How to depoliticize things and influence people – Merijn Oudenampsen (UvA, Political Science)

Date and time: 22 September, 16.00-17.30

Place: Amsterdam, Bushuis E1.02

Abstract

In this seminar, Merijn Oudenampsen will discuss his new book No Nonsense: A History of the Dutch Neoliberal Turn (Verso Books, 2026). In the sixties and seventies, Dutch politicians built one of Europe’s most generous welfare states. During the stagflation crisis of the 1970s and 1980s however, Dutch politics underwent a neoliberal turn. The Christian Democrat Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers presented himself as ‘a manager in politics’ and the country as an ailing business in need of restructuring. In stark contrast to the Anglophone world however, Lubbers depoliticized his controversial reforms and sold them to the public as ‘no-nonsense’ policies. Internationally, the development and rise of neoliberalism has been a prominent terrain of study for intellectual historians. Scholars have famously mapped the role of think tanks and networks of neoliberal thinkers in a wide range of countries. In this presentation, Merijn Oudenampsen will talk about the particularities of studying ideational change in a more depoliticized (and anti-intellectual) political context, such as the Netherlands.

Biography

Merijn Oudenampsen is a political scientist and sociologist, specialized in the study of political ideas. He presently teaches political science at the University of Amsterdam. Before that, he formed part of the NWO-funded research project Market Makers on Dutch neoliberalism, and worked as a Marie Curie fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His PhD-thesis on the ideas behind the rise of right-wing populism, The Rise of the Dutch New Right (Routledge, 2021) received the 2021 Choice Outstanding Academic Titles Award. He has published in leading journals such as Comparative European Politics, Economy & Society, Perspectives on European Politics, Political Studies, Contemporary European History and the Journal of European Public Policy.