Angela Wigger (born 2 January 1975 in Dierikon, Lucerne) is a political economist at the Political Science Department at the Radboud University in the Netherlands.
Her current research focuses on analyzing the global economic crisis, crisis responses and political challenges to these responses. The EU's "competitiveness" fetish, the issue of debt and over-indebtedness within finance-led accumulation structures, and how the crisis is (de-)politicised in the EU constitutes a focal point.
Angela Wigger has conducted extensive research on capitalist restructuring of postwar Europe, industrial relations and the neoliberalisation of EU competition regulation, and financialisation processes. She is the co-author of The Politics of European Competition Regulation. A Critical Political Economy Perspective, with H. Buch-Hansen [1], and she has published amongst others in journals such as New Political Economy, Review of International Political Economy, the Journal of Common Market Studies, New Political Sciences, Capital & Class, Journal of European Integration, Comparative European Politics, Economy & Society and the Journal of International Relations and Development (forthcoming).
She has worked at the Political Science Department at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 2003-2007, where she obtained her PhD. Her dissertation was titled 'Competition for Competitiveness. The Politics of Transformation of the EU Competition Regime' – with Prof. dr. Henk Overbeek and Prof. dr. Andreas Nölke as supervisors. She received a master's degree (cum laude) from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
She appears in Dutch and international media regularly.
Chair of the Critical Political Economy Research Network (CPERN) @ European Sociological Association (ESA)
Founding member of the Amsterdam Research Centre for International Political Economy (ARCIPE)
Supervisory board member of the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO)
Member of the editorial board of Capital & Class
The Politics of European Competition Regulation. A Critical Political Economy Perspective (2011), with H. Buch-Hansen. New York and London: Routledge/RIPE Series in Global Political Economy.
Selected articles (for a full overview, visit her website)
The Political Economy of EU Competition Rule Export: Unravelling the dynamics of variegated convergence in Serbia and Turkey. Journal of International Relations and Development (forthcoming). With J. Maisenbacher.
Too Big to Control? The politics of mega-mergers and why the EU is not stopping them (2017). Corporate Europe Observatory, Brussels. With H. Buch-Hansen.
Lehman Brothers in the Dutch offshore financial centre: The role of shadow banking in increasing leverage and facilitating debt (2016), with R. Fernandez. Economy and Society 45(3-4): 407-430 [2]
From dissent to resistance. Locating patterns of horizontalist self-management crisis responses in Europe. Comparative European Politics. DOI: 10.1057/s41295-016-0076-4.
Capitalism and Competition Regulation in Europe. (2016) A Synopsis, with H. Buch-Hansen. E-International Relations.
Anarchism as emancipatory theory and praxis. Implications for critical research (2016). Capital & Class 40(1): 129-145.
A critical appraisal of what could be an anarchist political economy (2014). Ephemera. Theory and Politics in Organisation 14(4): 737-49.
Explaining (Missing) Regulatory Paradigm Shifts: EU Competition Regulation in Times of Economic Crisis (2014), with H. Buch-Hansen. New Political Economy 19(1): 113-137.
Competition, the global crisis and alternatives to neoliberal capitalism (2013), with H. Buch-Hansen. New Political Science: A Journal of Politics and Culture 35(4): 604-26.
The Political Interface of Financialisation and the Regulation of Mergers and Acquisitions in the EU (2012) Journal of European Integration 34(6): 623-41.
Revisiting 50 Years of Market-Making: The Neoliberal Transformation of EC Competition Policy (2010), with H. Buch-Hansen. Review of International Political Economy 17(1): 20-44.
The Political Role of Transnational Experts in Shaping EU Competition Policy: Towards a Pan-European System of Private Enforcement (2009). Legisprudence 3(2): 251-75.
The Privatisation of EU Business Regulation and the Erosion of Rhenish Capitalism: The Case of Antitrust Enforcement (2007), with A. Nölke. Journal of Common Market Studies 45(1): 487-513.
