In memoriam: Rudy B. Andeweg (1952-2024)
On Friday, June 28, 2024, emeritus professor Rudy B. Andeweg passed away. His passing marks the loss of an important figure within the field of political science, not only nationally, but internationally. Here we remember an outstanding researcher, inspiring teacher, capable administrator and an involved and loyal colleague.
In 2015 Rudy Andeweg wrote a piece for a publication marking the 65 year existence of the Dutch Political Science Association. His contribution chronicled the history of political science at Leiden University, which commenced with the appointment of Hans Daalder to a chair of political science in 1963. Rudy began his studies in Leiden in 1970 and was appointed full professor of political science in 1988. On May 18, 2018, following Leiden tradition in the Academy Building, Rudy held his farewell lecture. He was thus uniquely qualified to recall the history of the discipline in Leiden.
Substantial academic output
Rudy began his study of political science in 1970 by enrolling in the Judicial-Political Science major in the Faculty of Law. He completed his degree in 1975, which was followed by a Master of Arts degree in political science at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). Michigan was the center for study of elections and his time there helped form the basis for his doctoral dissertation research. On November 18, 1982, he defended his dissertation, which had been supervised by Hans Daalder and Galen Irwin. The dissertation was titled Dutch Voters Adrift: On explanations of electoral change (1963-1977). The work was in a sense prophetic, as the “electoral winds” continue to shift and blow voters in all directions, creating greater volatility.
Beyond this dissertation, during his half century of study of politics, Rudy produced a substantial list of publications that reveal a deep understanding of a wide range of topics. Although he continued and broadened his interest in voting behavior and political behavior, he expanded his focus of attention from mass to the elite level, all within a focus on the functioning of parliamentary democracy. He often provided creative and provocative analysis of a topic.
Affinity for Great Britain
Before defending his dissertation, Rudy had begun to work for a former member of the political science section in the law faculty, Herman Tjeenk Willink, who had been appointed as Government Commissioner for the reorganization of the Civil Service. Rudy continued to perform this work for a year after the defense of his dissertation. This experience had a major influence in his interest in the study of political institutions. A further stimulus in the development of his career was becoming the recipient of a prestigious Huygens stipend from the Dutch national science association in 1984. The stipend provided financial assistance to do research for a five year period. With this backing Rudy initiated a major study of the Dutch Council of Ministers. It also made it possible to spend a year at Nuffield College, Oxford, where he worked closely with Vincent Wright. If he did not already have an affinity for Great Britain through his marriage to an English language instructor, it certainly became stronger during his tenure at Oxford. He became a true Anglophile, with a strong interest in British politics and British research traditions, and no less so in British culture, as evidenced by his love of British automobiles and detective series.
Attention to institutional grounding
In his inaugural lecture as full professor in 1988, Rudy lent his support to the international developments surrounding the so-called neo-institutionalism, in particular within the social sciences and economics. He rejected the post-war behaviorism that studied individual behavior without having consideration of the institutional setting within which behavior occurred and the influence of the impact of institutions on behavior. Behaviorism, in this view, led to “atomism” and a tendency to relatively simplistic study of non-office holding citizens rather than of administrators, civil servants, judges or government ministers. In a provocative conclusion, he contended that “We end up knowing more about political actors the less important they are”. This makes his own shift in the orientation of his research more understandable and gave further direction to his own later research agenda.
Administrative functions
The great Dutch soccer player and philosopher, Johan Cruyff, in a phrase that has become infused in the Dutch language, noted that “every advantage has its disadvantage”. In this case it is the fact that becoming a full professor in Dutch universities brings with it major administrative responsibilities. From 1990 to 1993 Rudy was chairman of the Department of Political Science and again between 2003 and 2006. From its earlier years when it began in the Faculty of Law, political science had gradually become more centered in the Faculty of Social Sciences, and moved there fully in 2001. Rudy served as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences from 1996 to 1998. During this period, he expertly handled the delicate case of a full professor charged with plagiarism. Rudy also served as the vice-chairman of the Leiden University Fund and served his own discipline as chairman of the Dutch Political Science Association. His appointment at a young age as full professor and the heavy administrative tasks that this position brought with it fortunately did not deter him building an impressive academic output. His work ethic (rooted in his upbringing in a Calvinist community) certainly contributed to this high output.
Excellence in teaching
Certainly not every excellent researcher is also an excellent teacher, but Rudy was both. In 2005 he received the Casimir prize as the best instructor in the Faculty of Social Sciences. He gave lectures in both Dutch and excellent English in Comparative Politics, Dutch Politics, and introduced Political Psychology to the curriculum. When at Oxford, Vincent Wright asked him to contribute a volume on Dutch politics to a series on various national political systems. Rudy asked his dissertation supervisor and colleague, Galen Irwin, to collaborate on Dutch Government and Politics, which became Governance and Politics of the Netherlands of which the fifth edition appeared in 2020, with Tom Louwerse added as third author. The book has been widely cited as a handbook and been read by generations of first year students in political science.
Relationship between citizens and politics
Long before Pim Fortuyn and his followers entered the political arena in the Netherlands, Rudy, together with Herman Van Gunsteren, contributed to the debate about a crisis of political trust, referred to in Dutch as the “gap” between citizens and politicians. In 1994 they published The Great Displeasure: the gap between citizens and politics [our translation], a book that attempted to bring greater clarity to so-called gap thinking. Rudy was never a highly visible contributor to public debate; only occasionally writing op-eds for a newspaper or even less often appearing on television. His contributions were more often through making his or others academic research available to a wider public. The book with Van Gunsteren is an example, the so-called “democratic audit” was another, in which Rudy joined with his colleague, Jacques Thomassen, from the University in Twente in 2020-2011 to evaluate the politics and political system of the Netherlands. In this ambitious project they brought together a wide range of academics from the disciplines of public administration and political science, asking each to shed light on some aspect of the Dutch democratic system. This resulted in a thick volume entitled Democracy Vetted [our translation], with a lengthy introductory essay by the two editors. Later, Rudy has written on electoral systems and has made proposals for changes in the Dutch electoral system. He could make use of his vast knowledge of elections and electoral systems as a member (2017) and vice-chairman (2018-2024) of the national Electoral Council. His passing robs the Council and the nation of this knowledge at a crucial point in time, since the new accord on main points negotiated to form a Cabinet after the 2023 election includes a call for “a new electoral system” that would include greater regional representation.
Rudy has also collaborated with Jacques Thomassen on various occasions to organize the so-called Parliamentary Study. In these studies, the members of Parliament were interviewed concerning their background, their conception of their parliamentary role, and their views on a range of political tropics. This tradition, which was begun by Hans Daalder, and continued by Rudy, has become a Leiden tradition. It will now be prolonged under the supervision of two doctoral students of Rudy, Tom Louwerse and Cynthia Van Vonno , who defended dissertations concerning the functioning of the Dutch Parliament.
Focus on elite behavior
The behavior of Dutch political elites during the period of “verzuiling” became well known through the work of Hans Daalder and Arend Lijphart. The latter published his classic work, “The Politics of Accomodation” in 1968. Lijphart was full professor in Leiden between 1968 and 1978, during which period Rudy was a student in Leiden. However, Rudy was not moulded in the tradition of consociationalism. Lijphart had typified the behavior of elites: producing compromises in a deeply divided society. In 2000, Rudy carefully analysed the pros and cons of “pacification politics” in an authoritative article over “Consociational democracy”. He concluded that the absence of an opposition and the domination by elites combined with a high degree of political apathy at the mass level was not an indicator of a vital democracy. Rudy contended that elite behavior must necessarily be oriented to competition rather than consensus. The rise of right-wing populist parties in ‘Austria, Belgium and Switzerland”, countries that were considered “consociational” revealed the weakness of the pacification argument. When he wrote his piece these developments had not taken place in the Netherlands, but the “sudden” rise of Pim Fortuyn one year later was not so sudden in the light of Rudy’s analysis.
Recognition
Appreciation and recognition of Rudy’s academic achievements can be seen in his election as member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006 and Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities in 2007. Recognition among his peers is seen as his selection as chairman of the Dutch Political Science Association (2011-2015) and chairman of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR, 2015-2018). Following his formal final lecture in May 2018, he received a Royal Award (Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau).
In retirement, Rudy remained active as researcher and as a member of the Electoral Council, at least until his body began to fail him, amplified by the swift decline in June 2024 that led to that fatal June 28 day. In painful fashion, the doctors attending him were confronted with a motto from the work of Steve Sills that Rudy, in another context, had quoted on the cover page of his dissertation: “There is something happening here/ What it is ain’t exactly clear.” Perhaps the true cause of his demise will never become known. What, however, is crystal clear is that the name of Rudy Andeweg will remain in our memories as an outstanding researcher, a talented instructor, a highly capable administrator, and involved and loyal colleague.
Joop van Holsteyn, Ruud Koole, and Galen Irwin
Institute of Political Science, Leiden University