Nederland en zijn veteranen 1945-2015: een onderzoek naar de rol van de overheid bij de ontwikkeling van het veteranenbeleid en de uitvoering van de veteranenzorg

Government has a special responsibility for its military. This research is about the care of veterans by government, parliament and society in the period 1945-2015. Therein the central matter is the development of the Dutch veteran policy (1945-2015) and in which way did the government met its responsibilities? To answer the main question, the theory of civil-military relations was used as a theoretical framework. This civil-military relationship concernsthe relationship between society and armed forces as well as the relationship between government and armed forces. Which roles did parliament and society fulfil in the care for veterans? Using six military missions, we researched in what ways the government met their duty of care towards (ex-)military personnel in practice before, during and after a mission.Until 1990 the government had no definition for a ‘veteran’. The military personnel who were deployed in the Dutch East Indies, Korea and the Lebanon as well as smaller missions, did not have veteran status before 1990.When viewing the period 1945-2015, we can conclude that the government did not meet fully its special responsibility to its veterans.Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviou