In recent decades processes of partisan dealignment and professionalisation have taken place. But how do political parties adapt their financial behaviour to these changes in the political-electoral system? We answer this question by analysing two indicators. First, we examine to what extent parties spend their available financial means (saving versus spending strategy). Secondly, we study how parties spend their available financial means (bureaucratic versus electoral strategy). Based on these two indicators we set up a two-dimensional model describing the financial behaviour of political parties, which we apply to data of Belgian parties in the period 1999-2015. The results illustrate that most parties generally adopt a bureaucratic saving strategy, but that there has not been a linear evolution between 1999 and 2015 towards a specific financial behaviour as a reaction to dealignment and professionalisation.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment partnership (TTIP) can be considered a game changer among trade agreements. TTIP not only aims to shape tomorrow’s trade policy, but has also had a huge influence on the democratic legitimacy of the EU. Based on recent literature on democratic legitimacy in the EU, this paper studies how the TTIP negotiations score in terms of input and throughput legitimacy. Our results show that these negotiations have had their fair share of problems, such as the disproportionally large influence of corporations and a lack of transparency and accountability. However, these legitimacy problems occurred mainly in the first months of the negotiation process. Due to large scale protests and critiques from civil society, measures were taken to boost the legitimacy of the process.

In this article I argue that the commonplace interpretation of neoliberalism in the Netherlands is mistaken. According to this interpretation the term ‘neoliberalism’ refers to a series of policies, including privatisation and deregulation, that were implemented in the Netherlands in the 1980’s in imitation of Thatcher and Reagan. I argue that it is not this series of policies but the justification underpinning them that is of a neoliberal nature. To support this claim I offer a brief genealogical history of neoliberal thought, which developed in the interwar period, by explicitly distinguishing itself from both 19th-century classical liberalism and contemporary modern liberalism. On the basis of this historical account I assert that neoliberalism adopts the foundational principles of classical and modern liberalism, but that it prescribes different formal principles of rational government. I conclude that this diction makes it possible to write a critical history of neoliberalism.