In this article, Cees Veerman and colleague Cor Van Beuningen argue that the Jetten cabinet must do much more to stop authoritarian temptation. Thinking that citizenship campaigns here could help indicates a fatal disregard of the nature and urgency of the problem. Yet the state is not powerless here. The only way to turn the tide is to change the way the public presence in society is directed; by redesigning public tasks. Social challenges such as security, care, housing, agriculture and energy transition are not only policy issues, but also areas where citizens can take responsibility, meet and solve problems together. Public tasks must be organised in such a way that they give substance and motive to people to work together.
Public tasks constitute the infrastructure of democracy
A growing part of the population experiences distance to the Hague politics and distrust of administrative elites. That alienation is not merely a matter of incidents or policy errors. It reflects a deeper shift in the relationship between state and society. When frustrations about existence uncertainty, status loss, cultural displacement, loss of grip and the pain of misconception accumulate, authoritarian alternatives become attractive.
But democratic resilience is not just growing through citizenship campaigns or moral appeals. It arises when people experience that they are seen and recognized, that they matter, that their contribution is meaningful and that they can only solve problems together.
Here is the key: public tasks, such as security, education and care, are not just public obligations, not just business. They are the face of the state in society. They offer opportunities to allow citizens to meet, to weigh interests together, to allow them to bear responsibility and thus to develop their commitment and capacity to act.
Recognition and commitment
But then the police must not only solve the security problems in the neighbourhood, but also, and above all, increase the problem-solving capacity of residents and their networks. In that case, care institutions must not only provide care, but also, and above all, strengthen the caring capacity of people and their social environment. And when education only transfers knowledge, citizenship remains abstract. When it exercises cooperation and responsibility, it creates democratic skills. Where punishment excludes only, society hardens; if recovery is central, social bond is strengthened.
Public tasks should not only solve problems, but strengthen the problem-solving capacity of people and their networks. Not less ambition, but a broader orientation: from steering and controlling to activating and facilitating, from zfor to make sure that.
This approach also shows how closely interrelated policy areas are. What appears as separate dossiers in The Hague is one indivisible reality in neighbourhoods and regions.
"Cylinism loses its breeding ground when people experience meaning"
That is why regionalisation is no longer an option, but a necessity. National goals remain guiding, but are concretely embedded in the development of local society. As powers and resources are organized more closely, people learn to influence and to take responsibility. Gradually they do more because they experience meaning, matter and matter things that matter. The cynicism associated with feeling excluded is losing its breeding ground. In the process, cohesion is growing through joint action.
The state is polite to what it does. When his actions reduce citizens to clients, obstacles or deplorables, he undermines his own foundation. On the other hand, when his actions enable them to share responsibility for security, care, space and future, he maintains and strengthens the democratic basis on which he rests.
The Jetten cabinet is at a constitutional crossroads. The question is how public tasks are organised in a time of polarization and authoritarian temptation. The cabinet can opt for a hopeful and powerful vision, embodied in recognizable and integrity leadership, or for a further slip into cynicism and enemy thinking. In order to avoid this, it must work decisively to strengthen the self-organising capacity of society and thus to save the democratic rule of law.
This article was published in Trouw of Thursday, March 19, 2026. The article can also be read online via this link .