History
For historical Cabinets, see List of cabinets of the Netherlands.The first real cabinet was formed in 1848 after a constitution was adopted which limited the power of the King and introduced the principle of ministerial responsibility to parliament. Until 1888 cabinets lacked a real coordinating role, and instead ministers were focused on their own department. After 1888 cabinets became more political.
Of the 28 coalitions since the Second World War, only 3 were without the largest party (all three times PvdA) and the largest number of parties in a coalition was 5 (in 1971 and 1973). After that, the three major Christian-democratic parties merged into CDA, and 2- or 3-party coalitions became standard.
Since 1945 there have been 28 cabinets, which were headed by 15 prime ministers. Willem Drees and Jan Peter Balkenende both chaired the most cabinets (4) and Ruud Lubbers was prime minister the longest (between 1982 and 1994). The third Lubbers cabinet is the longest lasting cabinet since the Second World War (1749 days); only the cabinet led by Theo Heemskerk sat longer (2025 days). The first Balkenende cabinet is the shortest lasting normal cabinet since the Second World War (87 days); only the fourth cabinet of Hendrikus Colijn lasted shorter (10 days).
Read more about this topic: Cabinet Of The Netherlands
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“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is no example in history of a revolutionary movement involving such gigantic masses being so bloodless.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)