Maarten Hajer

Maarten Allard Hajer (born 8 August 1962, Groningen) is a Dutch political scientist and urban and regional planner.

He was a professor of Public Policy at the University of Amsterdam between 1998 and 2015, and Director of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) between October 1, 2008 and October 1, 2015. In September 2014, Hajer was appointed the Chief Curator of IABR–2016–THE NEXT ECONOMY, the 7th edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR). Since October 1, 2015 Hajer is Faculty Professor of Urban Futures at Utrecht University, where he leads the Urban Futures Studio.

Hajer obtained his DPhil in politics from Oxford University. In the early 1990s, he was employed by the University of Leiden as researcher at the Centre for Law and Public Policy. Between 1993 and 1996, he was a member of the scientific staff at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, working with sociologist Ulrich Beck. Following that, he became senior researcher at the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), where he was project coordinator of a report on spatial development politics.

Besides being a scientist, Hajer has held a number of public appointments. As a member of the VROM-raad (the VROM-council of the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment ) he was responsible for the advisory document on climate change as a structural spatial issue De Hype voorbij – klimaatverandering als structureel ruimtelijk vraagstuk (VROM-raad advice 060, 2007). In addition, he was a member of a programme committee on the Dutch Labour Party’s manifesto (led by Willem Witteveen). Furthermore, Hajer was a columnist for the Dutch newspapers Het Parool and Staatscourant, and served as member of the jury for the Spinoza Prize, the Dutch EO Weijers competition for landscape architecture, and for EUROPAN 9, the European award for young architects.

Author

• Authoritative Governance: Policy Making in the Age of Mediatization. Oxford (2011) ISBN 0-19-959567-4
• In search of the New Public Domain, with Arnold Reijndorp. NAi (2002) ISBN 90-5662-201-3
• The Politics of Environmental Discourse. Oxford (1995) ISBN 0-19-829333-X
• Smart about Cities: Visualising the Challenge for 21st Century Urbanism, with Ton Dassen. nai010/pbl publishers (2014), ISBN 978-94-6208-148-2

Editor

• Deliberative Policy Analysis – Understanding Governance in the Network Society, with Henk Wagenaar. Cambridge (2003) ISBN 0-521-53070-9
• Living with Nature, with Frank Fischer. Oxford (1999) ISBN 0-19-829509-X