P.W. (Peter-Wim) Zuidhof is Associate Professor in European Political Economy in the European Studies program of the Department of History, European Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam.

Research

My research focuses on the application of economic rationalities and techniques of government in economic and environmental policymaking in the European Union. I am interested in the relationship between economic thought, the economics discipline and their role in making liberal, neoliberal, and post-neoliberal modes of government. My research brings together insights from economics, the social sciences, history, philosophy and science and technology studies to form a unique cultural economic approach that highlights the performative nature of economic knowledge. Recently, I have become especially interested in the question whether in current EU policy one witnesses a move away from neoliberal modes of policy making and if so, what this ‘de-economization’ entails.

My current research projects center on the politics of environmental market making. Environmental markets are markets that are developed and created to address environmental concerns. While environmental market making can be encountered in many shapes and forms, ranging from emissions trading, other offset schemes, green certificates, renewable energy products, clean technologies, biofuels, and certification schemes for green investment or consumption, they all revolve around the application of market rationalities and techniques as a means to reach environmental objectives. What are the main political challenges of using market instruments in the environmental field and do these call for adjustments?

My most recent project, titled ‘The Technopolitics of Environmental Market Making: The Case of the EU’s Hydrogen Strategy’ studies how EU policies aim to create a market for renewable or low-carbon hydrogen in an attempt to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors. It dissects the various aspects of the complex process of environmental market making and reviews the various technopolitical issues and concerns that emerge alongside each of these. Tracing the political contestation that accompanies each step of the EU’s hydrogen strategy, the project affords a analytical perspective on attempts at creating the ‘Hydrogen Economy,’ a policy idea with a long and twisted history. The project also provides valuable lessons on the technopolitical issues that more generally attend many other initiatives of environmental market making.

One of my upcoming publications, examines the role of economics in the history of emissions trading (‘A Study in Economization: The Performative History of Emissions Trading,’ in preparation). Going against a commonly held belief, the paper shows that economics had only a lateral impact on the earliest applications of emissions trading and that practical policy innovations were equally if not more important in the making of this idea. In earlier publications I have addressed the rise of behavioral economics in EU policymaking (‘Behavioralizing Europe: Behavioral Economics Enters EU Policymaking,’ 2019), the rise of market thinking and market discourse at Dutch policy advisory councils (‘Wrestling with the Market: the Many Faces of Neoliberalism at Dutch Policy Advisory Councils, 1998-2005 (in Dutch), 2019), and the uses of economics in EU port policy (‘Port Economics in Search of an Audience: The Public Life of Marginal Social Cost Pricing for Ports’ with Thomas Vanoutrive, 2019).

My paper titled ‘Thinking Like an Economist: The Neoliberal Politics of the Economics Textbook’ received the Helen Potter Award for best article in the Review of Social Economy in 2014.

My areas of specialization are: Political Economy of European Integration, History and Philosophy of Neoliberalism and Post-Neoliberalism, Governmentality, Cultural Economy, History and Methodology of Economics, and Science and Technology Studies.

Departmental Service

From 2014 to 2022, I acted as program director, first for the BA- and MA-programs in European Studies and since 2018 also for the BA- and MA in Religious Studies, and since 2021, the MA program in Latin American Studies. I have managed various curricula, led the introduction of an English language BA in European studies, directed program revisions, and have overseen program reaccreditation procedures. I was a member and chair of numerous committees, working groups, and selection committees within the Faculty of the Humanities. I was also a member of UvA’s Programmacommissie Onderwijskundig Leiderschap (POL).

Previously I have served as a member and vice-chair of the Board of Examiners of the Department of History, Archeology and Area Studies. From 2021, I  was team leader of the Economics section and in 2022 the acting chair for the chair group Modern European History within the Department of European Studies. I have been a member of accreditation committees abroad and served as a member of the selection committee for the Fulbright Committee of the Netherlands.

Teaching

In the past fifteen years, I have been teaching a wide variety of courses on economics and European integration at the MA and BA levels. In the BA. European Studies, I was responsible for the First-Year lectures for Economic and Legal Integration of Europe. In the MA, I teach a specialized course on EU economic policy-making, titled The State of the European Economy. And I am teaching an honors course for the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, titled Material Europe: Networks and the Technopolitics of European Integration.  

Previously, I have taught at a diverse range of institutions, including Amsterdam University College (AUC), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Leiden University, Rotterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam, to the Hogeschool voor Economische Studies (HES).

For a current listing of courses taught, follow the link below:

Short Bio

Zuidhof holds a Phd. from Erasmus University Rotterdam (School of History, Culture and Communication), the Netherlands. His dissertation titled Imagining Markets: The Discursive Politics of Neoliberalism (2012) studies the discourse of economics textbooks and the neoliberal discourse of US and Dutch policy think tanks. Revisiting existing theories on neoliberalism, the thesis shows that neoliberalism is a discursive type of politics that is marked by a variety of market performances that deconstruct existing liberal governmentalities.

Zuidhof received an MA. in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research, New York, USA (2003), and an MSc. in Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands (1997). Zuidhof was awarded a Fulbright Graduate Student Grant (2001-2003) and a Vera List Scholarship from the New School for Social Research (2001-2003).

Earlier, Zuidhof has worked as research associate at Department of Art and Culture Studies at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, doing commissioned research on the economics of the arts and culture for the Getty Foundation, Los Angeles, The Social Committee, DG V, European Union, Brussels, Musuem Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and the City Council of 's-Hertogenbosch.

Zuidhof lives with his wife and three children in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.