Voor Ons Nederland works to protect Dutch democracy against the growing pull of anti-democratic parties, and one group is consistently overrepresented among their supporters: practically educated young men. This project set out to understand why. The research question guiding it was: why do practically educated young men (aged 16–22) in the Netherlands vote for, or feel drawn to, anti-democratic parties, and how do they differ from those who do not? Following the Double Diamond design process (Design Council, 2005), the project moved through four phases: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. It combined desk research with semi-structured interviews, group settings and observation. In total I spoke with roughly fifty young men, 25 being practically educated, alongside teachers and academic experts on polarisation, political psychology and youth culture.

The Discover phase showed that practically educated young men are not a uniform group, and that public explanations such as “the manosphere” only partly account for what draws a smaller subgroup specifically toward anti-democratic parties. The clearest difference between this subgroup and their peers was not what they privately believed, but the social environment around them: many voiced views in their friend group that did not match their own convictions in one-on-one conversation. In the Define phase, Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner et al., 1987) were used to explain this gap between private belief and expressed behaviour as a matter of group belonging rather than ideology. Mapping the culture of these ‘right-wing’ friend groups produced a framework of five roles: The Radical, The Follower, The With-holder, The Challenger and The Impressionable. One role stood out as the most promising design target: The With-holder, the young man who privately disagrees but stays silent under group pressure. The resulting design challenge was to motivate The With-holder to become The Challenger, so that The Impressionable feels encouraged to adopt non-normative positions too, ultimately reducing support for anti-democratic parties.

In the Develop phase, intervention directions were compared against criteria drawn from all the findings done previously. A public communication campaign was selected as the strongest direction and developed into one concept with four connected parts: Blijf Bij Jezelf, a commercial built around a single, recognisable act of speaking up; Voor Onze Jongens, a dedicated brand positioned as a credible sender rather than a corrective outsider; Met Onze Jongens, a podcast that gives young men a voice of their own; and Care, Connect, Change, a phased campaign strategy that builds trust before asking anything of its audience.

The Deliver phase tested this concept with the target group directly: through interviews and conversations across several schools, an Instagram poll for the podcast concept, and expert review of the campaign strategy. Every response was then judged against the criteria set earlier in the project. The campaign was recognised as authentic and relatable, and its core message was understood and believed by the young men who saw it, though a sharper call to action and a more focused central message stand out as the clearest points for further development. Design alone cannot resolve why young men drift toward anti-democratic parties, but this project shows it can give The With-holder a socially safer way to speak up among his peers. It closes with a concrete implementation plan and recommendations for Voor Ons Nederland to take the concept further. ... Read more