Did you know that Napoleon Bonaparte played a huge role in making the Netherlands a kingdom? Napoleon sent his brother Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to rule over the Netherlands as a puppet state of the French Empire.
But contrary to expectations, Louis took his job seriously, and started fostering a Dutch national sense of identity. He undertook many lasting reforms and became popular with the Dutch. Sadly, he was forced to retire four years into his reign by his brother.
The Kingdom consists of four parts, the Netherlands, Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten. All are constituent countries, and participate on a basic of equality as partners in the Kingdom.
In practice, however, most of the affairs are administered by the Netherlands, compromising 98% of the Kingdom’s land.
Most scholars agree that it is difficult to group the constitutional arrangements of the Kingdom in one of the traditional models. They consider the Kingdom to be a sui generis arrangement.
