Dick Pels

Dick Pels is currently working as a free-lance writer and political commentator in the Netherlands. From 1998-2002, he was Professor of Sociology at Brunel University (West London). Before that, he held various teaching and research appointments at the universities of Amsterdam, Groningen, Harvard, and Cape Town.

Among his books are Het democratisch verschil. Jacques de Kadt en de nieuwe elite (Van Gennep, 1993); Property and Power. A Study in Intellectual Rivalry (Routledge, 1998); The Intellectual as Stranger. Studies in Spokespersonship (Routledge, 2000); Media and the Restyling of Politics. Consumerism, Celebrity, and Cynicism (Sage, 2003, co-edited with John Corner) and Unhastening Science. Autonomy and Reflexivity in the Social Theory of Knowledge (Liverpool University Press, 2003).

His recent book on Pim Fortuyn (De geest van Pim. Het gedachtegoed van een politieke dandy (Anthos, 2003) was widely discussed in the Dutch press.

His most recent book, Een zwak voor Nederland (Anthos, 2005) argues for a ‘weak’ notion of national identity in the face of the pressures of ethnic and religious integration and European unification.

Pels is a co-founder of the left-liberal think tank Waterland in 2004, and an editor of its monthly e-paper Waterstof. His current research and writing focuses on the political problems of media and celebrity culture and the reinvention of the meritocratic ideal for left-wing democracy.