The Dutch Migration Obsession

How and Why the Dutch Turned Migration into the Most Divisive Issue of Our Times

Abstract

Despite its long history as a migration society, the Netherlands increasingly frames migration as an unprecedented crisis and the central problem of contemporary politics. This article conceptualizes this paradox as a migration obsession: a persistent and emotionally charged fixation on migration that is largely immune to historical knowledge and empirical evidence. Rather than reflecting migration dynamics themselves, this obsession expresses deeper anxieties about globalization, social change, and the perceived erosion of national control. The article identifies several mechanisms driving this obsession: the symbolic role of migration as shorthand for globalization; a shift from consensus-oriented consociational politics to confrontational populism; media logics that privilege dramatization and crisis framing; structural inequalities that marginalize migrant voices; and declining trust in institutions, expertise, and democratic governance. Migration thus functions as a revelatory case, exposing not a crisis of migration but a broader struggle within Dutch society to cope with complexity and political uncertainty.