Ronald Kroeze new director of the Centre for Parliamentary History

Ronald Kroeze will be the new director of the Centre for Parliamentary History (CPG). He will succeed Carla van Baalen, who stepped down as director on 1 March. Ronald Kroeze will take office on 1 May. Until that date, Alexander van Kessel will act as acting director.

Carla was director for over 24 years. In 1998, she switched from the University for Humanistics in Utrecht, where she was assistant professor of History, to Radboud University. From 2001, she was also Professor of Parliamentary History at this university.

During Carla's directorship, many CPG publications were created: volumes V through IX in the series Parliamentary History of the Netherlands after 1945 (volume X will appear in June), 23 volumes of the Yearbook of Parliamentary History (the series started in 1999), a number of works in the field of the Dutch cabinet formations, some biographies of prominent Dutch politicians and many other collections, books and articles. Carla was also involved as a supervisor in about ten dissertations.

Carla regularly appeared in the media (radio, TV, newspapers) to comment on current political developments. She also used her expertise as a member of the National Convention, an advisory committee on constitutional reform (2006), as a member of the evaluation committee of the 2012 cabinet formation, as chair of the research team 'King's income' that in 2017 investigated the creation and development of the financial status of the royal house (1972) and as a member of the State Committee on Parliamentary Systems (Remkes Committee). The final report 'Low thresholds, high dikes' was published in December 2018.

Carla's successor Ronald Kroeze (1983) is currently still associate professor of political history and director of the History programme at VU University Amsterdam. He previously worked as a researcher at the University of Amsterdam and as a visiting scholar at the universities of Oxford, Warwick, Avignon and Berlin. Ronald Kroeze received his PhD from the VU in 2013 with the thesis A question of political morality - Political corruption scandals and good governance in the Netherlands, 1848-1940. His expertise lies in the field of modern political history, in particular the history of (anti)corruption, democracy, colonial governance and the influence of (new public) management and neoliberalism on national and European politics.