ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the definition of political problems to find out where the ‘gendering’ of politics takes place or disappears and whether the gendering of problems leads to adequate representation for women. Dutch politics seems divided into two still often exclusive camps: politics for women and mainstream politics. Instead of problematising the relationship between social and political citizenship, theorists of ‘neocorporatism’ have sometimes obscured the dynamics of politics itself. In and between Dutch political parties, opinions have differed as to whether a separate representation of interests is compatible with the idea of a governing body that represents ‘the common good’. The chapter discusses the Dutch political system from an international perspective, and debates among Dutch politicians on the corporatist world. It presents a survey of feminist research on key concepts of the corporatist system, namely, ‘representation’, ‘expertise’ and ‘problem definition’. The critique of expertise has in Dutch feminist politics resulted in pleas for affirmative action policies.
