Nico Wilterdink

Nico Wilterdink (1946) studied sociology at the University of Amsterdam, where he has taught sociology since 1972. In 1986-1987 he was a research fellow at the European University Institute in Fiesole (Florence), Italy. In 1989, Wilterdink was a visiting professor of the Graduate School of Sociology (PdIS) in Amsterdam, and in 1996 he taught at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, USA. Between 1992 and 1998 he held the Norbert Elias chair in the study of long-term social processes at the University of Utrecht. He was pro dean of the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research in 1998-2001. At present Wilterdink is professor in cultural sociology at the University of Amsterdam.

Wilterdink has written articles in Dutch and English on such subjects as ideology and the ecological movement, the relation between biology and sociology, social stratification and class relations, civilizing processes, nationalism and national identities, globalization trends, evolutionary theory, and postmodernism.

He did research on the development of property relations and wealth distribution in The Netherlands and published Vermogensverhoudingen in Nederland: ontwikkelingen sinds de negentiende eeuw (Property Relations and Wealth Distribution in The Netherlands: Developments since the Nineteenth Century, (1984). He co-edited and contributed to The Ends of Globalization (Lanham, 2000) and the sociological textbook Samenlevingen (Societies, 1985; 5th revised edition 2003). He is an editor of the Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift (Amsterdam Sociological Journal). At present Wilterdink is engaged in research on long-term trends in socio-economic inequality, language policy, and discourses on the welfare state.