Hester Paanakker

it was hard. Thank you for showing me the ins and outs of prison life and the true nature of frontline craftsmanship. Next, I want to thank my supervisors and dear colleagues Leo Huberts and Gjalt de Graaf. For letting me pursue my own direction, for listening to my ideas, for their advice, but also for showing me the beauty of academic life. Leo, thank you for the wonderful trips to conferences in familiar and not so familiar places, for the good company and leadership in all those years, for the fantastic co-teaching, and for the ever sincere interest in how I was doing as a colleague but also as a person. You definitely shaped me as an academic and I am very proud to be a descendant of the “Leo-school.” It has been my honor working with you. Thank you for all you have taught me about networking, multilevel thinking, what not to say to a waiter when you really like their pasta, work as a hobby (although I am not sure if I fully went along on that one) and most of all, for stressing the importance of keeping one’s (academic and non-academic) priorities straight. Gjalt, thank you for always believing in my academic path and for patiently waiting for me to discover it myself, for making commuting from Nijmegen to Amsterdam so much more enjoyable, for inciting my love of public values research, for your humor and self- irony, for the good times with your great family, and for your engagement, concern and support. It is for a reason that you are the person I go to when I get caught up in my own thinking, or when I need a nice cup of tea in the best city of the… I was going to say country, but perhaps we should not be too modest about this…. I will really have to start buying decaf now to make your trips to the Heiweg a more welcoming and rewarding experience. In the wonderful eleven years I worked at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, a large share of which was devoted to my part time PhD research, I could not have done without the support and friendship of a couple of people. In particular, I want to thank Leonie Heres for being such an awesome friend and partner-in-crime (in dancing, running, kids talk, working late nights in dark VU buildings). Thank you for letting me share my joys and sorrow with you. And I want to thank Karin Lasthuizen for her sharp mind and warm hearth. Without you, Karin, I would never have been able to start this PhD research in the first place. Thank you for introducing me to some many good people and good habits, such as how to “woman up” in the professional field, always keeping an eye out for new talent and opportunities, and practicing pragmatic scholarship. You are such a binding factor in where I have come from and what I have accomplished, that I owe you big time. Zeger, Judith, Debby, Anneke, Eelco, Ronald, Jaap, Willem-Jan, to give only a few examples: all of you made my time at the VU worthwhile. 8