pillarization

Pillarization is a social and political process in which a plural society organizes itself into semi-autonomous, parallel social structures, or pillars, corresponding to major ideological or religious communities. In the Netherlands and Belgium, these pillars typically represented Catholic, Protestant, socialist, and liberal segments. Each pillar built and ran its own institutions, including schools, trade unions, employers’ associations, political parties, newspapers, cultural clubs, youth movements, and in some periods hospitals and broadcasting organizations.

The system arose as religious and ideological groups sought to secure influence in public life while maintaining peace in a scheduled, regulated political order. Education and media were often organized along pillar lines, with schools and press serving the values and worldviews of their communities. Public life, welfare provision, and local administration were frequently managed through interlocking pillar networks, enabling cooperation in governance while preserving group identities.

De-pillarization began in the 1960s and accelerated in subsequent decades, driven by secularization, rising individualism, democratization, and social mobility. As boundaries between pillars weakened, many institutions secularized, merged, or fell under broader civic oversight. The era of distinct pillar-specific organizations waned, giving way to more universal or multi-community arrangements.

Today, pillarization is studied as a historical pattern of social organization in the Netherlands, Belgium, and to a lesser extent other countries. It is viewed as both a mechanism that stabilized a divided society by channeling group demands and a factor that reinforced social boundaries and slowed broad-based integration.