Our Mission
Discuss.
Our goal is to foster healthy discussion in order to challenge each-others’ thinking, building robust opinions. It is easy to live in your echo chamber, we hope to break those walls and get students thinking perspectives they had not thought of before.
Debate.
Anyone reading this is probably a student or working within academia. We all know studying can be incredibly eye-opening. But at times academia can be a bit dry. WESP will provide a safe space for respectful debate of opinions.
Inspire.
It can be daunting taking the next step from an idea to material action. We will pursue strategic partnerships so students can have the infrastructure to build out policy solutions themselves. Like a Think Tank, but with a startup mentality!
CURRENT ORGANIZERS
Sara Goodno is the Chair of the Work, Economy, Social Policy Club, and a second-year Public Policy student. Prior to her time at Hertie, she worked in government relations in her homestate of Minnesota, United States, with a focus on patient advocacy and coalition-building. Her WESP focus is social policy, with a particular interest in sustainable and effective care work.
Maria is a second-year MPP student from Porto, Portugal concentrating in Data Analysis and Visualization for Public Policy. She earned a bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Lancaster University in 2023. She is interested in labour economics and social policy.
Domitille is a second-year MPP student from France concentrating in Management and Leadership. Before joining Hertie, she did her undergraduate degree in political science and European studies. She is interested in countries' economic strategies and interactions between governments and firms. She is also the treasurer of WESP.
Julia is a first-year MPP student from Washington, DC, USA. She earned a bachelor's in political science and psychology and is interested in public choice economics (voter behavior).
Merle is a first-year MPP student from Hamburg. She earned a bachelor's degree in International Studies from Leiden University. She is particularly interested in gender and welfare economics.
Simon, a first-year MPP student from Düsseldorf, holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics, where his thesis focused on carbon pricing. While his early professional interests centered on development cooperation and international organizations, his overall focus is now on the critical intersection of Social Policy and the future of democracy.
Isabella is a first-year MPP student from Italy. She studied economics and management in her bachelor's degree. Her main areas of interest in economics are income inequalities, anti-trust and competition policy, gender gap in the labour market, and macro monetary policy.
Nathan is a first-year MIA student from the United States concentrating in Human Rights & Global Governance. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history and English literature from Boston College in 2023. He is interested in labor economics and industrial labor relations, and he blogs about these topics and more at nathanrhind.com.
ALUMNI ORGANIZERS
A Final Thought
The neoliberal paradigm has brought about an era of politics and political economy which has privatised the benefits in our societies, while socialising the risks. After decades of this institutional approach in advanced capitalist economies, we have seen over and over again the inherent weakness of prioritising market-driven economic policy which does not balance the ‘needs’ of the very society it conducts.
It is our goal to reassess the models which have driven labour, economic and social policy. An admittedly large task.
The intersection between these three focus areas shapes much of our every day lives. We work to have good living standards, whether we like it or not economic policy plays a large role in shaping the world we live in and social policy serves as the safety net for those who need it, when they need it. If we can better understand how to manage this intersection, embracing the benefits of capitalism and coordinating for it’s pitfalls we can create better living standards for everybody.
We will not find the silver bullet, because there is none. This club will serve to give a platform to those who play a larger role than us, hopefully amplifying their voice.
Importantly, we will endeavour to encourage discussion and debate to inspire future policymakers.
Want to contribute?