Balkenende studied History and Law at the Free University Amsterdam obtaining Master of Arts and law degrees and worked as a legal counsel for the academic council of his alma mater before finishing his thesis and graduated as a PhD in governmental studies and worked as a professor of Christian theology at his alma mater from April 1993 until May 2002.

For the election of 2010, Balkenende once again served as lead candidate but suffered a large defeat and announced his retirement and stepped down as Leader on 9 June 2010.

During his premiership, his cabinets were responsible for several major reforms to the education system, immigration laws and reducing the deficit following the financial crisis of 2008.

He is the fourth longest-serving Prime Minister after World War II and his premiership is consistently regarded both by scholars and the public to have been above average.

In 1992, he received his PhD with a thesis on "Governance regulation and social organisations" (Overheidsregelgeving en maatschappelijke organisaties), which was strongly inspired by the Communitarian ideas of Amitai Etzioni.

On 4 July 2002, Queen Beatrix asked Balkenende to form a new government after the general elections following the resignation of Prime Minister Wim Kok.

On 30 June 2006, the Democrats 66, the smallest coalition party, withdrew its support of the government over the way Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk had handled the crisis around the naturalisation of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of the House of Representatives.

Balkenende resigned for the second time as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, announced early elections and presented his third government a week later.

Though his old coalition partners VVD and D66 fared badly in the parliamentary elections of 2006, Balkenende managed to defend the dominant position of his CDA.

[9] Despite serious criticism by former prime ministers from the CDA, Balkenende was the Christian Democratic Appeal lead candidate for the Dutch general election of 2010.

The comment was regarded as sexist and criticised by several people, including Opzij chief-editor Margriet van der Linden and GroenLinks leader Femke Halsema (who stated that "[the prime minister] deserves a knee to the groin" (in Dutch: "een knietje verdient")).

On 4 June 2005, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De Gucht said in the Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws (The Latest News) that "Balkenende is a mix of Harry Potter and a petty rigid bourgeois mentality".

This comparison caused a small diplomatic controversy, and the Belgian ambassador had to apologise to Ben Bot, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs.

[14] Retired deputy prime minister Hans Wiegel commented he preferred Harry Potter to the Manneken Pis.