Resisting Administrative Tolerance in the Netherlands: A Rightist Backlash?

Representatives of rightist-conservative political groups have denounced the Dutch policy of administrative tolerance (‘gedoogbeleid’) as a left-libertarian excess. On the basis of a representative survey among the Dutch population (N=1,892) we demonstrate however that such resistance is not typically ‘rightist’ or ‘conservative’. Even though conservatives are more likely to oppose administrative tolerance as a general policy type, this is merely because they associate it with the toleration of illegal activities by marginal individuals. Whereas they do oppose the latter more than political progressives do, the latter are for their part more critical than conservatives about the toleration of illegal activities by official agencies.