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monitor (Belevingsmonitor), a barometer measuring the public perception of and
(positive or negative) excitement about support for issues and policies.There were high
expectations about these ‘ears and eyes’at their introduction in 2003,but the frequency
of measurements has recently been lowered; both for budgetary reasons and because,
as one minister said in passing: ‘we are not masochists who every week want to be
confronted with our lack of popularity’. As to the sensitivity and openness towards the
publicised opinion of the media, all ministries and their press informers and
spokespersons are accessible around the clock. This accessibility is more reactive,
though, since a pro-active policy outside office hours is a rarity. Most departments also
actively monitor the media, though only two departments perform a regular and
systematic media analysis; research by the ministries is minimal anyway and if so,
contracted out to commercial or university researchers. Again, research is one of the
first victims when budgetary cuts take place.

MANAGING ELECTION CAMPAIGNS
Professionalisation of managing public information by the political parties is much
slower in establishing itself. Since the 1960s the parties have realised the importance of
television, but adjusting to the television age is another matter. Limited financial means
is a considerable hindrance here. Though in the 1970s state subsidies had been
introduced, it has hardly compensated for the gradual and, in all, dramatic decline in
party membership. At the beginning of the 1990s, the three largest parties (Christian
Democratic CDA, social democratic PvdA and liberal-conservative VVD) relied on
membership dues for some 60% of their total income. State subsidies contributed From Accommodation to Professionalisation? The Changing Culture and Environment of Dutch Political Communication
about 20% and another 20% was collected by fund raising activities among the rank
and file of the party and ‘party taxes’on the salaries of politicians (Koole,1994,p.289).

Even those larger parties have had modest party offices, due to lack of funding. If the
size of the salaried staff is taken as a criterion,‘the extra-parliamentary organization of
Dutch political parties has scarcely become more professionalized since the early
sixties’ (Koole, 1994, p. 290). Party offices have even fewer staff than before, though to
some extent the loss there is compensated by a rapid gain in the size of the
parliamentary party staff. We see that same shift with the information and
communication activities, which have moved from the party office to the parliamentary
party organisation.

Election campaigns in the Netherlands have traditionally been one of the cheapest in
the democratic world, partly because, until very recently, donations from business
hardly existed at the national level. For the last few years the VVD has organised
fundraising dinners with politicians, but the financial result of some 15,000 euros is
merely ‘peanuts’. According to newspaper reports, Pim Fortuyn’s LPF received some 1.4
million euros from rich businessmen during the election campaign of 2003, but this
was not confirmed by the party. Except for rules of transparency about gifts received,
which were introduced in the mid 1990s, guidelines as to what is and what is not 105