Negatieve sancties in de politiek

Abstract

The concept of ’negative sanctions’ has for many years been employed in political science. The author describes the way in which the concept has been operationalized by R. E. Agger, D. Goldrich and B. E. Swanson in the Rulers and the Ruled and by J. F. Medler in Negative Sanctions: Their Perception and their Impact in the Political System. Since the author’s main interest centers on reasons for political apathy, special attention is paid to the subjective aspect of the problem: do citizens expect to be sanctioned for political activities? Some of the problems of adapting the questions used in American research to measure sanction-perceptions, to the Dutch situation, are discussed. Sanction expectations were, in the author’s research, tied to a special kind of political activity namely expressing one’s opinion in public on an issue salient at the time: Republic or Monarchy. Sanctions included reprisals expected from governmental authorities. One fourth of the Amsterdam respondents expected to be registered by the B.V.D. (the Dutch F.B.I.), if they openly expressed a preference for the Republic. Fifteen percent thought that a preference for the Republic would make it harder to get governmental financial support. Eight percent thought they would get trouble with the police. Other expectations with regard to economic and social sanctions, as well as with regard to positive sanctions, are presented.