ABSTRACT
According to this quote, the Dutch political system is not a partitocrazia, dominated by political parties, but a fractiocratie, dominated by fracties, i.e. parliamentary party groups (PPGs). Erik Jurgens, a specialist on constitutional law, and a member of the Dutch Second Chamber on and off since the 1970s, has observed PPGs as an outside observer, and as an inside participant in three different parties. His cri de coeur about the ascendancy of the PPG is directed primarily at its domination of life in parliament, at the relationship between the PPG and the individual MP. Others have also used the term fractiocracy in this regard (e.g. Elzinga 1993:24). However, on the basis of recent Dutch political science literature, it would be easy to extend the use of the term fractiocracy to encompass relations between the PPG and extraparliamentary actors as well. Many scholars have pointed to long-term changes in Dutch executive-legislative relations, from a situation, unusual for a parliamentary system of government, in which the government remained relatively aloof from party-political squabbles, to one in which the PPGs of the governing majority are increasingly involved in cabinet decision-making. In addition, and in line with the international literature on party organisation, it has been pointed out that within political parties a shift in leadership away from the extra-parliamentary party organisation (EPO), or its executive board, towards the parliamentary party group has occurred.
