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The hard knocks being suffered by the European middle class are leading to shifts in the political landscape of Europe. The causes date back to long before the financial crisis of 2008. It is therefore an illusion to hope that this dip is temporar…

The Broker has launched a new dossier: The European Middle Class under the programme Inclusive Economy Europe.

Europe’s economic progress and political stability after the Second World War would not have been possible without the rise of the European middle class. This dossier shows that further progress and stability is seriously under threat, partly due…

Import competition, offshoring and automation are threatening the middle classes in Europe. New jobs have been created mainly for the lower and the upper segments of the labour market. But not for the middle. And because most of those jobs are in…

Occupational change in itself cannot explain the decline of the European middle class. But it could be a threat to its sociopolitical foundations

The middle class is not a homogeneous group. The segments within it respond differently to economic globalization, with the lower middle class heading towards the poorest. Although social protection schemes can go a long way to compensate for thei…

The international discussion on the middle class is taking place on many levels. The table here contains a number of institutional reports, research papers and other sources that The Broker’s editors have found useful in preparing the Middle Class…

You can read it in the newspapers every day: national economies are not creating enough jobs and fewer quality jobs in the productive sectors. Globalization, automation and financialization of the economy have been identified as the drivers of cur…

It is a political choice to allow the spread of insecure employment conditions, for example by deregulating the relationship between employers and employees. It is also a political choice to reverse this trend, but one that requires a broader unde…

While the long-term benefits of freer trade for the domestic labour market seem indisputable, it is politically contestable over the short- and medium-run.

In an increasingly globalized world which places downward pressure on nominal wages, monetary policy should permit the rewards of productivity growth to be passed on to workers in the form of falling prices. Targeting nominal income growth to equa…

A social contract may offer a sound basis for responsible development. Power relations are crucial.

The central theme of The Broker Day 2014 on 14 April was employment and inequality, and the structural macroeconomic problems underlying them. The main speaker was Minister of Social Affairs and Employment and deputy prime minister Lodewijk Assche…

The activities of labouring classes show that establishing a system that puts their interests before corporate profits is possible.

Welcome to The Broker’s dossier on employment. Global employment trends can be confusing. For example, they show an increase in the numbers of unemployed people while at the same time an increase in the amount of jobs. Population growth alone cann…

In many countries the share of labour in national income has declined over the last three decades. As a result, the low and middle-income groups of people who depend the most on wages for their income are crumbling. Meanwhile, the rich elites who…

Who benefits or loses from globalization is no longer based on the sector in which one works or the skill group one belongs to. Ongoing technological innovations have enabled greater global competition for a number of jobs. The key challenge for i…

After far-reaching cutbacks and a major shift in the mandate in favour of the Netherlands’ economic interests, Dutch development aid seems to be on its last legs. The relief troops have lost their way and are unable to mount a forceful counter-att…

Generally we consider emerging powers to be countries, but other powers are emerging: the world’s megacities.

Africa remains doomed. This is what the Failed States Index 2013 claims. Three-quarters of the continent is portrayed as ‘critical’, and the other quarter as ‘in danger’ or ‘borderline’. 

Mandela was an ethical realist, who rejected confrontation both at home and internationally.

Policies to improve inclusiveness should rethink the model of financial globalization in the same way as industrialization was embedded in national welfare states.

Doing something about the numerous inequalities we face in this world, encompassing so many domains is on everybody’s lips these days. But what is the result? What place will the true addressing of inequalities bring us in the post 2015 era? Actua…

We tend to forget it, but the development cooperation agenda started, more than fifty years ago, with the aim of reducing the income gap between what is now called rich and poor countries. In the 1970s, when too many people started to believe in t…

The MDGs, by emphasizing targets at a global level, have ignored the inequalities that average figures conceal (van der Hoeven, 2010, Vandemoortele, 2011, Melaned, 2012). Attention to inequality should be a basic element of any post-2015 agenda an…

In recent decades, inequality has been increasing worldwide. Although the middle classes are growing, most of the world’s population continues to live close to the poverty lines. ‘Emerging giants’ India and China are witnessing soaring inequality…

The recent government paper on a new Dutch knowledge policy for international cooperation is relevant far beyond this country alone. We agree that the debate it has created is important and should be held in English, if only because a wide constit…

The future of international aid does not look bright. Development aid has always been surrounded by questions and controversy, but in recent years the tone of the debate has hardened. Sweeping changes are needed if efforts to help the world’s poor…

Globalization has blurred the distinction between internal and external affairs. This is equally true for both developing countries and richer countries. Moreover, it could result in a profound reshuffling of administrative power relations within…

Editor Evert-jan Quak comments and reflects on new research, publications, blog posts, conferences and current affairs in the field of inclusive and sustainable economy.

Het AIV-advies over de ‘post-2015’ agenda voor mondiale ontwikkeling zet een andere toon dan eerdere, invloedrijke rapporten van de WRR. Daarmee creëert het een basis voor een interessant debat tussen een aantal verschillende paradigma’s over ontw…

The Broker will publish interesting publications and current affairs in de field of global development.

Globalization has blurred the distinction between internal and external affairs. This is equally true for both developing countries and richer countries. Moreover, it could result in a profound reshuffling of administrative power relations within…

The blog ‘Current Global Affairs’ provides a window for reflection on news events, topical issues and developments. The blog focuses on the wider implications of current affairs, beyond the immediate impact of events as-they-unfold. Would you like…

The foreign policy chapter in the Rutte-Verhagen coalition agreement (Dutch/English) stresses the importance of preserving Dutch interests internationally, while emphasizing the significance of international solidarity in underpinning development…

The current economic crisis is yet another stark reminder of the new policy challenges facing the world. While attention has shifted to the economic crisis, other crises, such as global warming and new communicable diseases, have been temporarily…

This double summer issue of The Broker focuses a great deal on global issues, as usual. To balance this out a bit, though, this editorial will look at the nation state. Its decline has long been predicted, but recently proponents of the nation sta…

Five years after its acceptance by the 2005 World Summit, it is time to consider the contribution that the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has made and could make to the prevention of mass atrocities.

Policy making in an increasingly complex world requires more knowledge and strategic analysis.

A new institutional architecture for global development is sorely needed.

What role can civil society and (international) NGOs play in the rapidly changing global context? 

Our increasingly interdependent world requires development policies that acknowledge the global context and address a new reality where a variety of actors as well as the state play a role. 

The energetic online debate about global development is a starting point for reformulating development policies. In response to the report written by the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), contributors to The Broker’s blog on the repo…

In its report Less Pretension, More Ambition, the WRR recognizes that aid can make only a limited contribution to development. A shift of emphasis is needed towards development and growth, with more focus on global and regional issues.

Less Pretension, More Ambition, a report written by the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), has succeeded in shaking up the aid debate. It has reiterated the urgency of thoroughly rethinking development policies.

On 18 January 2010, the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) presented its report ‘Less pretension, more ambition: development aid that makes a difference’ to the Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, Mr Bert Koenders

Globalisation and the Future of Terrorism: Patterns and Predictions, by Brynjar Lia. Contemporary Security Studies Series, Routledge, 2006, 280 pp.A review by Ahmed H. al-Rahim. 

On 18 January 2025 the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) presented its report long-awaiting report that promotes substantial changes in the organisation of Dutch aid as well as more structural attention for global public goods.

The alternative climate summit for mayors in Copenhagen in December 2009 aims to put cities at the top of the climate change agenda. The summit’s message to heads of state, the media and citizens is that cities and local governments have a crucial…

Humans have transformed the planet beyond recognition, and the institutions and governance mechanisms regulating our relationship with the natural environment cannot cope. New, integrated systems of governance, from local to global levels, are nee…

The Earth system is changing rapidly due to human activity. The scale of human interference with planetary systems is such that our time could be recognized as a new era in planetary history: the ‘anthropocene’.

This blog discusses the new turn in Germany after the latest elections in September 2009.

Editor in Chief Frans Bieckmann will update an editor’s blog reflecting on the thought processes behind production of The Broker and highlighting interesting, useful and unusual information that he comes across day to day

Thomas P.M. Barnett has given well over a thousand presentations worldwide. Barrett is a well known defence expert whose career trajectory has run from Harvard University to the US Naval War College, and from being just another Soviet Union specia…

In June, 450 development researchers met in Geneva at the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) conference entitled ‘Global governance for sustainable development: the need for policy coherence and new partner…

It was the god Zeus who seduced the beautiful girl Europa. He turned into a virile white bull and took her on his back to Crete. In a similar way, some people are trying to seduce Europe into playing a more positive and proactive role in addressin…

‘Global’ and ‘globalization’ carry many meanings. Politicians are increasingly using the terms in public discourse, but often in the neoliberal sense. Understanding how ‘global’ and ‘globalization’ are used helps reveal possibilities for new natio…

One of the hot books in international development circles at the moment is Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, by Paul Collier, formerly of the World Bank and currently director o…

On 20 and 21 April 2007, the Social Sciences and Law faculties of the Free University of Amsterdam hosted an international conference ‘Shaking up citizenship’. This promised to be an interdisciplinary exploration of how globalization affects citiz…