Netherlands

The Netherlands governs through the polder model — a consensus-based approach born from the literal necessity of cooperative water management. No single party has won a parliamentary majority since 1891, forcing every government to build multi-party coalitions that can take months to negotiate. The 2021-22 formation process took 299 days. This produces slow but stable governance: policies survive government transitions because they were negotiated across party lines. The economy punches far above its population weight (roughly 18 million people) through logistics (Rotterdam is Europe's largest port), agriculture (second-largest food exporter globally despite minimal land area), and corporate headquarters (Shell, Unilever, ASML, Philips). The Netherlands operates as an economic organism optimised for flow: goods, capital, and information move through it rather than being produced within it, making the country a keystone species in European supply chains whose removal would create cascading disruptions.