Portuguese Salazarism as an example for a Third Way ‘renewal’ in the Netherlands, 1933-1946

'Even though bureaucratic ‘para-fascist’ authoritarianism was far more common in Europe during the interwar years than fascism and communism, many historians often seem to overlook this type of political system as a contender of parliamentary democracy when speaking about the crisis of liberal democracy. For example, in the 1930s and during the first year after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, the basic principles of Salazar’s authoritarian corporatism in Portugal were widely discussed and cheered in the Netherlands. By analyzing Dutch articles, brochures, and books from the 1930s and 1940s about the Portuguese Estado Novo, this chapter examines the practices of exchange and adaptation of an idea. In this chapter, I shall stress the importance of images of Salazar and Portugal in the Netherlands and Dutch national self-images rather than transnational exchange across borders as a condition for the popularity of Portuguese corporatist ideology in the Netherlands. A second explanation for the sudden outburst of enthusiasm in the Netherlands is the window of opportunity that many advocates of a political ‘renewal’ saw after the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940 for the creation of a corporatist society in the Netherlands.'