1.	Pillarization

2.	Theories of pillarization

3.	Emancipation theory

4.

Bax

"Pillarization
Pillarization has been an important part of Dutch politics and society throughout the 20th century. Despite its decline, it still has major influence on how politics in the Netherlands is made and how public and private life are organised. Pillars represent/ed certain groups in the society, determine/d how the groups act and organise themselves “from cradle to grave” . Not every group has managed to form a complete pillar structure and this has caused major discussion about the number of pillars.
Lijphart has reached a conclusion that there are four pillars: Catholics, Calvinists, Socialist, and Liberals. He has based his statement on the division of the Dutch society by two cleavages – religious and social. While dividing the society into three parts (the first two above mentioned plus the secular group) according to the religious criteria, he stresses the importance of the social dimension in the secular bloc and splits it into the latter two.
Kruyt on the other hand grants the pillar status only to Catholics and Protestants, stating that the Liberals have never really had a pillar structure, and that the one of the Social Democrats has weakened after the Second World War.
There are many theories of pillarization; the main dividing criteria could be the position of the scientist/speaker. Catholics could argue for three pillars – theirs, the Protestant and the rest, meaning the secular bloc. Protestants might see four to five pillars – two of theirs depending on how orthodox they are, the Catholics and one or two secular pillars depending on their views and possible participation in one of the secular blocs. Liberals and Socialists could most probably agree on four – the two religious ones (not seeing much difference in the diversity of Protestant approach) and their two based on their antagonism.
After reading Andeweg and Irwin´s extract and considering myself being on the liberal side of the spectrum, I would support existence of the three following pillars: Catholics, Protestants and Socialists. The division of the protestant field seems rather unnecessary (from my point of view) considering all they have in common . This opinion could also be supported by Lijphart´s table , showing that the two protestant parties represent more or less the same socioeconomic groups.
On the contrary, as a liberal, I could not see Socialists and Liberals sharing one pillar despite sharing many advantages of a modern state such as schools and healthcare , mainly for the large antagonism of their ideologies. Still, I would grant the Socialist their own pillar, at least in the Kruyt´s line , for being so organised in their ideology and unions. And the Liberals? Andeweg and Irwin consider them being „the exception to the rule of pillarization“ and I would agree. It is not in the liberal nature and ideology to be organised and as it was already said in the class, not everything has to be explained by pillarization. Of course Liberals have their own party, they need someone to represent them, and media to voice their opinion. They leave the areas that necessarily have to be organised to the state and put stress on individual efforts and achievements in other fields."