Reclaiming the Zuiderzee

On 14 June 1918, Dutch Parliament passed the Zuiderzee Act. Several plans had been drafted in the second half of the nineteenth century to close off this shallow North Sea inlet and reclaim land, but a major flood in 1916, the depolarisation of political debate during the First World War and the interruption of international trade in this period contributed to this ground-breaking decision that was carried unanimously. The Zuiderzee plan, which was designed by hydraulic engineer and Minister of Water Management Cornelis Lely, entailed the damming of the Zuiderzee and the reclamation of land in what was to become an enclosed freshwater lake, using polders.Footnote ⁴ The first of these polders – the Wieringermeer, with an area of 20,000 hectares – was drained in 1930; the construction of the Enclosure Dam was completed two years later. The creation of three more polders would follow during and after the Second World War. The entire project was designed to relieve the burden on the Dutch peasantry in two ways: by protecting the soil surrounding the Zuiderzee from salt water flooding and by providing peasant farmers with new agricultural land (a total of 220,000 hectares).

Reclamation was hardly a new phenomenon in the Netherlands and the Dutch had long been renowned for their drainage expertise. After centuries in which private entrepreneurs had been the driving force behind the creation of polders, reclamation works had come to be viewed as a matter of general interest in the course of the nineteenth century. The state became the initiator of major technological and infrastructural public works. One such project was the reclamation of the Haarlemmermeer in 1852.Footnote ⁵ The main difference between these undertakings and the Zuiderzee project concerned the role of the state. In the previous century, state authorities had assumed responsibility for draining the freshwater lake but had then left the development of the new lands to private entrepreneurs and settlers. This time the state would take the lead.

The rise of the interventionist state

In most Western countries state authorities increasingly intervened in the economic and social sphere in order to restore a perceived dissolved order in the post-liberal age by means of state planning. This resulted in the rise of incipient welfare states and state-regulated markets in the inter-war period. The Netherlands, however, lagged somewhat behind in this respect.Footnote ⁶ For several reasons, Dutch governments were unenthusiastic about the principle of state intervention. First of all, the country arrived relatively late among the industrialised nations and the labour movement was underdeveloped by Western European standards and effectively kept out of government by the ruling confessional-liberal coalitions.Footnote ⁷ Secondly, Dutch society was strongly ‘pillarised’, that is vertically divided through the co-existence of large homogeneous ideological blocs of people with a high capacity for self-regulation. This resulted not only in a very stable political climate with a working class firmly integrated in the political and societal structure, but due to the predominance of the confessional subcultures, it also produced a widely shared suspicion of state interventionism.Footnote ⁸

This account of Dutch inter-war politics, however, changes once we move our gaze away from institutions traditionally examined by political historians, such as cabinet and parliament, to other loci of governance. It then becomes clear that the trends developing elsewhere in Europe – an aversion to market forces, a distrust of parliamentary democracy and a favouring of state regulation – could be observed in the Netherlands as well. From the end of the nineteenth century, local authorities introduced municipal services regulating public utilities, transport and housing in order to improve social conditions.Footnote ⁹ The First World War presented a breakthrough at the central level, as wartime scarcities, international trade and social unrest demanded an extended state apparatus aimed at direct or co-regulated interference in socio-economic affairs.Footnote ¹⁰ The 1920s witnessed a return to pre-war policies. The reorganisation of government finances led to the abolition of ‘crisis’ funds, sharply decreased expenditure on social issues and restored confidence in the economy.Footnote ¹¹ In the 1930s, the economic crisis produced a second wave of government intervention, resulting in a substantial increase of state regulation in the agricultural sector, protectionist measures within the industrial sector and the introduction of a public works programme.Footnote ¹² These, according to economic historian Jan Luiten van Zanden, formed nothing less than ‘a radical break with the long tradition of non-intervention in the economy’.Footnote ¹³

The reclamation of the Wieringermeer confirms the ground-breaking change that had occurred already before the Second World War, but it also reveals the enduring attraction of state interventionism throughout the entire inter-war period – and not just in times of war and crisis. The reclamation scheme presented state authorities with ‘virgin lands’, a testing field in the most literal sense, on which unprecedented levels of state encroachment could be introduced and, it was widely believed, a rationally ordered society created. In the political debates about how and by whom this ambitious project was to be implemented, the emergence of a common opinion favouring state interference had already become apparent in the years between the cabinet's decision to reclaim part of the Zuiderzee in 1918 and the actual cultivation of the Wieringermeer in the 1930s.

In 1926 the minister of water management set up a state commission to report on granting reclaimed land. Its suggestions were to be of decisive importance in pointing the way forward towards a new role of the state. The commission was composed of representatives of different interest groups and political parties, and included both supporters and opponents of the reclamation scheme, with the aim of finding out which alternatives were politically feasible and had sufficient social support.Footnote ¹⁴ In the strongly segmented Dutch society of the time, a minimum of consensus and, therefore, a pragmatic approach was needed to effect any political decision.Footnote ¹⁵ Leading the commission was the liberal central bank president Gerard Vissering, who also headed the Zuiderzee Society (Zuiderzeevereeniging), a lobby organisation that had relentlessly sought support for the reclamation project. The report of the Vissering Commission, submitted to the minister in 1930, was pervaded by the belief that the days of laissez-faire were definitively over. The immediate sale of land to the highest bidder upon drainage, as had been common practice a century earlier, was ‘completely at odds with prevailing views regarding the responsibility of the state’. Footnote ¹⁶By continuing this course, the state would lose much of its influence in the new polder, something the commission considered to be a major drawback. The Zuiderzee project was too important to fail and therefore, the state should remain involved. In a transitional stage following the drainage of the Wieringermeer, the state should create the necessary preconditions for an organic agricultural community to emerge, realised by means of an adjustment of property relations and the selection of highly qualified pioneers.

Adjusting property relations

The ‘new’ land provided authorities with an exceptional opportunity to repair some of the ills of the existing order. This conviction is captured in the words of liberal economist Durk van Blom: ‘The reclaimed Zuiderzee will offer the benefit of a blank slate, a truly unique opportunity for testing several remedies, not through the critical ingenuity of specialised commissions, but through the practice of experimentation.’Footnote ¹⁷ The recommendations of the Vissering Commission demonstrate a similar awareness.

One of the most pressing questions was the ownership of the new land. The position of Dutch farmers had long been cause for grave concern.Footnote ¹⁸ After the agricultural crisis of the nineteenth century, overall wages had increased, but so had expenses. Moreover, land shortage was a major problem and the prevailing tenancy system favoured landowners above tenants, as it allowed the former to raise rents to exorbitant rates.Footnote ¹⁹ The interruption of international trade during the war brought home with extra force the importance of a productive agricultural sector. A common opinion emerged that pitted the public interest (a thriving peasantry) against that of the entrepreneur/landowner (profit maximisation). The colonisation of the Wieringermeer offered ways to improve this situation. Not only would the reclamation project relieve the burden on the Dutch peasantry by protecting the soil surrounding the Zuiderzee from salt-water flooding and by providing peasant farmers with new agricultural land, but, in addition, a majority of members in the Vissering Commission recommended the introduction of a long-lease system with variable ground rent, while the state would remain owner of the reclaimed lands. This solution would allow the authorities to reconcile the common good with the interests of new settlers. On the one hand, the arrangement would secure farmers’ rights of use and bind them firmly to the land; on the other hand, Dutch citizens, who in their capacity as taxpayers had produced the money needed to realise the reclamation project, would benefit from an appreciation of land value by way of increased rents. Moreover, leasehold tenure would provide less wealthy farmers and their sons with the opportunity to start their own farms on the new land.Footnote ²⁰

Dissent within the Vissering Commission arose among social democratic, liberal and protestant representatives. To socialists Theo van der Waerden and Bertus Mansholt, the proposal lacked ambition.Footnote ²¹ They envisioned a more radical transformation of the social order and argued that the Wieringermeer offered an excellent opportunity to experiment with new forms of organisation. Van der Waerden, a civil engineer and ardent supporter of ‘socialisation’ and more ‘rational’ forms of production,Footnote ²² had already underlined the significance of the Wieringermeer as an experimental site in 1918. Full of enthusiasm, he had exclaimed:

Both socialists pleaded for the establishment of nationalised farms. State exploitation entailed several advantages, they argued, such as increased efficiency, a reduced economic risk for farmers and the redistribution of profits to the population as a whole. This form of common exploitation in agriculture was regarded as an intermediary stage in ‘the evolution towards a more advanced and better social order’.Footnote ²⁴ The state as landowner, or even as the exploiter of reclaimed lands, was a prospect that proved distasteful to several liberal and protestant delegates. The purpose of internal colonisation, they argued, was not so much to maximise rent revenues and raise production levels in and of themselves, but to create a healthy rural community that would bolster the strength of the nation as a whole. It was only through private property that new settlers would be bound to the land to form a ‘truly robust community of capable, free, and independent farmers’. Any other type of property system lacked incentives to improve the land and agricultural techniques, and would inevitably lead to a ‘conservative and backward’ peasantry.Footnote ²⁵ ‘The Dutchman's innate desire for freedom, the right to dispose of his own land’, commission member H. C. Couwenberg protested, had not been taken into account sufficiently.Footnote ²⁶ Upon reading the report, economist and jurist H. W. C. Bordewijk reacted similarly: ‘Wouldn't it be desirable to first admit to the new land people who have got something to lose and, most probably, manifest a stronger sense of responsibility when it comes to asset management?’Footnote ²⁷

In proposing the introduction of a long-lease system, the Vissering Commission steered a middle course between these two poles and, in doing so, went much further than any of its predecessors.Footnote ²⁸ In addition, the Vissering Commission recommended that the government reserve an area of 5,000 hectares (25% of the land) to experiment with state farming. These far-reaching conclusions must in part be attributed to the commission's perception of the Wieringermeer as ‘empty’ land without historical property relations. In this particular context, reforms did not imply the transformation of an already existing order. As social geographer and secretary of the commission Ter Veen noted elsewhere, carrying out similar reforms on ‘old’ land would have required ‘Russian methods’, by which he was, most likely, referring to the collectivisation of agriculture that was pursued under Stalin at the time of his writing. The situation on ‘new’ land could easily be reconciled with modern views regarding state interference.Footnote ²⁹

Social planning

In its capacity as landowner, the Dutch state took over part of the economic risk of private farmers. It was therefore considered imperative to attract highly qualified, innovative and strong-willed pioneers who were unlikely to jeopardise this undertaking. It was clear from the start – and no objections were raised in this regard – that the state should facilitate and even plan the construction of a well-balanced polder community. The Vissering Commission stated that the early and careful selection of candidates, in a professional, social, physical and psychological sense, would be key to success. Only in this way would a strong and productive community, imbued with a sense of solidarity and communal spirit, develop.Footnote ³⁰

The paragraphs on social planning clearly bore social geographer Ter Veen's mark. The commission secretary, who at that time worked as a university lecturer in Amsterdam, would be appointed professor of sociology in 1933. In 1925, he had published his dissertation, The Haarlemmermeer as an Area of Settlement, an analysis of the 1852 reclamation project with specific focus on the development of the settler community. The Haarlemmermeer gradually took on a kind of anti-example status in the public debate and this was in large part due to Ter Veen's analysis of this earlier undertaking. The reclamation of the Haarlemmermeer, he had argued, was carried out in a fashion typical of the previous century. As noted above, the state was involved in draining the land, but left it to the colonists to cultivate the muddy wasteland and create the necessary infrastructure and facilities. Using decidedly social Darwinist terminology, Ter Veen explained that the severe struggle for existence in this area had produced a population of high-quality farmers: ‘The high death rate eliminates all but the fittest and the resultant population is vigorous in the extreme.’Footnote ³¹ It was clear that the historical case study of the Haarlemmermeer held lessons for future projects of internal colonisation, such as the Zuiderzee works. A thriving peasant community endowed with good professional, physical and psychological traits remained the desired end, but the earlier trajectory of spontaneous settlement and the accompanying loss of (human) capital were no longer considered acceptable means. The selection process was to be ‘humanised’.Footnote ³² In the nineteenth century order had been born out of chaos; the new era required a more ‘rational’ approach. This time the state was to construct the social order with the help of social scientists, who were to act as ‘social engineers’ by ‘measuring the forces of society and building on the basis of that knowledge’.Footnote ³³

The authorities in charge of reclaimed lands developed an extensive screening procedure, by which they sought to win the most qualified workers and farmers for the new land. The organic community that was to emerge was based on the core unit of the young family, the collaboration of ‘head’ and ‘hand labourers’, and the transcendence of denominational differences. Right from the start the youngest migrants were to attend ‘neutral’ schools instead of the confessional schools common in the Netherlands.Footnote ³⁴ Rural workers were selected on the basis of their skills, health condition (as well as their family's – those with handicapped children were excluded),Footnote ³⁵ age, place of origin and the ‘qualities’ of their wives, such as thrift and tidiness. For farmers, the same criteria were used, alongside educational background, financial resources and ‘personal suitability’.Footnote ³⁶ Through contact with local agricultural organisations and former teachers as well as unexpected inspector visits, aimed at observing whether the beds were made and children dressed properly, the directorate managed to obtain personal information about the reputations of family households and the state of family farms. Ter Veen's pupil Frederik van Heek amplified upon this method in 1938: ‘Pre-eminent eugenists point out that the beneficial qualitative effect of the natural struggle for life can, under certain circumstances, also be obtained through a rational selection of individuals.’Footnote ³⁷

The eugenic movement to which Van Heek explicitly referred remained a marginal phenomenon in the Netherlands. In contrast to other countries, such as Sweden, Norway and Germany, the quality of the population was a subject of discussion, but wholesale eugenic measures proved a bridge too far.Footnote ³⁸ Yet again, the situation on reclaimed lands allowed for more far-reaching policies. Ter Veen himself noted: ‘[The area] has become a unique testing ground, on which, in a way and to an extent never before seen in our country, state authorities are involved in the creation of a new community of colonists and carry out socio-economic experiments that had not seemed possible before.’Footnote ³⁹

Governing the polder

The multitude of tasks that the state took upon itself – cultivating and granting reclaimed land, selecting workers and tenant farmers, building infrastructure, water supplies and an electricity grid as well as creating social facilities, such as schools and medical care – required an efficient administrative body that was able to reconcile various agricultural, financial, hydraulic and social interests, and safeguard the successful completion of the reclamation project. An institution was needed that combined a high degree of expertise, efficiency, flexibility and autonomy. The Vissering Commission recommended the establishment of a semi-independent public body, appointed by the crown and endowed with statutory powers, which would enjoy a great measure of freedom to act as it deemed necessary. A directorate of three experts was to be in charge of the drainage and cultivation of the Wieringermeer, and would be directly accountable to the cabinet. In this way, ‘harmful political interference’ by parliament could be avoided.Footnote ⁴⁰ The basis for this type of institution had been laid in 1922, with an extra article (no. 194) added to the Dutch constitution, initiated by the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. Now the Vissering Commission deemed the time right to experiment with this opportunity.Footnote ⁴¹

The recommendations of the advisory commission pointed the way forward for further government action. It would, however, take until January 1938 for the semi-independent body called ‘De Wieringermeer’ to come into existence. In the meantime, a triumvirate of agricultural engineers, Sikke Smeding, Ferdinand Pieter Mesu and Alphonse Roebroek, was commissioned by the minister of water management to start the work. In April 1930, he appointed a provisional directorate, which would, a month later, be installed as the Department for Cultivating the Reclaimed Lands in the Wieringermeer. A situation arose in which this triad of experts enjoyed a virtually free hand in cultivating the lands, preparing for the settlement of colonists and selecting land workers and farmers. In their view, there had been enough fussing and dawdling; the time for action had come and they acted accordingly. Smeding in particular would become a figure of authority, who refused to accept outside interference from anyone other than the minister and, even in this case, it was sometimes unclear who was subordinated to whom.Footnote ⁴² When parliament finally passed the bill to establish a semi-independent public body in 1937, it formalised a situation which had already existed for several years and would continue to exist until 1941. The Wieringermeer had become a miniature technocracy, in which experts ran the show and institutions of political representation were glaringly absent.

Why did decision-makers refuse to entrust these carefully selected colonists with a political say in their local affairs? One of the rationales for such an unusual administrative practice lay in the exceptionality of the situation, which asked for efficiency and expertise. The state preferred to play it safe and leave the implementation of this prestigious project to people with special expertise, even if this meant temporarily excluding new inhabitants from the political process. These undemocratic practices were legitimised with reference to their temporary nature: in a transitional stage, specialists would create the preconditions for a flourishing peasant community. The context of the economic crisis reinforced the notion that this costly project was under no circumstances to be put in jeopardy. It was first and foremost the engineers in charge of hydraulic, agricultural and administrative tasks who were proponents of this form of expert-led governance. The ‘public interest’ and ‘business-like element’ should prevail in the administration; ‘political influence’ should be barred from entering the polder. They stressed the financial interests of the state and warned against the negative consequences of ‘small-village politics’.Footnote ⁴³ Confronted with criticism directed at the unrepresentative nature of the governance and the lack of transparency, the head of the polder administration Smeding dismissed them as moralising (Prinzipienreiterei). To meet some of the complaints, the provisional directorate appointed a local commission, ensuring, however, that meetings were held behind closed doors. Smeding and his associates assumed the rural population was unable to separate fact from rumour and would be easily roused to irrational criticism.Footnote ⁴⁴ Ultimately, this commission proved powerless and was disbanded in 1934. It was clear that the experts working within the directorate and later the ‘De Wieringermeer’ administrative body felt no need to increase local political participation. One of its appointees even confessed to preferring not having a municipal council at all, because work was running so smoothly.Footnote ⁴⁵ Another one would later write in his book on the Wieringermeer: ‘One can ask oneself the question whether it is really that bad that some two to three thousand people – among them very young ones – are temporarily prevented from participating in governance, if it means that this work can be realised in a flawless manner.’Footnote ⁴⁶

The idea that the situation on reclaimed lands diverged fundamentally from that existing on the ‘old’ land and therefore required exceptional measures, was shared among a wider range of people and institutions. Yet, whereas the experts in charge mainly legitimised technocratic rule by reference to the technicality and complexity of their tasks and wanted to keep participation to a minimum as long as these tasks had not yet been completed, a second rationale underlying the temporary deprivation of political rights was community building. Individual farmers and their families had been selected from different subcultures and parts of the country, but they did not as yet form a coherent community, the emergence of which was regarded a precondition for introducing representative democracy at the local level. The fusing together of these individuals into a larger whole needed time and expert guidance. Ter Veen noted approvingly in 1935 that the modern state follows its subjects into their own houses: ‘There is hardly any aspect of community life . . . in which the state does not actively contribute to its organisation.’Footnote ⁴⁷ Liberty and discipline collided, as social planning required the relinquishing of some degree of freedom, but this would eventually lead to a reinforcement of the existing political order, in which the individual took centre stage.

It would take several years before a sufficiently strong ‘spirit of collaboration’ emerged, which would guarantee that local politics served the public interest ‘in the right way’. The commission within the directorate ‘De Wieringermeer’ charged with administrative duties, explained: ‘[The Wieringermeer] is a kind of child in ward that is not yet able to stand on its own two feet.’Footnote ⁴⁸ Until it reached maturity, it was to be ruled in the name of, and not by, the governed.

Planning in practice

The Wieringermeer presented the Dutch authorities with a unique opportunity to experiment with new forms of state interventionism. At the same time, there were limits to the degree of planning deemed acceptable. First of all, the dire economic situation put a brake on some of the far-reaching propositions, because they threatened to jeopardise state revenues. Instead of introducing a long-lease system, it granted farmers the right to use the land for a fixed term. The area designated for state farming was reduced from 5,000 to 1,000 hectares in 1937. One of the main arguments in favour of this decision heard in parliament was the need to employ as many people as possible in times of economic crisis; mechanised state farms would reduce this number substantially.Footnote ⁴⁹ In another respect, the authorities opted to play it safe as well, selecting primarily farmers who had sufficient financial means to support themselves and exploit the farms. Whereas the Vissering Commission had emphasised the opportunity that internal colonisation offered to less wealthy farmers, in practice capital became the decisive factor in the selection procedure.

Social planners were dismayed by this outcome. Even more disappointing to them was the stubborn stance of orthodox protestant parents, who refused to send their children to schools in which different denominations were represented and decided to enrol them in parochial schools in the surrounding municipalities instead. Their behaviour frustrated the directorate, which failed to understand why ‘those who were offered the privilege of building an existence in the beautiful, new polder, now contribute to a mutual estrangement, which can only harm the colonisation effort’. In 1938, however, it decided to comply with the wishes of this segment of the population and approve the construction of two additional confessional schools in the Wieringermeer.Footnote ⁵⁰

A further check on the ambitious scheme of social engineering was conducted during the policy implementation process and was the result of a fairly deliberative political culture. The issue that came under heavy attack from different angles was the prolonged duration of expert rule in the polder. One strand of criticism was not opposed to expert rule per se but centred on its long existence; after all, as soon as life in the polder became more or less normalised, its legitimacy evaporated. The provincial executive of Noord-Holland, for example, had been in favour of applying article 194 of the constitution, but argued in 1939 that inhabitants of the polder should now obtain the right to elect their own governors. Community life was vibrant and based on a strong sense of solidarity and inhabitants longed to exert influence on the local administration – and ‘rightly so’, the institution added. Ter Veen had stated as early as 1935 that a technocratic body had been an appropriate solution for the initial stages of development, but as those days were over, the polder's separate status should be lifted. He spoke of ‘anti-democratic’ and ‘absolutist’ tendencies, warning, ‘The most recent history of civilised nations has taught us what an imperious and interfering tyrant the state can be.’Footnote ⁵¹

A second strand opposed the lack of political representation on the local level from a more fundamental point of view. Most significantly, the Council of State, an eminent body advising government and parliament on legislation, was harsh in its criticism, concluding in 1935 that the bill amounted to an encroachment on ‘the fundamental principle of constitutional law, officially recognised since 1848, which states that the governed exert influence on the election of their governors’. The inhabitants of the Wieringermeer should have a say in their political affairs or else they might feel themselves ‘helots', a term that referred to the slaves living in Sparta in ancient times.Footnote ⁵² Several intellectuals, among them the liberal economist Durk van Blom and social democratic Senate member and jurist Joris in 't Veld, joined in the chorus of criticism, accusing the government of manifesting a lack of trust in the Wieringermeer population.Footnote ⁵³ In parliamentary debate, similar critiques could be heard, with some delegates going as far as to draw parallels with the National Socialist ‘leader-system’ in neighbouring Germany.Footnote ⁵⁴ Critical articles appeared in local and national newspapers, one of which observed that the imposition of a technocratic body upon the population was ‘remarkably similar to the system of the Ausländer’, while another criticised the concentration of power in the hands of one single person, director Smeding.Footnote ⁵⁵ The most significant voice of dissent was that of the Wieringermeer population itself. Representatives from all major political parties charged socialist representative Sicco Mansholt with founding a local committee that demanded political representation. The petition it drew up was signed by 171 out of 1,432 inhabitants and offered to the ministers of water management, the interior and finance.Footnote ⁵⁶ Placed under this amount of public and political pressure, the ministers yielded and ‘for psychological reasons’ agreed to the foundation of a separate municipality in 1941. So did, somewhat reluctantly, the Wieringermeer directorate, in the assured knowledge that by then the second polder (Noordoostpolder) was awaiting them.

Brave New Worlds

The planning fervour would reach new heights in the Noordoostpolder after 1945. To an extent unknown before, engineers, architects, spatial planners and social scientists were involved in the development of this new piece of land. The selection of pioneers was made stricter, settlers continued to be deprived of electoral rights on the local level and were administered by a technocratic body, villages were arranged on the basis of the central place theory of German geographer Walter Christaller and modernist architects, who until then had focused primarily on cities, designed the village of Nagele.

We must trace the origins of this type of planning back to the inter-war period and the earlier reclamation project in particular. This article has shown that whereas state planning remained limited in scope in the Netherlands compared to other Western countries, a shifting of views regarding the responsibilities of the state did occur between the two wars. This is reflected in the report of the Vissering Commission, which recommended the sustained presence of the state as landowner, social planner and administrator, as such reflecting a widespread belief that the state should intervene more directly in order to support the social order and protect the greater good. The circumstances of war and crisis as well as the state of exception existing on reclaimed lands provided state authorities with an experimental space, in which new forms of government intervention could be tested. After 1945, policymakers and experts could build on the experience and knowledge gained from the Wieringermeer project.

The practice of internal colonisation in the Netherlands fits within a broader European trend toward increased government intervention, a preference for technocratic solutions and a preoccupation with the quality of population and communities. This is exemplified par excellence by the widespread practice of internal colonisation. State projects aimed at technological innovation and social renewal tend to be associated with the utopian experiments of totalitarian regimes, but in countries as diverse as Germany, Sweden, the United States, Italy and the Netherlands, governments believed that orderly societies could be created on cultivated lands. Prussian authorities encouraged settlement of farmers in the borderlands of the German Reich in order to protect the contested regions and internal colonisation was intensified after the First World War, continuing into the 1930s until military expansionist goals became the overriding priority of the Nazi regime.Footnote ⁵⁷ Inspired by the German example of Siedlung, representatives of both the left and right in Sweden propagated the colonisation of the northernmost province Norrland as a means to reduce emigration rates by providing young Swedes with small-scale family farms and plots of land.Footnote ⁵⁸ In Italy, Mussolini's regime embarked upon the drainage of the Pontine Marshes in the 1930s, which enabled the regime to place some 2,000 Italian families in new towns and villages.Footnote ⁵⁹ Around the same time, in the United States, Roosevelt's New Deal entailed a rural resettlement programme aimed at the transformation of poor farming families living on exhausted land into communities of self-sufficient homesteaders through their relocation.Footnote ⁶⁰

To each of these regimes, the resettlement schemes were a matter of national prestige and exemplified the values they represented. Model villages and towns (‘Adolf-Hitler-Koog’) and visual material (pictures of a bare-chested Mussolini digging drainage canals, the Dutch maiden encouraging farmers to reclaim land from the sea) testify to the display value of the projects. But the resettlement schemes served more than mere propaganda purposes: the newly created farming communities were to increase agricultural production and act as a counterweight to the alleged degeneration of urban life, a bulwark against political instability and a source of national strength. Reclaimed lands served as a screen on which modern states – democratic and authoritarian alike – could project their conceptions of an ideal society.

The ideal society that Dutch authorities envisaged did not imply a fundamental transformation of societal structures. Rather, they aimed to build a productive agricultural community and strengthen what they perceived to be a founding pillar of the existing order, that is the position of private farmers. The means by which the state sought to do this – dirigiste population policies and an undemocratic form of local government – were fundamentally different from those applied a century earlier and legitimised by referring to the exceptional nature of the situation that had emerged in the Wieringermeer.

The notion of the ‘state’, frequently used throughout this article, does need further specification. The decision to extend state responsibilities left much unclear, not least their extent and the appropriate executive organs to implement the new plans. The broadening of state power was a process of experimentation, which produced a political vacuum that was eagerly filled by experts. The ambitious nature of the project and the state of exception existing on reclaimed lands created an opportunity for technocrats to rise to power. Although they never proposed to abolish democracy as a political system altogether, they did express a distrust of partisan politics and a preference for expert rule. Such expressions were part of a broader international discourse on the advantages of expert rule in inter-war Europe. The ‘gospel’ of technocracy, efficiency and scientific management spread all over the continent at a time in which liberal democracies to varying degrees proved unable to face the challenges of the inter-war period.Footnote ⁶¹ Firstly, expert rule allowed for the recruitment of the most knowledgeable and skilled professionals available, whereas in a democracy the quantity (i.e. majority vote) and not the quality counted. Secondly, parliamentary democracy was heavily criticised for its slow pace of decision-making and the sluggish state bureaucracies that executed policies. Governance by experts would offer a more efficient and ‘business-like’ form of policy-making, it was argued. Lastly, in stark contrast to partisan politicians who seemed to represent the partial interests of their own constituencies, technocrats would put the common interest first. It is these elements that can be discerned in the debates regarding the organisation of the Wieringermeer.

The ‘state’ that allowed engineers to enjoy a virtually free hand in the polder, however, also comprised institutions that placed a check on the social engineering scheme during the policy-implementation process. The importance of a strong civil society, illustrated in this case by the media, intellectuals and organised citizens, should be underlined, but of equal significance were the criticisms expressed by political institutions that were constituent parts of the state, such as parliament and the Council of State. In the process of state planning from the drawing table to the actual level of governance, opportunities were built in to invite and provide feedback. They served as impediments to a radicalisation of social engineering. At the same time, these checks and balances could not prevent the emergence of an undemocratic form of biopolitical governance in inter-war Holland, which revealed a close affinity to social engineering policies of modern states elsewhere in Europe.