authoritarianism | The Broomstick Brief

Neither side of the canal

A friend who was at HackIT 2026 in Firenze sent me a photograph of a printed handout. Two pages, a bit creased, a faint smear of something on the second one. It was the material for a workshop called Imagining collectivity under oppression, run on the Friday afternoon in Sala M by two people going by Alecs and webbie. …

A wide-angle illustration of a traditional set of justice scales, cracked and tilting, set in front of a Dutch government building in The Hague under a stormy sky. Tulips are wilting and a torn Dutch flag flaps in the wind.

How democracy, populism, and bureaucracy are unravelling the Dutch legal tradition

In De onvoltooide rechtsstaat (The Unfinished Rule of Law), published on 4 June 2025 to mark his retirement from the Dutch Supreme Court, Ybo Buruma offers a sweeping yet pointed dissection of the Netherlands’ legal journey, and its current disintegration. Part historical reflection, part polemic, the book contends tha…