H. Blommers (Heleen) MA

Heleen Blommers is a historian and works as a researcher for the Center of Parliamentary History in the Netherlands (CPG) at Radboud University.

At the CPG she contributes to the new volume of the series ‘Parlementaire Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1945’, about the period 1982-1994, which corresponds with the three cabinets under Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers. Amongst others, she focuses on environmental policy, emancipation, and education during that period.

In the past years, she conducted research on the War on Poverty, a large-scale domestic anti-poverty program in the United States. For her PhD project ‘Deconstructing the War on Poverty: the rise of a policy failure narrative, 1964-1984’ she analyzed how and why the idea that this program failed came into existence. In this project, she specialized in the dynamics between public debate, politics, and policy.

She is also editor at De Moderne Tijd and member of the board of the Netherlands American Studies Association.

• The Eighties