I am Professor of Global Political Economy and Geopolitics at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where I am employed since 2000.
I studied political science and international relations at the University of Amsterdam, obtaining my Master’s degree with distinction (cum laude) in 1994, and obtained my PhD in the social and political sciences with distinction from the European University Institute in Florence. After my four years in Italy I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, before rerturning to Amsterdam.
My academic research centres around the role of class and elite power within the global and European political economy and within contemporary geopolitics. From this angle my interrelated research areas comprising my past and future research agendas are among others: European socio-economic governance; the governance of liberal world order and its contestants; U.S. foreign policy, globalisation, and the role of transnational corporate elite networks and strategies.
Among my books are Transnational Class Strategy and European Integration (Routledge, 2002); The Transnational Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation (co-editor, Routledge, 2007); Neoliberalism in Crisis? (co-editor, Palgrave, 2012); The State-Capital Nexus in the Global Crisis (co-editor, Routledge, 2013); American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks (with Naná de Graaff, Routledge, 2016), and Trump and the Remaking of American Grand Strategy: The Shift from Open Door Globalism to Economic Nationalism (with Jasa Veselinovic and Nana de Graaff, Palgave).
Next to my academic career I am since 2015 a Member of the Senate of the Dutch Parliament for the Socialist Party – @SPnl. As Senator I am spokesperson for my party for finance: education and science; economic affairs and climate; European affairs: foreign affairs, defence, foreign trade and development aid. I also serve as Chair of the Senate’s Standing Committee for European Affairs.
