A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION - POSITIEVE-AKTIE IN THE NETHERLANDS

The Netherlands has established a program for minority employment patterned after affirmative action in the United States. Thus, the Dutch experience allows a comparative perspective on American efforts, one made more instructive by the sharp differences in intergroup relations between the two nations. We report on our Dutch research on affirmative action among urban police involving almost 100 intensive individual interviews in yoked sets of three-the minority officer, her or his White co-workers, and their immediate supervisor. Based on this initial, rough comparison, we tentatively advance that contrasting national racial normative structures make critical differences in the reception of the policy. Such problems as solo role and stigma commonly reported in American research appear muted in our Dutch data. Thus, ironically, the American racist legacy that shapes the problems of affirmative action is the same legacy that requires affirmative-action policies in the first place.