only about 14 percent. The size of the secular (that is, nonchurchgoing) working class has fallen from about a third of the population to about a fifth. The tremendous growth has been in the secular middle class, which has quadrupled in size from 15 percent to about 63 percent of the population." (p. 103)